A Family Portrait

Another weekend in paradise has been accomplished and Daughter’s birthday was observed along the way. Yes, she’s all growed up and ready to venture forth to the capitol where she’ll study design at the Art Institute of Austin. Since her Yamaha motorcycle is going with her, Jill and I found her a cool tail bag to put stuff in. A girl needs her stuff, you know. When asked how she’d like to celebrate she opted for a family ride and dinner.

We rode Ocean Drive, which curves around Corpus Christi Bay, down Shoreline Dr past the bay front and marina and over the dilapidated Harbor Bridge to North Beach where we patio dined at our favorite restaurant.

Of course, part of Jill’s agenda was to get some family photos before our little bird flies. You may recall from past posts that the restaurant is adjacent the USS Lexington museum. There is a breakwater that curves past her and ends close to the ship channel. It made for a nice setting for pictures, though I was voted down when it came to how far we should walk.

The sun was getting low and the wind was blowing nicely over the breakwater that is weathered and narrow, in some places, but intrepid shutterbugs get their shots. Here is my gang: Lir, Olwen the Jill, the luckiest woman in Flour Bluff.

The picture was taken at the end of the breakwater with downtown in the background. From the same spot, a little shuffling of feet and rotation puts the Harbor Bridge in the background. The bridge was built in 1959 but is no longer maintained since City Council claims we need a new one. The old lift bridge further up the harbor has already been dismantled, so if the Feds don’t come through with funds we’ll be driving 100 miles to get around 100 yards of water. If there’s not a real estate sale involved, they don’t plan very far ahead; but that’s neither here nor there.

Here’s a pretty nice shot of the breakwater and the Lex. The top of the breakwater is narrow, here, so Jill had to work for it.

On the way home we stopped for a little more mugging before the sun got too low in the sky.

We heard birthday cake calling our names so we saddled up and headed for the barn.



Olwen inspected the cake Jill baked for her, telling me, “Alright! Green and chocolate, my favorite colors!”

“Chocolate is a color?”, I asked.

“It is when you’re a girl!”

A good time was had by us. I like my kids.