The Way East.

Only last Friday we were still working at Aransas. We finally finished up the MSDS project for their safety inspection this week. On Friday, we finished up the Maintenance MSDS books and put them in the shops. We also took a last trip to Port O'Connor to place the books that we did for there and to pick up the few products for which we could not find MSDS PDFs online. We did the same for a few other products at the refuge.

Our last day over, it was time to start getting ready to go. We spent Friday evening and all of Saturday packing and cleaning. The laundry was done, the bikes and boxes were packed into the trailer, Speedy was even washed. We also made some time on both days for a couple of final bird walks.

On Sunday, we attached the trailer to Speedy and we were off. First stop High Island, the famous migrant trap. We decided to take the shore route and ended up going along the string of barrier islands from Freeport to Galveston Island, the the ferry to the Bolivar Peninsula and to High Island. This was quite a pleasant drive until we neared the end of Galveston Island, where it becomes a busy beach town. It was a hot, sunny, Sunday and it seemed that most of Houston had decided to go to Galveston. The beaches were packed and the road was even more crowded.

We stopped at the supermarket there to provision and then headed for the ferry. After first getting in the wrong lane, we were directed by a local policeman back to the end of the correct line. It was over an hour before we got onto the ferry to Bolivar Point. After we left the ferry, the traffic lightened quickly. I'm not sure how, as there was no way off the peninsula except at High Island, 25 miles down the road. By the time we got there it was nearly sunset.

A friend had told us that it was possible to overnight for free at the Smith Oaks Bird Sanctuary, one of the island's Audubon hot spots. It supposedly closed at dusk, and we made it in time. It was just an overnight in the parking lot, but no one else was there.

Monday morning we found out why. Sunday gad been the last day when they did daily guided bird walks and the last day when staff was there. It was the official end of the spring migration season at High Island. Even the birds got the memo. We did see the area of Smith Oaks called teh Rookery, which is an island on Claybottom Pond. There were hundreds of Roseate Spoonbills, Great Egrets and Neotropical Comorants nesting there. The spot had lots of trees, was free from predators and near the fishing grounds. What more could a wading or diving bird want?

That was the highlight. Aside from a few resident Cardinals, Mockingbirds, grackles and doves, there were no other birds to be seen. We also went to the Boy Scout Woods, the other famous spot on the island, where they even have bleachers to watch the birds at a drip. There was no one there except us and a couple of Painted Buntings. We'd missed the migration.

From there we went up to Anahuac NWR for a visit. Its visitor center was also closed on Monday. We had better luck there, seeing White-crowned sparrows, nesting cliff and barn swallows near the visitor center.  We also saw Orchard Orioles and the usual collection of egrets and herons on the Shoveler Pond loop—and the day's highlight, a Least Bittern. There was supposedly one at Aransas on the Rail Trail, but Ellen was never able to find it. We also saw our first live Water Moccasin. After all the warnings about snakes at Aransas, we finally came across one at Anahuac.

 After pretty much striking out at High Island, we decided to move east and head to Dauphin Island, on the Alabama Coast. We didn't make it that far and spent a warm and sticky night at a Cracker Barrel in Baton Rouge. We made it to Dauphin Island the next afternoon, after a long detour since the main road in from the south was blocked. It is another spot sticking out right on the coast with woods that attract migrants making landfall. But once again we were a bit too late. We did see some interesting birds, Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, some more orioles, Scarlet Tangers, Wood Trush and Brown Thrasher. I even saw a small rail that was most likely a Black Rail, but it was too quick for a positive ID. But, once again, no warblers.

Our original plan was to travel along the coast through Florida and then go back up I-95, stopping along the way, but it was obvious that we'd missed most of the migration. We had to pass up our next spot, which was to be Fort Pickens in Gulf Islands National Seashore because their campground was closed due to a flood. A pump had failed and sewage backed up into the main campground.

We also had a squeak in Speedy. It seemed to be coming from the suspension. But that wasn't the bad part. As I was looking under the van, I noticed the the right rear tire was bald on the inside third of the tread, This was rather disturbing. I gave Kevin at Mass Tire a call. He said that it seemed quite unusual as that is usually due to a misaligned wheel. Since Speedy has a solid rear axle, the left side would have to be misaligned the opposite way and would have excessive wear on the outside, but this was not the case. We decided that the easiest course of action would be to exchange it with the spare until we got home.

We spent only an overnight stay at Dauphin Island as there wasn't much to see. We had decided to change our plans and go north, perhaps to Charleston and Buck Hall or all the way to Assateague on the Eastern Shore. So it was now an inland route through Georgia and the Carolinas.

But first there was the tire problem. Fortunately, we spotted a truck and tire shop along the highway going out from Dauphin Island. They were happy to change the tires for us. The rear tire was in even worse shape than I'd thought. When they took it off, I found a six inch long section where it was worn down to the steel cords. It probably wouldn't have lasted more than another day. The spare is quite old, one of the original Speedy tires, circa 2000, but aside from some minor cracking in the rubber seems to be in good shape, so we are running on it.

One of the problems we had was storing the old tire. It has an alloy rim and wouldn't fit on the back spare tire holder. We finally fit it into the trailer. This was actually an improvement as it moved a significant weight from the back of the van to the back of the trailer, lightening the rear, which seemed a bit over loaded.

We were then off to Georgia, Arrowhead Park at the Lake Tobesofkee Recreation Area to be exact. It is just outside of Macon, GA. The GPS and Google Maps showed the fastest route to Charleston to be via Atlanta, but they compute using speed limit speeds. Speedy rarely does the speed limit on Interstates, so we took a more direct route which took us over much more pleasant secondary roads over a route via Macon and Augusta, GA.

We made it as far as Macon and this county park was just off our route. The weather has been quite hot, in the 90's, so we opted to stop where we could plug in and use Speedy's air conditioner. It is a pleasant park with paved sites right on the lake. We didn't take a water-side site, opting instead for a paved pull-through for easy access with the trailer.