Sandfest to Beaumont.

Track - Wildwood flower-Joan Baez.

"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." -Native American Proverb.

Day 31.

Woke up and hit the pool straight away as it had been a pretty humid night. It was totally refreshing and set us up for what was to be a scorcher of a day! We then headed to the Port Aransas community park as this also housed a skatepark that pete was keen to check out. On arrival, a little league baseball game was underway which we watched for a bit before pete and dylan got stuck into the skating. A lovely concrete set up with lots of bowls and units. Becs then took one for the team and went shopping and to a launderette with Sol (to try to reverse the pinking of the boys clothing) while Pete and Dylan stayed in the park and swam in the community pool.

After a mid afternoon rendezvous we got back to Sandfest with the number of people now probably exceeding 120 thousand. Amazingly, for only 12 dollars, we got an overnight camping permit which got us in the middle of the action and allowed us to park the rv right on the beach. Perfect ocean views. There was good live music, "we play both kinds of music, country AND western!".....but in fairness,  there was a Katie Tunstall number, and we had a really good dance.

The sand sculptures were pretty impressive and included one of John Lennon, looking a bit fat, and a slightly strange adaptation of little miss muffet called, Little Miss Muffet's Revenge, where she was holding a large knife and the whey was body builders whey-protien. Dylan had us trying to to explain that one for a while.

Another dip for dylan, firstly in all his clothes, then wearing nothing at all. Solomon was just cooing and taking it all in as usual.

Then after some tea, from the convience of the RV, back in the Gulf of Mexico again, swim number 4 for dylan. The usual bedtime commotion followed and then we settled in to watch the thunderstorm.

Day 32.

 4am, after having been lying awake listening to very heavy rain and thunder for hours, we realised all the other campers had gone, and that our lone van was almost floating. We drove 5 mins up the road to higher ground away from the sea and went back to sleep. The next morning was beautiful sunshine again and it would have seemed all a dream if we were not now parked outside someone's house. We reluctantly left Port Aransas sparing a thought for the sand scultures, and caught the drive on ferry to the mainland.

We breaked for lunch at Aransas Wildlife Refuge, a drive around area with the endangered Whooping cranes. We didnt see any whoopers but dylan shouted for us to look whilst we were making sandwiches and there was an armadillo making his way into the scrub outside.

The spotting continued with deer and racoons and we walked to the top of a viewing tower.

Pete held sweatily onto dylans hand.....and was constantly reminded how high they were by dylans running commentry and questionssuch as Are you scared Daddy? A few hours later with the scenary having changed once again, we arrived at Brazos Bend State Park. What a spot. Found our campsite and there was another Armadillo snuffling in the bushes.

There was a lovely park.

Later that evening we drove back down to the the visitor's centre to get wifi and had an incredible drive with frogs, deer, racoons and several armadillos popping into the headlight beams. We sat up with the mossie screen over the doorand listened to the coyotes and bullfrogs. The spanish moss swaying in the light breeze. Totally beautiful and a contender for the top spot so far.

  Day 33.

 Excited about heading off on our trails we were up and out at about 8am. It was an incredible place, totally teaming with wildlife.

We hardly saw another soul in our 3 hour walk along the lakes and through the forest but we had close encounters with an otter, alligators,  a venomous cottonmouth snake, deer, too many birds to remember, turtles, and a small army of squirrels.  This was despite a 4yr old who cant quite whisper yet. Quite specular. We are so happy that places like this exist in the world.

At the end we went to the nature centre and dylan was able tohold a baby alligator and snake. After dumping and showering we sadly moved on and headed east past Houston to Beaumont.