Matagorda Bay Nature Park - Texas
Our overall planning for this adventure realized a need to stay out of severe cold weather while hopefully having interesting sites to visit. Researching the Texas area and remembering that Cindy’s dad had spent the Winter in his RV on the South Texas coast, I went in search of affordable locations. What we discovered was a very interesting RV Park run by LCRA (Regional Power and Water Co)-
Matagorda Bay Nature Park. Located on the Colorado River where it empties into Matagorda Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, MBNP is well maintained, offers full hookup, level concrete sites, a staffed Nature Center and both sunrise and sunset viewing, the beach and intense bird watching.
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| miles of natural beaches |
MBNP is in a major bird migration area and offers viewing of close to 400 species!
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| over 300 species of birds were counted here just before Christmas! |
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| MBNP take on Santa and his sleigh! |
We arrived after piloting Winnie thru downtown Houston followed by several more hours drive Southeast to the Gulf coast. Very flat, dark soil, cattle ranches (saw some longhorn cattle!), and not much else for miles. MBNP is located 10 minutes from a convenience store and 45 minutes from any larger stores (WalMart, etc). We arrived, checked in, backed in to our river front site and setup the RV for a two week stay. Many books, bird watching, beach combing and relaxing lay ahead while we hoped to escape the ice box conditions most of you back home were suffering through.
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| while not swimming weather, it was nice beach walking weather. CJ got to run free! |
Our second day we signed up for a late afternoon beach walk with the park naturalist. The one hour walk took us along the shore line looking for shells and birds. Like many things, when you start looking at sea shells closely in the presence of an informed person (or at least some info to assist the uninformed, hopefully with pictures) you discover that what you are looking at may be dozens of species of sea life. We gathered some souvenirs and returned to our home. The weather was overcast and in the upper 50’s. Things were starting to change.
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| this Brown Pelican was on the Leeward side for the tall grasses in the sun trying to stay out of the cold??? |
We are avid viewers of the Weather Channel website, and knew for some time that the cooler than normal weather we were experiencing since arriving in Texas, was predicted to get colder (we hoped they were wrong). No such luck, New Years eve the temps started dropping, the wind increased to 18mph and overnight lows dropped into the upper 20’s!! Now we realize back home this was a relative heat wave, but we were 1000 miles South of there and in an RV. Now the RV is insulated, has two heat sources (propane furnace and electric heat pump) but it is not a house by any means, sitting 2 ft off the ground with a huge windshield and several plastic roof vents.
We had picked up some fleece throws at Walmart in Bay City on Saturday for the purpose of insulating the roof vents. Thinking that the light weight of the fleece would do a fairly good job in retaining some heat while at the same time be able to be held in place by temporary means. Here is the end result which seemed to do the job.
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| fleece blankets made great insulation and deadened to wind noise as well |
Before the temps dropped, Cooper and CJ were hankering for some run time and while the temps were still decent, we headed over to the beach where they could open it up for at bit, Cindy could look for more sea shells and I checked out birds and shells. While there, we saw an RV parked directly on the beach (complete with Christmas tree by door)
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| family horseback riding on the beach. RV was there for several days |
The weather did change as you well know to even colder and we spent the next few days in winter clothes, heavy socks and parkas while walking the dogs. At night, all curtains were tightly drawn, extra blankets and the propane furnace engaged when the temps headed to the low 30’s and lower. This lasted for three days and on January 3rd, after a blustery, cold, clear night, the sun has reappeared (not seen for 4 days), the winds have died down and we are to see temps in the mid 40’s and up into the 60’s for the remainder of the stay here.
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| CJ checking the weather during the cold spell |
By Thursday, after several days of overcast skies and much colder than average temps, things improved. I took Jeep for new tires and shocks, and met some very nice people at Presley's in Bay City. Tires and alignment went smoothly, but the rear shock mounting bolts were rusted fast and had to be drilled out. (Glad I took it there instead of attempting to change them myself!) Jeep should be ready now to face what ever we may encounter on the remainder of the trip as well as the next few years back home
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| Jeep with new Cooper AT3 tires and gas filled shocks - ready for what lies ahead |
We were ready to try some local cuisine and had been told the food at the restaurant in town was pretty good so off we went Friday night for some local seafood and a beer. The meal was good and the view outstanding, affording a view of the
Intercoastal Waterway and its' barge traffic
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| barge traffic all day, barges haul 5% of US bulk |
as well as a great sunset!
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| bridge in background takes you out causeway to MBNP |
The Nature Center at the Park offers several tours and we signed up for the Wetlands Kayak Paddle for Saturday morning. A two hour paddle thru the wetlands seeing many of the hundreds of wild birds that are found at Matagorda. Saturday we arrived at the Nature Center and due to the high winds there wasn't enough water to float the kayaks!!!! We accepted the offer to kayak across the Colorado River and go beach combing as a substitute. We paddled over, beached the kayaks and began our treasure quest. We walked for over a mile down the uninhabited beach and returned two hours later with two bags full of various shells.
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| various specie of shell critters! |
Fortunately Beach Security felt we posed no threat!
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| beach security |
We had new neighbors move in a few days ago, Don and Nancy from the Fort Worth area, and through the course of chatting learned of quite a few interesting places that we hope to include in our travels, including great places to eat, Jeep trails and hikes to enjoy.
The next few days were spent walking the beach, routine chores, laundry, budget, etc and now the time has come to once again pack up and move on to our next site for a week or so! We will miss our sunrise and sunset views from our campsite and all that MBNP offers.
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| sunrise on a cold morning |
Stay tuned for another posting in a week or so!
We hope you enjoy
Cooper and CJ
