Parading Around

Sunday, December 6, Jill, Nurse Jo and I putted on over to Texas A&M, Corpus Christi where the 25th annual "Toys for Tots" parade formed up. The parade is "old home day" and we get the chance to visit with folks, some of whom we haven't seen since the previous December.
The weather was cool and damp, not as good as last year, but a whole lot better than some previous years.

We parked our bikes and commenced to people and scooter watch. We spotted this Suzuki parked near some Winger friends. I like the looks of it but the last time I threw my leg over a sport bike both legs cramped, immediately; I'll stick to just looking.

While I invited my passenger, some folks just went ahead and purchased one (not that there's anything wrong with that).

One thing you can count on in this part of the world is the presence, rain or shine, hot or cold, of the Christian Motorcycle Association. They brought hot coffee and hot chocolate out in this very cool truck, this year.

There was the usual variety of bikes, of course, but I think I may have seen more new Harley-Davidsons, this year, as well as more Gold Wings.

At or about 11:00 am the lead bike moved off and we motored around Corpus Christi Bay.



An old concrete plant turned concert venue is the toy drop-off point, also the point to drink beer (or CMA coffee) and eat barbecued brisket while listening to live music and admiring the graceful strides of fine biker women.

It's good to see the little ones at this kind of event where they are exposed to the very best of the sub-culture. Not till after we got home did I see the way the banner in the background showed up over the lad’s head. It says it all.

The early afternoon wore on and we decided that, while we had liked listening to the band, the auctioneer wasn’t moving us, so we moved ourselves. Consensus was that a ride around the bay would have more therapeutic value than returning home the way we came.

To ride around the bay, one must cross the ferry at Port Aransas. As the ferry left the landing an empty oil tanker, the Overseas Beryl, was making her way up the ship channel, bound for open water.
When a ship is moving her bow forms a wave called, appropriately enough, a bow wave. Dolphins often swim in these bow waves and we spotted several doing just that.



The lettering on her stern indicates she is registered in the Marshall Islands.



The sight of the dolphins in the ship channel inspired us to make a stop at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, in Port Aransas.
During migration season, bird watchers (“birders”) from all over the world come to our area of the state.

This Tri-color Heron moved aside for us to climb the observation tower.



This reserve shelters various coastal and migratory birds, wrens, sparrows and finches as well as nutria and alligator.



Jill is a knowledgeable birder and she and Nurse Jo enjoyed spotting and identifying the birds.



I took a turn at the telescope and spotted a crane. It was way over at one of the construction yards where drilling platforms are built.

Directly, the call of the wild was replaced by the call of coffee and we answered it in a leisurely fashion. It was that kind of day.

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.

Independence Day Fun

Saturday night, July 4 (American Independence Day, for you out-of-towners) found me and Jill playing music with Pete Devlin at the Blue Marlin bar on Corpus Christi's "North Beach". The bar is a block away from the USS Lexington naval museum.

Shortly after dark we broke for an impressive fireworks display, launched from the flight deck of the Lex. The stereo across the street blared Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" to the rockets red glare while bombs burst in the air between us and the moon.
Was it good? My nipples are still hard.

Powered by beta.joggle.com

Memorial Saturday Car Show

Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend was everything a such a day should be. I had made a date with our friend, Jo, to ride out and find pie so I already had the pretty girl and motorcycle angle covered.
Friday night, my compadre called and informed me there was one heck of a custom car and hotrod show going on across town and we should ride over and check it out, come morning. I'm not a car guy, in the sense of being knowledgeable, but I enjoy seeing them restored or customized. To make a short story long, the three of us rode over and had a look.

It was a beautiful morning full of great machines.




My bud was the shutterbug du jour and pressed Jo into car model duty. She put Vanna White in the shade.



There were a good number of T's, of course.


This beauty wanted me to take her home.



The show was also a walk down Memory Lane for me and my bud. A college running mate drove a truck like this one and there were many cars from the fifties and sixties that were popular in our high school days.



This Caddy was beautifully done, but it made the words, "pimp my ride" spring to mind.






The owner of this '40 Ford coupe (with a Corvette engine) is the man I buy my fiddle strings from.
I've told him in the past that he's put my money to good use.







This radical custom '53 Studebaker was very popular.



Doors by Texas Aggies.



What's a hotrod show without classic hotrods?









Jo had somewhere to be so we loaded up the scoot and scooted. Its just as well; if we'd stayed we may have been put to work raising windows and rag tops against the rain that blew in, a little later.

---

Staying Sane on the Coastal Plains

This past weekend proved to be both full and rewarding, at least in my immediate corner of the world.

One of the rewarding aspects was that our trio, Rosewood, was invited to play at our town’s oldest festival, Buccaneer Days.


While there were many entertainers, there, I found it gratifying that we had been heard by one of the officials, who then had an assistant contact us. Most send a tape to the Buc Days Commission and play for exposure. We’ve already exposed ourselves many times so we were plied with pizza, beer and gas money, as well.


We were scheduled to begin when the carnival gates opened, Saturday and of course, we were on time and in tune long before the sound engineer finally arrived.



I took a turn around the music pavilion a snapped a couple of photos while the site was relatively empty.




Naturally, someone’s baby momentarily sidetracked me.



There was the requisite Ferris wheel and fun house.




Disco Fever wasn’t the affliction that was on a lot minds, this weekend, though. I’m told attendance was down, considerable, from previous years, probably due to concern about the possibility of exposure to Swine Flu. The school district canceled participation in the traditional lighted parade by the bands and drill teams, so there may have been an uncharacteristic lack on enthusiasm by the public, as well.

The show must go on. The Buc Days carnival is more than stomach-turning rides and cotton candy and it takes people, many who volunteer their time, to insure its success.
One such people is Sandra, who vended beer at the music tent. At first, she was reluctant to be photographed, but, after I explained that I recorded my adventures for motorcyclists, she consented and mugged and said, “Mike’s the best” for the camera (no “cheese” in my pictures).









I wandered back into the pavilion to tune my instruments and, there, met Cornerstone Band members from the town of Goliad.
Since we don’t have a drummer, they asked if they could go ahead and set up their drum kit and put their amplifiers on the rear of the stage. Since we had more bandstand than we needed, and the sound guy still hadn’t turned up, we agreed.



Darryl was joking around with their drummer, perhaps considering life as a rock musician.


Before start-time, soundman turned up and music began.
The day turned hot and so did the fiddling.

Having fulfilled our contractual obligation, Buc Days Commission did the same, finalizing our dealings

with pizza and beer in the travel trailer set aside for that purpose. Now, that’s my idea of carnival going.




Sunday, I managed a little airtime or, rather, time in the wind.
A close friend and erstwhile pillion immerged from her studies and obligations to shed a welcome, though unexpected, ray of sunshine on Rosewood’s Friday

performance.
She had been hitting the books pretty hard so, as an official Pretend Psychiatrist, I prescribed wind therapy, for Sunday.



We hit some back roads skirting the bays, en route deciding to lunch at Alice Faye’s Restaurant, on Fulton Beach.

We were dogging it, living the high life enjoying the view from the deck even though there were few boats in the marina.



Fresh seafood? You bet. This is one of the boats that help bring the good things of the sea to table.




A slow ride back to Corpus town and a stop to drink soda and admire motorcycles at the “biker bar and grill” and it was time to call this day a day.


The road goes on forever.