Goose Island State Park

We arrived at Goose Island State Park on January 12. As I said in my previous post, this is the second time we have been at this SP. We liked it so much last year, and it was right on our path, so we decided to spend some time at Goose Island.

My plan had been to just go directly south out of DFW and hit a few parks in south central Texas. I am so glad we changed plans and went further south and west. The weather man today talked about a cold front that was bringing very cold weather to the center part of the country. The good news for us is it will stay just north of us and we will stay in the 60's and 70's all week.

We were here last year in mid February. The fishing was good and we met a number of other folks while we were here. This year has been much different. The fishing has been terrible. Nobody on t he pier has been catching anything. I have not even fished the last few days.

I have been getting out each day for some exercise. I usually take a 3 mile walk in the morning. There are nice views around the park including the pier, which is over a quarter of a mile long.

There is a boat ramp in the middle of the park. A number of air boats run charters out of here. They do some fishing and duck hunting in the land around the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. 

They are kind of loud when they come in or go out, but they are gone pretty quickly.

There is a nature walk out through the live oaks. I really like the beautiful old trees.

It is cool to see the palm trees and the other indications that we are on the gulf coast.

The park is full of wildlife viewing areas. You can make a walk out of just going from one to the other. You can also see many wading birds including Herons, Egrets, Brown and White Pelicans and Roseate Spoonbills in just about any pond along the shore. No great pictures, but here is the best I could get. Say hello to Mr. Pelican:

A Roseate Spoonbill:

A Great Egret in flight:

Here is one more bird shot that I have not been able to identify yet. I love the orange beak and eyes.

I will end this entry here. I have much more to write about from here at Goose Island SP, but I will save that for my next post. I will tell you that Kim and I went on what we will call the great paddling adventure. We got a little nervous, but it all worked out fine in the end. I will tell the full story next time. For now, I will end with one of our awesome sunsets at the beautiful place.