Some beach!

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This is what it's all about! Yesterday we took the jetty boat over to St. Jo Island for an afternoon of relaxing and shelling. The island is privately owned, unoccupied, undeveloped and offers miles of beach. We had a nice sunny day but the ocean breeze kept the air pretty cool. The boat runs hourly until noon, then every 2 hours until the last boat back to the mainland leaves at 6:00 pm. With lawn chairs, a bottle of wine, snacks, and a good book, the afternoon went by pretty fast!

Earlier in the week we drove in to Corpus Christi to visit the marina area. Very nice. You can walk the entire length on beautiful sidewalks with exhibits and benches. One of the exhibits is a replica of the Nina, one of the ships Christopher Columbus sailed to America in 1492. In 1992 the Spanich government built replicas of the 3 ships and sailed them to America as a gift. The 3 ships are here in Corpus Christi. They are so small! Hard to imagine the courage it would take to leave your homeland and sail off into the unknown in something so fragile. Another exhibit is the Selena memorial. And further down the marina is the USS Lexington. We toured the Lexington when we were here in 2004. Terry really enjoyed that since the ship is similar to the USS Coral Sea, the carrier he served on in the 1960's.


The only other touristy thing we've done lately is visit the King Ranch. The ranch was established in 1853 when Richard King purchased 68,500 acres known as the Santa Gertrudis land grant. The ranch is now 825,000 acres with 60,000 head of cattle and 300 quarter horses. The tour is a 90 minute bus ride which gives you a good look at the countryside, the cattle (both Texas Longhorns and the Santa Gertrudis which was developed at the ranch and was the first breed of cattle developed in the western hemisphere), the main buildings of the ranch, and lots of interesting info. We took a quick ride by the main house (the bus is not allowed to stop there) which is no longer occupied fulltime. Instead it's kept ready, like a 5-star hotel, for any family member. And the house is big enough to be a hotel! Seventeen bedrooms and nineteen bathrooms! After the tour, we went into the local town (appropriately named Kingsville) for lunch, a tour of the King Ranch museum, and the saddle shop. A very interesting day.

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