Did you know that the symbiotic relationship between a hermit crab and an anemone protects the crab from being eaten by octopi? And did you know that ghost crabs (the ones that burrow into sand and come out at night) use their elbow to tap on the burrow holes above ground to see if a female is ready for egg fertilization? These are just two things I learned from Ranger Buzz at the Spineless Wonders talk on Padre National Seashore last night. Another item was that contrary to popular believe, urinating on someone with a jellyfish sting does not ease the pain. (Note: FRIENDS TV show is not an accurate source for fact checking!) When we left Surfside, TX we headed south to Corpus Christi and landed on Mustang Island, which is right beside Padre Island National Seashore, a unique place. It lays claim to being the longest remaining stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world, AND preserves one of the largest remaining protected tract of coastal prairie (grasslands). In addition, and probably because of this protection, around 380 bird species - almost 45% of ALL those in North America - have been recorded here. From rare piping plovers and white Pelicans to white tail hawks and Great Blue Herons, the birds are plentiful in all seasons here. The 60 miles of protected beach stretches along the Gulf of Mexico and also protects important rare endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle nesting habitat. Commercial fishing practices, along with the over harvesting of turtle eggs by humans devastated the turtle population in the 1900's. In 1947 over 40,000 nest sites were found on a Mexican beach in one day. By 1985, fewer than 800 nests were found worldwide! But the turtles are increasing in numbers and the park is helping. In addition to educating the public about nesting habits and protecting nests, the park has an incubation program that protects the eggs until hatched and then releases and guards the hatchlings as they frantically move into the Gulf. At just 3 inches long, thousands of these turtles are released annually here. If you're here in the Summer, you might be lucky enough to watch a release. The turtles nest April-July and hundreds to even one thousand people may witness the release events of which there are 20-25 events each Summer (June-Aug). Visitors can call the Hatchling Hotline 361-949-7163 to learn when an event is scheduled once the season has begun. Apparently it takes about 45 minutes for the young turtles to move into the water, and there may be hundreds of hatchlings running the gauntlet. About 60% of all Kemp's Ridley nests found in the US are located on North Padre Island - not to be confused with the popular spring break capital - South Padre Island! We arrived here just after most of the spring break rush, and apparently there was quite a bit of action just north of us in Port Aransas and to our immediate south at Mustang State park. We decided to camp on the beach of Mustang Island just a couple of miles north of the state park. It's free, right on the beach, and on a two mile stretch, we have been 1 of only 3 campers - the others are tenting. There is a 3 day maximum, but I don't know who polices that - maybe some town official during Summer. We leave tomorrow, on our 5th day....shhhhhh! The state park sites are not directly on the beach but very close. And at Padre Island national park you can also drive on hard packed sand for 5 of the 60 miles and camp free (with 4x4 you can drive further south and camp on the beach too). In addition in the national park, there are some $8/night sites with grills, tables, flush toilets and cold water showers and some $5/night sites (pit toilet and picnic table, no water). At the Bird Island Basin campground, you can rent windsurfing equipment and take lessons on the Laguna Madre (one of only 6 hypersaline lagoons in the world), something I would like to have tried but only discovered the last night here. It's been mid 70's and low 80's this week and the water temperature was 71° the other day! We have been exercising daily (Terry biking and me and Rocket running) and swimming in the surf, between laying on the beach and reading. From Nov-Jan when we had the camper parked and were visiting friends, parents and then VT I gained 10 extra pounds and want to lose 17; Terry has weight he wants to lose so we're engaged in our private biggest loser (I'm sure he will win). We've also been beach-combing and looking for sea beans and found a few different ones but still not the heart-shaped ones from Brazil (see my last blog for reference). As in Surfside, the brown pelicans are abundant here. We've counted as few as 70 on slow days and as many as 420! The groups have juveniles with them, evidenced by a pale white underbelly and breast. (The adult birds have grey-brown bodies with yellow heads and white necks.) According to allaboutbirds.org, gulls often steal fish from Pelicans even going so far as sitting on their heads! I haven't seen that, but there's a jetty between our beach and the state park boundary, and I sat there today watching dozens of Pelicans fishing. Every time the Pelicans flew in and began dive bombing, the gulls would arrive alongside. I've enjoyed watching the Pelicans fly over the beach in pairs, and by the dozens swoop up and down jockeying and taking turns as leader. I've also enjoyed watching the great blue herons fishing at the surf's edge, the double breasted cormorants diving for fish, and on the Padre Island coastal prairie, the white tail hawks hunting in the grasslands. Something else abundant on Mustang Island are ghost crabs. Their holes dot the landscape in the sand in varying sizes, and mostly they are active during the night. I learned from Ranger Buzz that they head to the water to gather enough to store in a sack on their underbelly to keep them hydrated during the day, down in their burrows. In the morning, they can often be seen right beside their holes - housekeeping. They dig out the sand that's worked its way in overnight. Omnivorous, they feed on insects, clams, turtle hatchlings, and they scavenge for vegetation and detritus. As much as we love the beach and its wildlife, relaxing and reading books, and having a flat place to exercise, we are ready to shake the sand out of our hair and move on. We plan on working our way to NM which will take a few days...stopping to get an RV oil change near San Antonio. But it's been so nice to work on my tan, swim in the Gulf and have temperatures this warm. Until this year, March was always my least favorite month...in VT and MD it would tease you with nice warm days and then snow would fly. But here in TX, it's provided beautiful weather, and this week in particular we've had both beautiful sunsets and sunrises as the daylight lengthens.
