Palacios and Magnolia Beach

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March 7 Palacios, Port Lavaca, Magnolia Beach, Indianola...Wednesday I looked around Port Lavaca and found the MacDonalds , SuperWalmart and Sams on Hwy 35 East of the Hwy 87/ Hwy 35 intersection, also several other stores. The actual town of Port Lavaca doesn’t really have much to look at and if I need anything it will be on the Hwy 35 “bypass”. I drove over to Palacios to check out the City by the sea museum. It wasn’t a bad museum and a lot of work had obviously been put into it but I can’t say it is worth a 46 mile roundtrip detour. There is supposed to be a half scale replica of La Salle’s shipwrecked ship “La Belle”, at Palacios but I forgot to ask about it at the museum and they didn’t mention it. They said the actual “La Belle” had been recovered and was at A&M being restored and would be displayed at the Bob Bullock Museum in Austin in 2013. I went over to the harbor and took some pictures of the shrimp boats. Palacios is supposed to be the Shimping capital of Texas. There was a black flag flying over the harbor. I guess the unremitting high winds today made it unsafe to sail if that is what the black flag means ? Downtown I saw a mural on a wall depicting a Spanish shipwreck. Palacios derived its name from shipwrecked sailors swimming to shore who said they saw three palaces on the shore. …??!...….After coming back to Port Lavaca I looked around a bit and then drove out to the Indianola Marina. The girl at the place acted like I was an unwelcome interruption as a customer that disrupted her taking inventory of the candy or something. I looked around a bit and asked if they had any menu’s and she showed me where they were, again like I was bothering her. I asked if the kitchen was closed and she said she would cook me up something if I wanted and I could eat it on the back deck. The seafood dinner was $16 plus drink !? I considered that when cooking seafood and trying to take inventory as well as dealing with perhaps other nuisance customers who might come in my seafood dinner would probably be either over cooked or under cooked so I just told her I would pass on it and left, thinking I was sorry to have bothered her...On the way back I checked out the Lasalle monument and monument for the former port city of Indianola. While Lasalle’s explorations of Texas were disastrous, his explorations of the Mississippi River which he had done previously gave France a claim to Louisiana which eventually led to the Louisiana Purchase by the US……The US bought it at a bargain price from the French, which is just as well for the French as the US would have just picked a war with them over it and taken it from them as the US did with Mexico later on for the Southwestern US and California. As it was he might perhaps have done better having a better navigator as he was trying to find the mouth of the Mississippi River again and instead ended up in Matagorda Bay on the southwest coast of Texas….. I checked out the monument depicting the site of the former seaport of Indianola, once the largest seaport on the Texas Gulf Coast, ¾ destroyed by a hurricane in 1885, rebuilt, then totally destroyed by a hurricane in 1886. Then abandoned…..I guess no sense in being ignorant about it…I drove back to my spot on Magnolia Beach and just fixed up some tuna which I had with fritoes and 100% whole wheat bread and milk, followed by some Greek Yogurt flavored with honey….I overnighted at the Magnolia Beach on Matagorda Bay in the same place I spent last night and today (Thursday).....Not very well maintained restrooms at the beach, it is is pretty much for self contained RV’s only. I suppose a tenter could set up but they would have to be those who prefer primitive camping. Those who want more would probably do better to go to the beach in Port Aransas. The plus of camping here is it is very quiet and somewhat secluded. And quite a nice view. There is a convienence store about a mile away on the road coming in. There is no sandy beach but rather oyster shell and some sand; this is or used to be an oyster fishing bay, making up quite a good hard surface for RV’s and vehicles. I camped about 6 feet from the waters of Matagorda Bay and other that the quiet lapping of the waves there was no noise. One of my neighbors about 40 yards away started their generator for a couple of hours from about 8 to 10 but then turned it off. I woke up the next morning to a nice view across the bay…very nice… Tomorrow I will head down Hwy 35 to Rockport and visit the Museum of Maritime History. Then look around a bit and then proceed southward towards Corpus Christi either on Hwy 35 or via the ferry at Aransas Pass and Mustang Island, I haven’t decided which yet.

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Photos

Mural at Palacios
Mural depicting shipwrecked sailers seeing Palaces on the shore at the furture Palacios

Marker for Indianola
Site of the port of Indianola , destroyed by a hurricane in 1886

The restrooms at magnolia
In need of repair...bring your own paper.