Rockport, Texas and Vicinity

Weโ€™ve enjoyed our stay here in Rockport/Fulton, TX. The bay is close by and the Rockport Beach Park is lovely. While walking on the Fulton fishing pier we saw pods of dolphin a couple of times. The windswept oaks, water birds, and beautiful homes made driving around fun. There are several walking trails. My favorite is in Memorial Park. The trail is asphalt through the park and is somewhat shady. It loops around a pond and past two large fenced in dog parks; one for big dogs the other for smaller ones.

Shopping for food is limited to Walmart and HEB unless you want fresh seafood; there are several places to purchase that. There are several tourist oriented, colorful, and fun shops in the oldest part of Rockport. There are also art galleries as well as furniture stores.

If you like to eat out there are many restaurants here offering just about anything you could ask for at varying prices. We found every place to be very busy most of the time, mainly because there are a lot of Winter Texans here. Youโ€™ll probably laugh, but my favorite spot here is the Dairy Queen because they serve chocolate soft serve ice cream! We look forward to returning to Rockport/Fulton again.

A march day on the Texas Gulf Coast

Jackie and I drove to Galveston today, just to look around and see what things look like there 6 months after Hurricane Ike.

Galveston, itself, looks pretty good. There is a lot of damage evident, but, mostly, it looks like it is coming together again. We took the ferry over to Port Bolivar and back. It was windy, but in the 70’s.

Then we drove west down to the San Luis pass. This is the area with all the beach front homes up on stilts. Some of them are high dollar homes. There’s reconstruction going on everywhere. Some places have already been torn down and rebuilt. There are many areas under repair, but lots of new paint and roofs.

The farther one gets from Galveston, the more unrepaired damage there is. Once we crossed over the toll bridge at San Luis pass, the road is called the Blue Water Highway. At that point, there are areas where every structure is still damaged, and it looks doubtful that some will ever be fixed.

This area is not as developed as it is nearer Galveston, and there are long stretches where on can drive on the beach. Well, these days, you have no choice. The road is being repaired, but there are areas where it was pretty much washed away. At that point, the sign points to the beach and you drive along on the sand for up to a mile to where the road is usable again.

All in all it made for an interesting day. In all our driving, by the way, we were never more than 40 miles or so from home.