Windmills, Cows, and San Jacinto

As mentioned in an earlier blog, I was traveling home from Corpus Christi, Texas.  I traveled back on a local farm road that meanders through farm fields and coastal bays.  I had purposely decided to take my time in order to stop by the small town of Bayside(population 360), thirty miles north of Corpus Christi.  My goal was to take a picture of a house I had discovered a few years back.  You see as you approach Bayside, you will see the small town to your right.  It is the type of town you hear about that if you blink, you will miss it.  Years back, Jan and I decided to take a five minute tour of Bayside.  While we were there, we discovered an old house along the bay.  So this day I decided to slow down and visit Bayside again.

Now Bayside is named appropriately since it borders the Texas coast, mainly Copano Bay.  It is a small town of a few potholed streets lined with small unimpressive houses.  My first goal was to take a picture of the old house.   Unlike the other houses, this one was fairly large and contained a widow’s watch looking over the bay.  Now as a Texas history re-enactor, this house was special to me since it was built by John Wood, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto.  John Wood built this house in 1875. It later was turned into a hotel.

It was very quiet that morning in Bayside.  I parked my car along the bay and took my camera out.  Now one thing I discovered is that Bayside is not lacking in mosquitoes.  As I took my first picture, I don’t think I could tell the difference between the mosquitoes and the hairs on my leg.  I knew I had to hurry up my task, so I snapped away and ran back to the car.  As I made my escape from the mosquitoes, I looked around to absorb the scenery.  In front of me was a long pier stretching out over the bay.  I was in no rush, so I walked down the pier and just sat down.  Off in the distance I could hear someone’s radio playing some Mexican music.  I took a few pictures of the bay, observed the numerous fish swimming around, and finally decided it was time to go.  Except for the one radio playing, I did not see a single soul along the bay.  I briefly thought of buying a house there and living there until my money ran out, but Texas A&M is not free so I got back into my car and left. 

As I left Bayside and headed towards Refugio, I passed by some cows along the road shown at the top of this blog.   The cows did not look like they were in a hurry and if fact, I thought they were celebrating breast awareness month.  I pulled my camera out and took a few shots.  I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t raise a sign saying, “Eat more chicken”.

It was time to go home, plus I still had Refugio to go, so I packed my camera up, looked back down the road at Bayside thinking of the pier, and headed on down the road.