We had a great time at Port Aransas. On the day of our departure, we got up early for one more sunrise walk on the beach.
Then
we were off on another adventure. I hitched up the Brew Hut to the
Nissan Frontier just like I always do. Then I plugged in the trailer
power connection, which governs the trailer’s brakes and lights. No
power. I jiggled the connection. Nothing. That’s when I noticed that
the wires were loose in the plug. Actually, more than loose. Not
connected at all. Crap. What now? It was Sunday morning, and nothing
was open. We called an RV mobile repair service, but no one answered,
and no one called back.
Finally, I went to the rv park office to see if they might have a
replacement plug. They didn’t, but a young man heard me talking about
my problem and offered to rewire the plug for me. I told him that I
would I would pay him for his time. The only problem is that he was
busy with a whole lot of other things going on with his phone. After 30
minutes, he followed me down to our site and did rewire the plug. I
watched him closely and gave him a second pair of hands when needed.
When he got to the end, he swore and told me that he messed up by not
threading the wires through the plug before rewiring the connections.
His phone was going off every 30 seconds, and he said that he would need
to take care of something, but he would be back in no more than ten
minutes to finish the job. An hour went by.
In the end, he never came back, and we needed to vacate the site in
thirty minutes because it was departure day, and the site was reserved.
I was very grateful that he showed me basically how to do the job and
showed me the mistake that he had made, so I was able to get things put
together myself–probably not perfect but everything worked the way it
needed to. We looked around for our helper on the way out, but he had
simply vanished. Julia called him my distracted angel.
So after the late start, we drove to Bravos Bend State Park for our
last camping night together before Julia flies home, arriving during the
late afternoon. This park is a gem: lots of hiking trails,
well-spaced campsites, and abundant wildlife. Camping in a 30 amp site
was $25/night, and the separate daily entrance fee was $10. We had just
enough time to go for a hike, eat dinner, and have a campfire.
We didn’t see any alligators on the first day, but Callie was on the lookout.
On
the next morning, we hiked the Elm Lake loop and the 40 Acre Lake
loop. We saw at least ten alligators. Some were far away, and some
were very close up. A big adult swung close by us and snorted loudly,
sending shivers down our spines. Generally, the trails were wide, which
was a good thing.
At
40 Acre Lake, we climbed the observation tower and saw a huge adult
streaming across the lake. Then an even bigger adult. swam from the
opposite side directly at the first one. The two gators were well over
ten feet long. Just before they encountered one another, the first one
stopped and turned around, while the second gave chase. There was no
fight, but the second one was definitely staking out territory. The
photo below was taken from the top of the tower and shows the first
alligator (center). The second photo shows the two alligators nearly
meeting.
Julia flies home Tuesday, and I start north on Wednesday without any specific itinerary. I’ll update as I can.
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