They’re Here – For Now 02/26 – 28/22

Coastal Breeze RV Resort, Rockport, Texas

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. ~ Genesis 40:23 I imagine the man was too concerned about doing things exactly right to bother remembering Joseph and tell Pharaoh about him. But that doesn’t make it right. How often do we get wrapped up in our lives and forget about others? How often do we tell others “I’ll pray”, but then allow it to slip our minds? How often do we vow to be more committed to our relationships (God, parents, spouses, children, friends), but the demands we put on our lives refuse to allow time? God calls us to love, and love puts others ahead of ourselves. Still, everything happens according to God’s sovereignty – even when we stand in the way – and Joseph will be at the right place at the right time despite the cupbearer’s forgetfulness.

The cupbearer and the Pharaoh - Lamp Bible Pictures

NOTE: For days, I believed this to be posted. Then I noticed it still in draft form and for a bit, accused Blaine of never editing and posting it. Turns out, it’s my fault. It was only about a quarter of the way complete! I must’ve gotten interrupted and my brain summarily dismissed it, and I moved on to the next post. Sorry!

The weather kept us in all day Saturday, except to do laundry here in the campground. We bundled up and planned a time between the raindrops, because we had a plan.

Walk up and down the rows of the campground while the clothes washed, walk again while they dried! The clothes take 30 minutes. I set a timer for 25, so we could get back in time. We walked briskly for the entire 25 minutes, and didn’t get done before we had to get back! It’s a large campground. 😊

And because of our wonderful inspiration, we got an hour’s worth of steps in, aka at least two miles!

We holed up the rest of Saturday.

Sunday, we returned to the Baptist Church. Have you ever noticed that not many people play the piano anymore? Lots of people play keyboards, but few actually play pianos, and even fewer play the piano the way it was intended. Sunday morning, we were blessed to hear piano playing! The woman who accompanied the old hymns with joy-filled exuberance, and then a young woman played for the offertory. Such gifts they both possessed! It’s been our great pleasure to worship our Father with joy at this church.

And then, a miracle happened Sunday afternoon!

The sun came out and dried up all the rain! It was still cold and windy, but at least the sun was back!

Monday, with the promise of a warmer day, we drove over to explore Aransas (a-RAN-sass) National Wildlife Refuge. We discovered there wasn’t much in the way of trails – they were all short – but there was also a 16-mile ‘auto-loop’ road. We’re still within the confines of the migrating Whooping Cranes timeline for their stop-over here, so we were hoping to catch a glimpse. They usually have around 500, but many have already left to continue their 2,500 mile migration from Mexico to Canada. And so, they’re here – – for now. We felt privileged to see at least four today. Gigantic birds!

Let’s do some height comparison.
This says a full grown Whooping Crane stands at 5′ (that makes them a few inches shorter than myself).
A Great Blue Heron stands 3-4′ tall.
An ostrich (completely different bird family, I know) stands at 9′.
Having now seen these cranes – even from a distance, I can tell you that they look much larger.
Maybe because they have more girth – similar looking to an ostrich?

It was pretty far away. This is the best a phone can do.

At first, there wasn’t a lot of wildlife to see, but then things picked up a bit.

After driving for a while, we stopped to walk a short trail through what they call “The Big Tree” area. The trees weren’t very big, but what we noticed immediately, was the noise! It was like being an extra in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The Birds”! All kinds of racket, and swooping going on! It was crazy!! At first, we couldn’t see what kind they were, but eventually, we spotted some – it was those silly blackbirds we see all over the place – grackles. Dozens and dozens of them!

Let’s see. What did we hope to see? All of the above!
What did we actually see? A good bit!
Alligators, Whooping Cranes, Wading birds and Waterfowl!

The sound of the birds in here was near deafening.
We had to speak loudly to be heard!
But we couldn’t see any! That was the really weird part!

There were not what we’d call “Big Trees”.
Sure, there were numerous live oaks, but they weren’t big.

A little side trip to the beach of Aransas Bay.

Out there were an egret, an ibis and a vulture.

Did you happen to catch Blaine in the picture?
We’ll get to the boardwalk later. It’s part of the observation tower walk.
Sorry. I’m wrong.
We actually walked to the boardwalk and climbed over the side,
because Blaine determined that it would be an easier walk back to the Jeep from there. : )

At the observation area, we saw a few more wading birds – snowy white egrets, rosy pink spoonbills, country blue herons, brown (juvenile) and white (adult) ibis.

Heading to the top of the observation tower, we were prepared for viewing. : )

They put these plastic spikey things here and there, but to us, they just looked like little branches, so I’m not sure how much they deterred the dirty birds. There was evidence that they didn’t – at least not all the time.

It’s quite a tower set up, let me tell you!
It’s supposed to be handicapped accessible.
Going up would be hard enough to push a wheelchaired person, but going down?
You’d have to ride the brakes the whole way, else you’d crash and burn.

But on our long loop drive, we saw nothing. For sixteen miles. Sigh . . . .

This is pretty much what our drive looked like.

At the end of our drive, we made a stop at a place that I can’t remember the name of and isn’t on the maps I found. It’s a single Live Oak. Now this tree is what we’d call big! : )

And then we stopped to walk the Heron Flats trail. Now that’s the place to see wildlife in this Park. At least today, anyway. There were numerous waders, songbirds, gators, and even a fishing raccoon! At two o’clock in the afternoon!