Day 8 Texas Vacation Xmas 2008

Today is Saturday December 27, 2008

The day started out by heading to Denny’s for breakfast. We went downstairs to the lobby but being a Saturday, the hotel is full and so is the breakfast/lobby room. After breakfast we came back to the hotel and relaxed. I enjoy sitting out on the balcony reading emails and uploading photos to my Flickr Site. I am also researching on the internet how to control and fly my new kite. I can also keep an eye on what is happening in and around the hotel complex. Karen is doing some laundry and then we are going to go out to the Birding and Wildlife Center again and see what other types of birds and wildlife we can find.

Here I am hard at work.

At the Wildlife Center we found a Great Blue Heron, a Long Billed Curlew and a Sandpiper

A Snowy Egret, a bunch of Ducks and White Pelicans, and some Great Egrets.

We then headed over to the Sea Turtle Rescue Center to see some sea turtles. It was very informative with lots of sea turtles to look at. I didn’t know there were so many types, I thought a sea turtle was just that. We took lots of photos, but they didn’t turn out all that great. Shooting through glass and water at a moving target does not produce good results. Take a look at the website if you want to know more about this sea turtle rescue center.

At the end of the afternoon we took a drive out to the end of the road to Beach Access #7 so that Karen could look for more shells and so that I could practice flying my kite and putting to practice some of what I had read online about doing some basic stunts.

It is quite windy, perhaps too windy, but I am going to give this a try anyways. Here I am checking the kite to make sure I have it put together properly, then you can see me flying the kite and the last photo, the kite is so high I am concerned that it may melt from the heat of the sun.

I actually feel like I know what I am doing now after an hour of flying my kite. I can now bring it down and land it when I want it to come down as opposed to smashing it uncontrolled into the sand. The trick is much like sailing, you head the kite into the wind where it loses power and then you can bring it down in a controlled manner. I also learnt to fly the kite in figure eights and in large circles.

To see all of our photos from today, you can click on the link to my FLICKR site.