We close our office between Christmas and New Year's day, so we have quite a bit of downtime, during which we can try to unwind from a year that affords little time for relaxation. The last two years, we spent most of our break enjoying the hospitality of my brother and his wife, who live in Mexico. As much as we love going down there, we've decided this year to do something different...but we're hoping to go down to Mexico sometime after the first of the year.
We've not yet confirmed our plans, and probably won't until we get in the car to drive off, but we're narrowing it down and, for now, we're leaning heavily toward making a trip along the Texas coast. We like wandering along deserted beaches and spying water birds as they enjoy the relative lack of human company along the salt marshes that sit along long stretches of coastline. We'll probably drive to Aransas Pass to visit the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, where we expect to see whooping cranes, a real treat. The last time we were there, we came across a small alligator on an overgrown roadway. After I got out of the car to take pictures, I walked closer and closer to it to get better shots and learned, when I was about ten feet away from it, that alligators are incredibly swift creatures. Suddenly, it flipped its body around 180 degrees and sped away in a flash. Had it been heading toward me instead of away from me, it could have reached me before I could have turned to run.
The last time we were in South Texas, I got an itch to look into what I could do to buy a small commercial building in Refugio and build a publishing house in that tiny town. I got as far as talking to the Director of Economic Development, who was very happy to be talking to someone considering starting a business that could, ultimately, employ up to four or five people! I vaguely recall that I was also interested in trying to buy, or buy into, the local newspaper, the Refugio County Press. Of course, nothing ever came of it.
If you don't know Refugio, it's a very, very small town that's probably less than an hour's drive from the coastal city of Corpus Christi...about 7,600 people in the county, about 2,900 in the town. Until the late 1960s, it was in a growth mode, but after the oil and gas industries that were supporting its growth began the falter, so did its growth. Today, the growth industry, if there is one, is eco-tourism. Its proximity to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and its place smack in the middle of one of the more popular South Texas birding trails makes it attractive to visitors, but apparently it has never really taken off. Not that I'd want it to, if I were to live there. I'd be happy to have the solitude and desolate beaches to myself.
As I said, this is only being talked about, but I rather expect this will be what we do over the holidays this year. Several times on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, my wife and I have found ourselves with no place to go for dinner...we're in a small town where we know no one and the restaurants are not open...only a few 7-11 stores are open in some of these places! So, on a couple of occasions we've resorted to buying chips or a snack machine burrito that was then heated in a microwave. My wife has told me plainly this year: if we are out and about on Christmas, we're going to be prepared with the ingredients for decent meals in case we can't find a restaurant.
No comments:
Post a Comment