Water Wonderland: Lake Corpus Christi, 5/30/08

Ned here, filling in for Debi today. This was a delightfully leisurely day, a welcome relief after a few days of fairly long, hot drives across New Mexico and Texas. Last night was our first really hot and muggy night for sleeping. This was made more tolerable by the $12 twelve-volt oscillating fan that I had purchased at Kragen before we left for our trip. Unfortunately, the heat was apparently too much for the made-in-China fan because it gave out some time during the night. However, we slept well with just a sheet over us. Debi lounged about our campsite this morning, making good use of our hammock, and a few of the Entertainment Weekly magazines, which Megan had so kindly given her before our departure. Later on, we packed up the Winniemobile and headed down to the Guadalupe River to try out the swimming. Much to our horror, three bus loads of kids were there when we arrived at the river’s edge. We were pleasantly surprised to find that with only a tiny hike upstream we had a huge chunk of the river totally to ourselves. The water was a perfect temperature, and the setting, with huge cypress trees along the bank made for a truly restful and fun river swimming experience. (The above photo of the sea-otter-like Debi describes how much she enjoyed our time there.) After luxuriating at the river for an hour or so, we headed south in search of either Choke Canyon or Lake Corpus Christi State Park. The ranger at Guadalupe lead us to believe that both of those campgrounds might be heavily booked on a Friday night, so we readjusted our expectations for possibly getting bumped from either campground. On our 3 hour drive south we saw beautiful rolling tree-covered land, accompanied by a blue sky dotted with grade-school-art-project-looking clouds. As we drove closer, we decided we should call both the state parks to find out if they were already booked. Choke Canyon never answered their phone, filling our heads with images of their check-in office swarming with a mob of registering campers as the phone rang off the hook. When Debi called Lake Corpus Christi, though, the woman assured her that every type of campsite was available. Arriving at the campground, we were pleased to get our pick of multiple sites. We had stopped at a nearby town, buying supplies for dinner and Debi just had to have two new water toys. Returning to camp, Debi managed to get one of them inflated, and had it around her middle as we drove thru the check-in gate. The serious check-in employee had to crack up as Debi gave her “8 year old thumbs up sign.” Soon we were cooling off in our second body of water for the day. We spent about an hour paddling around in our new “sun&surf” tubes. After dinner we took a 9.5 mile bike ride around the Lake Corpus Christi area and were amazed by the number of sites. Much to our surprise, less than a quarter were filled! The Gulf awaits tomorrow.