On The Loose: Last Night In Lucy (For Now)

We've been patiently waiting these past 3 days, camping out in Lucy at Goose Island State Park. I've felt like a kid waiting for Christmas, counting the days until we can move into our little cottage on the Bay. And tomorrow is the day! A family has been renting the cottage the past few days. As we've driven by several times, we've seen them both indoors and outdoors, and we keep saying to each other, "Pretty soon that will be US!" We'll have occupancy tomorrow after 4 p.m. ( which leaves time for the cottage to be cleaned after the family checks out). And tomorrow night we'll have dinner at a real kitchen table and we'll sleep in a real bedroom. How exciting!

But we haven't been just sitting around these past few days. First order of business was to get a Post Office box. Our house is in the little town of Fulton, which adjoins Rockport to the North.

In fact, they're so closely related that many people just refer to the area as "Rockport-Fulton." Fulton is so small that there is no mail delivery to houses in the town, so all the mail is picked up at the Post Office. There are 4 parking spaces there, and as we drove up in Curt's truck, we had to be careful of the sprawling branches of the huge live oak tree that hung over the parking spaces. The lady who drove her little golf cart to the post office had the right idea:

The Post Office is only a couple blocks from our cottage, so we'll be able to ride our bikes or walk over much of the time.

We wandered down to the harbor that's near the cottage. I love looking at the boats.

This is the same harbor that I showed you photos of a few weeks ago when we were eating outdoors at one of our favorite restaurants, Charlotte Plummers. And now we've discovered how close we live to it. Standing right next to Charlotte Plummers fence, I could take a photo of the restaurant (with the yard crew of white ibis) in one direction...

....and then, standing in the same spot, turn 180 degrees and catch a photo of our yellow cottage less than 2 blocks away:

Having lived "out" in the woods, or along a river, away from neighborhoods, most of our married life, it's going to be really different to be in town, just a couple blocks from a (small) town center. We're both really looking forward to the change.

We checked out the Rockport Fitness Center and the Community Pool, a lovely outdoor pool which is heated and open year-round. Of the two, however we decided we'd get more use out of the Fitness Center, so we joined it. We plan to take occasional trips to the pool as well, but we've promised each other to try to hit the Fitness Center at least 5 days a week. So far we've worked out two out of two days. It should be easy to keep it up. It's less than a mile and a half from our cottage, so we'll be able to ride our bikes or the scooter on nice days.

We've enjoyed some great meals for the end of our camping experience. A terrific outdoor breakfast:

And tonight's dinner of sweet and sour chicken over rice:

Lucy is a little small for creating a dish like that which requires so many pots. I used every one we have in the camper! I think our cottage kitchen will afford us a little more space for culinary adventures.

It looked daunting to me, but Curt can make quick work of a pile of dirty dishes. What a guy!

We plan to visit quite a few different local churches before we settle on a church home for the next 6 months. So we started with one today, just a few blocks from the cottage. We really enjoyed the music and the pastor's message. Next week we'll try another. But on our way back to camp after church, we saw that the Pelican Congregation was still meeting:

I took a few photos of some of the piers we passed along the road. The water was so glassy this morning. What a serene vista!

We spent the afternoon today on the beach, enjoying the 70 degree weather. The morning's glassy water gave way to a little chop this afternoon when a breeze kicked up. But that just gave more texture to the seascape.