We’re in Port Aransas, Texas, for our fix-up/clean-up week.  We have a small 1-bedroom condo, plus an efficiency next door to serve as a second bedroom when needed.   The 1 BR is our retreat in the coldest of winter months, and we put both units into a rental pool for the time we’re not here.  Summer is “high season” here at Port Aransas, and so it is rented virtually all summer.  Helps with taxes and insurance, but it’s always a surprise as to what we’ll find when summer’s over.  So we come down here for a week in the fall to assess the wear and tear, and freshen things up.  That way, when we come later, it still looks nice.  We look out to the southeast, so we don’t actually see the sunrise, but I love the look of the sun and shadows in the dunes.  It’s 63 degrees this morning, with only some thin clouds that will quickly burn off.

Nothing major this year.  The TV remotes were still here (a first), and the usual scrapes and dings from luggage coming in and going back out.  And Housekeeping did a better job this year (hurrah!).  Last year I scrubbed for two days to get a layer of dirt off all the hard floors.  This year was so much better — a pleasant surprise.  Yesterday I did the necessary touch-up painting in the 1 BR while DH did other Mr. Fix-It jobs.  Today is a trip to Corpus Christi to get some needed supplies and maybe a stop at Krispy Kreme?  They sell T-shirts that say Korpus Krispy.  We don’t buy the little air- and fat-filled pastries at home, but here it seems almost necessary.  They freeze very well, so we buy a dozen and bag them up, two by two, and into the freezer.  Probably something you didn’t need to know.

Friday we switch over to staying in the little efficiency.  It’s really just like a hotel room.  It needs a total paint job, new microwave (part of the Corpus trip today), and some other touches that we won’t worry about this trip.  If we can get the painting done, that will be huge.  Okay, that’s the beach part.  Now on to the socks…

I am a pretty fair knitter, but haven’t tackled anything harder than a dishcloth or a baby bonnet for ages.  I have been wanting to knit socks.  Where do these urges come from?  You can buy socks, just like you can buy dishcloths.  But no, I want to knit socks for my own Size 8W clodhoppers.  I have many friends at home who know how to knit socks.  So what do I do?  I start knitting socks on the plane traveling away from those friends.  I have two books to assist me, and have 3″ done, starting from the top, using two circular needles.  I’m already sweating coming to the heel flap.  I think this self-striping yarn is just amazing. It’s so much fun to knit up.  So, Friends in Blogland, please check back from day to day to see if I’m stuck — especially if you know how to knit socks!  I try to understand everything on paper before trying it with needles, and the heel flap isn’t clear to me.  Usually, though, when that happens, I can work it through when I get that far.  I tend to over-think sometimes.

For fun, I’m going to try and get a trip to Paradise Pond in today.  It’s my favorite bird-watching spot, and it’s only about 1 1/2 miles or so across the island. 

I will find a couple of links to insert into this post in case you’re ever interested in visiting Port Aransas, you can check things out.  We love Port A.  It has a rustic charm, things aren’t very fancy, some very good Mexican and seafood restaurants, plus a good barbecue place, burgers, etc.  Then there’s the Island Cafe.  I will have to post after we’ve eaten there, because I don’t know how they can function with the low prices they charge.  And the food is very good.

Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce

Interesting Port Aransas Info

Wikipedia on Port Aransas

So there you have it — Socks on the Beach.  G-Rated.

Sue

Okay, we really aren’t that cold in Minnesota (yet), but the nights have definitely turned chilly.  Last night I put an extra quilt on the bed.  Normally I love the coolness of the sheets as I slide into bed, but last night it was just too darned cold!  Ahh, the joys of being a quilter.  Another layer on the bed was no problem. 

This is one of my favorite photos out my kitchen window (where the hummingbird was, a few posts back).  We see all sorts of birds in this crab tree, but not this snowy/icy day late in December 2006.  Which leads me to the real subject of this post.  We don’t stay in Minnesota for the entire winter.  It’s a wonderfully diverse state, with fun, caring people, great art and cultural events.  It just gets too cold.  And now that we don’t have “regular day jobs”, we can do something about it.  We will eventually pack a bag and spend a little time in Texas.

We didn’t ever plan that Texas would be our winter getaway, but our first retired winter we spent some time in Port Aransas on Mustang Island (close to Corpus Christi).  Even though DH and I have been City Folks our entire adult lives, we both started out on farms, nowhere even close to a city.  Small-town farm kids.  And Port Aransas has a homey, small-town feel to it — at least in the winter when there are mostly Northerners in all those condos.  (Spring break is another story.)  I have a sewing machine I leave down there, along with all the other necessary sewing items, but what I really love to do in Texas is bird watch.  Me, a bird watcher?  I was surprised too!  It turns out that the coast of Texas, and particularly the barrier islands, is a major migratory path for all kinds of birds.  Some of my favorite pictures:  (okay, all my pictures are my “favorites”; if they weren’t, they would be deleted by now)

Forster’s Terns.  Aren’t they funny?  But they make such a cute couple. 

I love this guy.  He’s a Cinnamon Teal.  And there’s no question about how he got his name, although he also looks like the rich red-brown of cocoa powder, the expensive kind.

This pair of Northern Shovelers was doing some kind of a dance (probably of the mating variety).  Very graceful looking, don’t you think? 

And of all my favorite pictures, this is one of my favorite-est!  A pair of Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks.  I love their pink legs.  I must have taken 50 pictures of this pair, and they posed and posed for me.  Some day I will do a photo album of just the whistling ducks.

There is a frost advisory out tonight for part of northern Minnesota.  Our forecast low for tonight is 37 degrees, with a high of 59 predicted for tomorrow.  We are definitely in October, and this shift in weather has made me start looking forward to our migration south, just like our feathered friends.  We Midwesterners will be traveling south, mostly in pairs, and we’ll try to not leave a mess along the way like these birds do!

–Sue

(By the way, they don’t call us Snowbirds in Texas; we’re Winter Texans.)