On Friday, Steve and his wife Leanne, and Sharon and I, did a little sight seeing.  We first went to Rockport, Texas where we found a nice little town of shops and museums.  As we parked in the parking lot along the marina, a lady came walking out to the car to meet us.  Steve has magnetic NOMADS signs on both side of his car, and they caught the attention of this lady.  She saw the Methodist church emblem and had to see who we were.  She knew of the NOMADS and gave us a big welcome to Rockport.  She told us where the many sights were to be found in the area.  It just happens that she is a volunteer at the aquarium.  She pointed out theTexas Maritime museum, an art museum, a seacoast education center, and of course the aquarium.  We were a little early for any of them so we decided to go to Goose Island State Park to see the Texas State Tree, the oldest tree in Texas.  The size of the tree was not that impressive, but the tree itself is about 1000 years old.  It told us many stories of things that it had seen, and heard, over those many years.  Wish I had had the time to hear them all.  Sharon made friends with a squiral, as you can see in one of the pictures.

After we left Goose Island State Park we returned to Rockport to visit the Texas Maritime museum.  The museum had displays, and information, about the early settlers and the industries throughout the history of the Rockport and gulf coast of Texas.  Did you know that Texas, as a republic, had it's own navy at one time.  I never knew that Texas had naval battles with Mexico during their fight for independence.  I also saw some photos of canons retrieved from the ship LaBelle, a ship that was used by French settlers many years ago.  The family crest, and name on the cannon, caught my eye. (Picture below.)  LeCompte was my mothers maiden name.  I know that her family fled France during the French Revolution to England, but not much after that.  Just thought that was neat.

After we finished seeing the Maritime museum we decided it was time for lunch.  The nice lady in the museum gift shop told us of some nice places to eat.  We went a little ways up the road to Lamar, where we found  Charlotte Plummer's Seafare Restaurant.  We all had seafood.  The lunches came with side salad or shrimp gumbo, I chose the gumbo.  Boy, was that good.  I knew that the fish would be good.  I had ordered the seafood platter and was not disappointed.  I will say that it has been a long time since I have had seafood that fresh and good.  We had a table next to the windows facing the docks in the marina.  It is oyster season for the fisherman, so we got to watch as boats were being unloaded with bags of oysters.  A couple of boats came in so heavy with their catch that it looked as if the top rail along the boats were below water level.  I would recommend this place anytime for lunch or dinner.

We then went back to Rockport where we went to the coastal education center.  Here we saw a wonderful presentation of ocean movements.  The center is one of many around the globe that has a sphere used for the presentation.  It is a development of NOAA.  The sphere hangs from the ceiling on thin wires.  A projection of the earth, with the many different displays of info about the movement of sea currents, is done by several cameras that are computer controlled.  It shows the earth all around, so no matter where you sit you see the display.  You can see in the pictures that Steve and Sharon are trying to help hold up the earth.

When we left the center it was time to go back to Taft.  We decided we would go back to Rockport another day to finish seeing the sights.  Of course no NOMAD outing would not be complete without a stop at Walmart.  Did that, nuf said.

It was a great day of sightseeing, but the best was spending time with Steve and Leanne.

Hope this posting wasn't too long, but it was a good day.

Remember, God Loves You