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My last full day in Corpus Christi! It has been a blast and I've got to fit what fun and family time I can into this last day because it'll be a couple of years at least before I get back here.
We started the day off with a major breakfast feast! I went over to my sister, Nina's house where her husband Jerry was the acting chef. There was so much food, you couldn't fit it on your plate but I gave it a valiant try! Unfortunately, my eyes were bigger than my stomach yet again. I ate till napping seemed better than moving around! We sat and talked for a while and enjoyed each other's company. Again, I invited everyone to come visit Alaska.
My pitch to them is basically, "Come to Alaska, you can stay at my house, eat my food, and drive my car! How much cheaper a vacation then that can you get?" My sister Nina, her husband Jerry, their son Joseph, and Joseph's then girlfriend have been up once and it was great except for my sister not liking the ocean from a small boat much. They got to see me feed a bald eagle by tossing a dead fish about 20 feet behind the boat. The eagle swooped down, grabbed it, and kept going without missing a beat. We did a lot of hiking as well. One hike we did was about three miles, all up hill. When we got thirsty, we just reached into the stream and grabbed some clear clean water. The water gets no better than this. My nephew, Joseph was getting a real kick out of following me around and watching me eat berries from bushes along the way. I showed him which were the wild huckleberry bushes and the ones that were the wild blueberry bushes. I told him to just leave all others alone and he was good to go! He thought it was pretty impressive to just walk around eating these great berries because they grow everywhere.
I gave my car keys to Joseph and he and his girlfriend went out exploring. That's the great thing about living on an island with less than 40 miles of "highway". If you get lost, you deserve to be lost! I told him that basically, if he ran out of road, he went too far past my house and just to turn around and try again. We all went out during low tide to watch the black bears come down to the stream and catch salmon or at least chase some through the water! Joseph made it back for a second visit the following year with his girlfriend. My son Anthony was still living in town and he had a great time hanging out with them and hitting all the bars and such. Joseph has contacted me since and asked if he can come again and bring some friends with him. I told him that would be great! They are all welcome! Unfortunately, my sons don't live in town anymore with Alejandro living in Fremont, WA and Anthony in Juneau, AK. I know Joseph was hoping to see them and have Anthony take him out fishing again. Last time Joseph was up, Anthony sent him home with a 25-pound box of fresh halibut fillets. All fillets, no wasted weight on bones, guts, or even skin. He couldn't believe his luck and I think he was really hoping to get in another fishing trip with Anthony if he came to Ketchikan. Alas, I can take him fishing but I don't have my son's luck with the fishing. They practically jump in the boat for him. As a matter of fact, Anthony placed second in the King Salmon derby with a 43-pound king salmon that he caught after having his line in the water 5 minutes! He won $5,000 in gift certificates which he shared with a couple of friends and used the rest to outfit his boat in Juneau. Time for a funny story about the King Salmon Anthony caught. I was at work the next day and the guys and I were talking about the derby because it is a big deal around Ketchikan. One of the guys was telling me his friend had been out trolling for King salmon most of the day when he saw this yellow boat coming straight at him at full throttle. The guy said the boat cut the engine close to him and a kid went to the back of the boat and dropped a line. No sooner had this kid dropped his line then he hooked a monster of a salmon. I guess the guy said it took the kid longer to land the fish then to hook it. The kid brought the salmon on board, the boat started its engine, and off they went just like that. Overall, the entire episode from the time he saw the boat to when it left with the huge salmon took about 5 minutes to occur. My friend at work said the guy was pissed because the fish the kid caught turned out to be the second place salmon at 43 pounds. I busted out laughing and told my friend that the kid he was talking about was my son Anthony. We laughed long and hard over this and Anthony confirmed that the details of the story were accurate! I think that fisherman probably still hates Anthony because he only caught one small fish himself after being out there all day!