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I was told it takes 7-14 years for them to travel down the Amazon, to tumble through the ocean, waft in with the tides to the Gulf of Mexico and then settle on the beach in front of me. I was told some are shaped like clutch purses and others like hearts. They're brown and hard, and they float because of an air pocket inside. I'd never heard of sea beans before, but a couple who was beachcombing told me they wash up here in Surfside, TX, Port Aransas, the Padre Islands and Corpus Christi, south of here. They're especially hard to find and more likely to arrive after a hurricane or stormy seas. The couple said once found, they drill a hole through the heart, string it on a chain and give necklaces to their grandchildren. So for five days now, I've been looking for hearts in the sand, floating sea beans who've found their way from South America. I googled sea beans and found a few resources with photos, but I haven't found what the couple showed me. But I like to think my finds might contain a sea bean from Brazil or Costa Rica....some place exotic. There's all kinds of things that wash ashore in the Gulf's detritus: flip flops, styrofoam, rope, liquor bottles, jellyfish, and shells. Terry and I have picked up multiple bags of trash. I'm enjoying relaxing at the beach with few cares in the world, but too much time for reflection makes me restless. During the rainy days I've read several books, gone to two movies, watched the Great Blue Herons and Pelicans fish, and I've searched for sandy brown hearts. But I am definitely restless. It seems all my life I've been searching for sea beans...looking for something that's hard to find, something I'm not quite sure what it looks like, something I'm not sure I'd know it when I find it. For most of my adult life, I've been searching for my purpose in life. I've wanted my life to make a difference. I wanted to leave a legacy. But just what would it look like? I thought when I was making films, that because they reached a large audience on television or through the worldwide web, that my purpose might be to affect change through documentaries. Later I hoped that through my actions as a peace activist, protesting, contacting Congress, building alliances with other activists, that my purpose might fill St. Francis of Assisi's petition to God: "Make me an instrument of Your peace." Then one day on a long car trip with my son, Sundance, we had a lengthy philosophical conversation. Frankly I didn't understand much of what Sundance said (he's so much more philosophical and heady than I). But we also talked about activism, the efficacy of protest, the search for life's meaning. And he told me he believed it was much more effective to have one-on-one dialogue with people - that meaningful change could best come about that way. And I knew from experience with volunteer efforts, including fundraising for various organizations, that you are most likely to get a positive result when asking one-on-one. So that made me rethink... perhaps my purpose in life is to have meaningful relationships that are uplifting and positive. That finding common ground, building bridges, protecting God's creation - that these are my purpose. That perhaps my life isn't leading to one grand gesture like the formation of a non-profit to make life better for underprivileged children, or solve the water crisis for drought stricken villages in Africa. That maybe my purpose in life is simply to just be a good person...a Christian who loves, forgives, is kind to others. If so, what will my legacy look like? A hundred years from now, those one-on-one relationships will have faded. My films may still sit on library shelves, waiting for someone to choose them. Of course my deeds will be judged by God and impact my life after death. But it seems there is so much more I can be doing here on Earth. And it feels like if the tide washed in tonight, full of sea beans that tomorrow I'd still be looking for ones of different shapes, textures, colors. That I'll forever be searching for my individual sea bean. I finished a book recently which was appropriate to read on the shore: OTHER MINDS: OCTOPUS, THE SEA, and THE DEEP ORIGINS OF CONSCIOUSNESS by Peter Godfrey-Smith. I learned a lot about cephalopods (did you know octopus have 3 hearts which pump blue green blood using copper instead of iron as the oxygen-carrying molecule?). But perhaps the book's probing of the development of animal consciousness has gotten me too philosophical. Or maybe the quest for a sea bean has pulled me out to sea. As I watch the Pelicans dive bomb the waves in search of fish, the children fly kites, and dogs chase balls on the beach, I take in the scene and try hard to live in the moment... to absorb the beauty of the Earth, to see people being joyful, and to forget the philosophical questions swirling in my head. I think it's time to pick up a novel, like Preston and Child's COLD VENGEANCE. Maybe tomorrow I'll find a sea bean with my purpose written on it and find a new direction off this beach. But my wish for all my readers is that you each find your sea bean, know it when you see it, and share it with those you love. For more about sea beans, check out: http://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/nonpwdpubs/young_naturalist/plants/sea_beans/ or http://www.seabean.com/what.asp
