Bolivar Peninsula

January 29 – February 16, 2017

Leaving the island I slowly made my way towards Galveston. My app said the Walmart there allowed parking but when I got there I discovered the rules had changed. One article I found said the RV parks had gotten together to force the store to forbid overnight parking, presumably to force vacationers to shell out for expensive parking. There was nowhere to park overnight without parting with a pile of money so I gave up on visiting the island and went back to the mainland.

On my way to the Bolivar Peninsula (free beach parking) I saw this guy in one parking lot. Maybe a little heavy for a travel trailer but bonus points for ingenuity and recycling.

The Bolivar Peninsula used to have a paved road that ran through to the wildlife refuge but it was wiped out in a hurricane. Rather than rebuild it, the road was bulldozed and closed at the refuge. Now it's free beach camping.

You aren't actually on the beach, instead you stop on a wide spot on the road which is single lane with a wide spot on the end to turn around. I stopped about midway and set up for a few days lounging.

The road is higher than the beach so no high tide stress here, and there are remnants of previous construction revealed at low tide.

The first night was hot and muggy so all windows and vents were open.  As the light disappeared I saw dozens of mosquitoes slapping up against the windows.  I went to bed all smug and satisfied that all of my windows had screens.  Yeah...

In the middle of the night I got up to pee and then went back to bed.  While lying down I was slapping at things on my arms and gradually I realized that I was hitting a tiny body every time I slapped.  Well this can't be good.  I got up and turned on the light to something that looked like a horror movie set.  A cloud of mosquitoes circled the light and I do mean a cloud...we're talking about a hundred or so.  Me and my sheets were covered in blood smears from slapping the bugs that had been biting me and more were circling me rather than the light.  I scooted to the back and sprayed myself with deet.  I hate doing that inside because that stuff is so nasty but I wasn't going to try to hide under sheets for the next few hours until sunrise when the temps were still in the 70s.

I started smashing the bugs on the ceiling, walls and windows and the horror scene expanded to include bloodied walls.  I spent the next two hours chasing mosquitoes and when it started to get light outside I opened the window to shoo some out.

It took days to eventually squish them all.  I had more than 100 bites on my face arms and stomach.  I didn't count the ones on my legs or back.  So much for being smug.

Met another ToyHome owner here. Tony lives in his in a RV park in the town, a mile or so inland. After we chatted he stopped by every day to make sure I was OK and tell me how much he wanted to be doing the same thing. He also told me about the unofficial nude beach at the end of the road next to the wildlife refuge.

I have a NOAA app on my phone that provides weather and warnings. After having been at the beach for a couple days I turned my phone on to see if I had any connection. My NOAA app happily informed me that I was parked in a tornado watch zone and just off shore the surf was going to be dangerous.

So...I have been in some bad storms, some of which spawned tornadoes (New Mexico – alien lightning) but that was before I had an app to enlighten me while the event was occurring. For some reason it's really freaky to know there's some chance you will see a tornado and be completely helpless to do anything about it. I spent several hours trying to figure out what the most sensible plan was and watching the radar on my weather app. Ultimately I didn't go anywhere and luckily the ridge of storm kind of split over the peninsula and even the storm was short lived and didn't dump too much rain.

I still don't know what I'd do if saw a tornado, but I try to keep an eye on thunderstorms now.

Sunset

Sunrise