I have to make special note of the gas situation here. Gas here is $3.14 a gallon! I can't remember the last time we saw gas under $4 in Ketchikan!!! Damn gas stations at home!@%^$#. Another interesting thing to see while driving around is the number of fruit stands in this town. They are everywhere! This is another re-purposing use for old gas stations. Often times you just see a truck on the side of the road selling fruit, especially watermelon. I remember going down to the valley as a kid with my dad and coming back with a truckload of watermelons. We would give some to relatives and friends and then I was allowed to sell some from the front porch. I felt like quite the business man! This was never intended to be a money maker, just something my dad did to give me something to do and have fun with. Hell, watermelons, and I mean big ones; I would be selling for $1.00. Now my mother was notorious for eating watermelon. God, did she love watermelon! The standing joke was that you better eat your fill of watermelon when it was cut up or you would go without soon enough. We gave her a hard time because if you left the house, you might come back to no watermelon at all!
I rode over to the place I was born, Memorial Medical Center now known as Spohn Hospital West or something like that. They are getting ready to tear it down now because it is past its useful life. Now after sitting there and thinking for a bit, first the elementary school, then JR High, then High School, and now the hospital. There's a pattern here. They're erasing me by tearing down all the places I went while growing up!
Well, A little more riding and I pulled over at a Boat n' Net. I can't believe these places still exist. I took a picture of what has to be the only one in town that does not look like a run-down shack! The old ones that are falling over are still operating. We used to go there for deep fried fish, shrimp, and fries on the cheap!
I rode the old cruising street Ayers out to Six Points which is exactly what it sounds like, a place where three streets meet to make six points. There is a neat shop at this location called the Bleu Frog. They have all kinds of neat junk in the place. I had to take a picture for my wife to see because I remember she really liked going there.
More riding around and I stumble across Lou's Saloon out in the industrial area. This has got to be the oldest operating bar in town. It's so old, that ivy has covered the sides of the building and the rear deck almost entirely! Funny but I have never been in this bar in my life but I know they didn't have dancing so no loss.
I decided to ride through the old neighborhood, Molina. I stopped off at the old Neighborhood Community Center. If we were bored enough, we would come hang out there when I was a kid. Not much to the place but they had a small basketball court in back and some tables where you could do crafts with friends. So, right across the street was the constant reminder that we were not rich. The golf course for rich folk! Turns out, the golf course used to be a small airport when my sister was a kid. I always wondered why the road next to it was so wide and was named "Airport road". When I was a kid, my friends and I would line up side by side and walk around the outside of the entire golf course. We would find golf balls that we collected and then sold back to the golfers. It didn't take us long to figure out which balls were worth more than others! It was a way for us to make a few bucks for candy and junk food. Some of the golfers were jerks and would try to rip us off. They only tried that once because from that point on, we wouldn't even let them see what we had for sale, which pissed them off! Just what they deserved for trying to rip kids off!
I am sitting in the parking lot of the old Chacho's Tacos next door to the community center remembering the days of hunting golf balls. They had awesome tacos here no matter what time of day you stopped in. I could go for one of their tacos right about now! I get ready to hit the road when I look down at my feet and I can't believe what I am looking at. A golf ball right at my foot! I was so tempted to run across the road to the golf course and sell it to a golfer for old times’ sake but decided, nope, this one's coming home as a souvenir!
Back at the house and this time my sister Amelia has made some serious lunch. Menudo! A huge batch of it because the kids are coming over for dinner! When people ask me what menudo is, I have to give them my standard answer of shut up and eat it. Awesome tasting but like some other Mexican favorites, not for the squeamish! My sister even made a batch with chicken instead for those more sensitive folks! This stuff is gold! Also works great as a hangover cure. You can squeeze some lime into in and sprinkle chopped onions in and you are set!
My niece Andrea came over and this time she had both the kids and her husband. Her husband Mark is a nice guy and he and Andrea make a nice couple. Had to mount the kids on the bike for a family picture! Andrea’s twin brother Andres could not come down from Austin because he was tied up with work. The oldest in the family, David came over with his wife Selena, a really cutie; always smiling and their sons Gabriel and Michael. Handsome kids! I knew my bike was covered in bugs and I wanted to head out tomorrow clean so I offered the boys $20 each if they would wash it. They jumped on that and took care of it right away. They left it nice and shiny and ready for the road.