Funny how a rock & roll band from the 70's wrote an anthem to their state that has raised a lot of questions about racism, state pride, segregation, protest; and, decades later the song's title became the state's official slogan. I'm talking about Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." As the song's opening lines say: Big wheels keep on turning Carry me home to see my kin Singing songs about the south-land I miss 'ole' 'bamy once again and I think it's a sin Sweet home Alabama Where the skies are so blue Sweet home Alabama Lord, I'm comin' home to you As the song says we've spent the last week in Alabama visiting family and enjoying the warm weather and those beautiful blue skies! Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about Muscle Shoals, the famed sound studio and musicians here, and they sang about the gove'nor who was segregationist George Wallace at the time. While many people associate Alabama with confederate flags, Crimson Tide, Tuskegee airmen, civil rights struggles in Selma and Montgomery, or the fact that Alabama is the rocket capital of the world, we just came to visit family. But we did learn some things about the state. For example, the state bird is the wild turkey, and famous Alabamians include Willie Mays, Joe Louis, Rosa Parks, Jesse Owens and Helen Keller. Terry's sister Sue has lived here for over 40 years, and from her we learned that Summer in Ozark, AL can be unbearable, even with a swimming pool. We learned there are rattlesnakes here, as she can attest to the one in her front yard a few years back. We even heard a story about a man tossing his small dog (think terrier) into a pond after being warned by locals there were gators, only to discover an opportunist alligator snatched the poor dog from the churning waters! We spent two days visiting with Sue and Joe Hicks and enjoyed that time, the beautiful warm weather, the blossoming flowers, and Sue's marvelous blonde chocolate chip brownies! Ozark's in the southeastern part of the state, a few hours south of Birmingham where we also spent two days visiting their son Kevin and his family. (Technically they live in Vestsvia Hills, quite close to Birmingham). An important fact we learned about Alabama at their house is that Mobile, AL is the origin of the huge Mardi Gras parades New Orleans is known for. Started in 1703, Mobile is home to the oldest Carnival celebration in the US, 15 years before New Orleans was founded! We learned this because Kevin, Ashley and their 2 kids, Tucker and Alice, had spent the weekend going to parades in Mobile, amassing great quantities of beads and items thrown from the floats. I'm estimating that they have more than 50 pounds of beads and other treasures from these parades. (Once when Terry and I were in our 20's we went to New Orleans and fought for beads and coins thrown from Mardi Gras floats....seems like a million years ago)! We enjoyed spending two days visiting and playing with the kids, which included mock parades where they threw beads, stuffed animals and moon pies to us from their floats made of pillows. Their enthusiasm is infectious, but we can't match their energy level.
Two things I need to mention that aren't Alabama specific....Last Saturday we spent in Columbia, SC with our niece Melanie who was celebrating her last week-end there as she has a new job in Austin, TX. We were happy to be part of the celebration with her sister Serena and friends and did enjoy Columbia's night scene. The next day we drove to Atlanta and spent the day and night with my dear high school BFF Patty Bryant & husband Scott - taking a fun hike, eating out and then stuffing our face with Girl Scout cookies while watching the Academy Award ceremony, staying up till the crazy end. These visits with family and friends, round out the last four months where we traveled some but mostly spent time visiting. We are truly blessed to have this opportunity and to have so many wonderful people in our lives. Thank you for entertaining us and sharing our life journey! And now as we turn on some rock and roll and enjoy relaxing after a nine mile hike here in AL....here's one more verse from that iconic Sweet Home Alabama
Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers And they've been known to pick a song or two (yes they do) Lord they get me off so much They pick me up when I'm feeling blue, now how 'bout you? Sweet home Alabama! |
AuthorFormer documentary film producer, wife and mother of one...I'm taking time off to see the US with my husband Terry. Here's where I'll write about our adventures RVing until the money runs out! Archives
August 2021
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