A Few Minutes in Rockport

Through 1968 and most of 1969 I was stationed at NAS Kingsville, 35 to 40 mi southwest of Corpus Christi. While most of my buddies made the best of the situation and became thoroughly familiar with the Texas Gulf Coast, I was only 200 mi from my family in Austin. Whenever I had the opportunity, I'd set out hitchhiking home. When I bought my first car, a '64 LeMans convertible, I started picking up some lessons in economics. . . that is to say, paying for the car, gas, insurance, etc. cost a lot more than hitchhiking. I couldn't afford to drive home regularly, and I refused to hitchhike anymore (I owned a car). So I stuck close to Kingsville and made occasional forays into Corpus or to Padre Island with my pals ($$ in the hat for gas) but still never got to explore the larger area. Much more interested in geography as I traveled more, I've long had an itch to see what I'd missed of the stretch of coast between Corpus and Galveston.

Keep in mind that this was a photo safari, so I wasn't really interested in visiting the Rockport Aquarium, the Bay Education Center, the Texas Maritime Museum, or the Rockport Center for the Arts. I was thinking rather of starting with shots of the harbor and then shooting whatever else looked interesting. Well, it worked at Ocracoke.

These sculptures - the Whooping Cranes, the Kemp-Ridley Sea Turtle, and the Dolphins - were beside the marina on the grounds of (you guessed it) the Center for the Arts. As it turned out, nothing much is going on at 7:30 on a Friday morning. The number of cars along Navigation Circle with few people in evidence suggested lots of people living aboard but not yet stirring. They also limited angles and sight lines for pictures of the harbor. Ah, well. . .

It was pretty enough, neat and clean, trash cans emptied, blue skies, palm trees in abundance. I don't have anything bad to say about Rockport. I can't help being a bit disappointed, however. As tidy and well-taken- care-of as the town is, it wasn't picturesque, you know, like Ocracoke. Yeah, another of my faults: I don't do a particularly good job of managing my expectations. I shouldn't have expected to find my own Silver Lake as close at hand as the Texas Gulf Coast and I should have appreciated the very light traffic Ocracoke could only dream of.

I'm sure that if I came to town for some offshore fishing or even to laze on the beach (I know there's one here somewhere) for a couple days, I would have found it perfectly satisfactory. But I had another mission. It started off with the dawn's early light at Bayside, and the sculpture garden here assured me that I'd have something to show for my time. In the picture above, the building under the whooping crane's outstretched wing is the lighthouse atop the Texas Maritime Museum. There are things to do here besides obsess about photography. If the occasion presents itself in the future, I'd be happy to come back and give this little burg another, better chance.

I seem to remember my Uncle Kirksey talking about coming down here to Rockport for the fishing. It would have been after my time in the Navy when I first returned to Texas from California. It may have been his glowing remarks that made up my first impression the place and for that I thank him. But it's still early and I have a full day's drive ahead of me. I'd better get after it.

Next up, Galveston.