Mando, Norma, and their boys stopped by for a final farewell. I got their picture and we gave our goodbye hugs one and all. It’s been fun seeing these guys again. Hopefully, next trip down I will see AJ as well. Mando and Norma say they want to come to Alaska to visit. I invite them to come every time I see them. Here's the catch.....they want to come in December! I told them they were nuts and would hate it in December. It's cold and wet, very wet. I had to remind them that I live in a rain forest with an average rainfall of over 12 feet! That's right, over 12 feet of rain a year. However, I said that if they insisted, I would still welcome them into my home with open arms.
I decided I would load up tonight so I can get an early start in the morning. I've been parking the bike under shade in the back yard but I'm going to load it for the road and leave it in the garage tonight so I don't have to worry about anybody messing with my stuff! I want to hit the road a little early because aside from the high heat, this place is nasty humid. You can be fresh out of the shower, move a bit, and be drenched in sweat again!
To make sure I am starting fresh, I got a new starting mileage off the bike at 22128. I am just curious as to how many miles this adventure will rack up.
Following is some detail on the pictures:
Pic 1 - Breakfast Done Right: Family breakfast at my sister Nina's with my brother in law Jerry as the chef. So much food it didn't all fit in the picture. Ate till moving became difficult!
Pic 2 - Cheap Gas: Eat your heart out Ketchikan. $3.14 a gallon for gas! Can't remember the last time we saw that kind of pricing.
Pic 3 - The Fruit Stand: You know you are at a Corpus Christi produce stand when the first things you see are pinatas.
Pic 4 - Being Born: This used to be Memorial hospital. I was born here many moons ago. They are preparing to tear it down soon because it's so old. Again, a place I've been at getting erased. There's a pattern emerging here.
Pic 5 - They’re Still Around: These are all over town but this is the only one that looks good. All the others look like old dilapidated shacks and don't seem open but they are. If you wanted over cooked and dried out shrimp and fish, this was the place.
Pic 6 - Six Points: Bleu Frog. This is a really neat shop at six points. They have all kinds of neat old junk to look at and buy.
Pic 7 - Oldest Bar: Lou's Saloon. This place has been here so long that this side of the building is the only one where you can see paint. All the other sides are covered in ivy, including the deck in back.
Pic 8 - Hanging Out as a Kid: This was and still is the Molina Neighborhood Community Center. Sometimes we would come there to play games and hang out.
Pic 9 - Golf: This is the rich folk’s golf course right across from our lowly community center. As kids we would walk around the entire course and collect errant golf balls, which we would sell back to golfers. We quickly figured out which were worth more!
Pic 10 - The Old Taco Shop: The old Chacho's Tacos in the hood. They used to make awesome tacos cheap and fast. Wish it was still open. This place is also across from the nice golf course. My sister told me the golf course was a small airport when she was a kid.
Pic 11 - Unbelievable: Getting ready to pull out of the taco shop and lo and behold, a Titleist golf ball. I was tempted to run over to the golfers and offer to sell it for old times’ sake. This one is coming home as a souvenir.
Pic 12 - Don't Ask: Menudo, menudo, menudo! My sister made a huge batch for our family dinner with kids and their kids. It was fantastic; she even made a batch with chicken instead for the sensitive folks.
Pic 13 - Ready to Ride: Finally a picture of the whole family. My niece Andrea, husband Mark and kids Wes and Amy.
Pic 14 - Second Generation Hernandez: My nephew and his family. From left Gabriel, Selena, David, and Michael.
Pic 15 - The Hinojosa Family: Mando, Norma, and the twins stopped by for a farewell. Had loads of fun but time to hit the road in the AM.
Pic 16 - Old Friends: Me and the Hinojosas. They say they want to come to Alaska in December! I told them they are nuts! Either way, I'll take the visit.
Pic 17 - End of Day Miles: Time to load them up and head them out. I am trying to get a fairly early start to avoid the heat. Humidity is so high, the second you move, you start sweating. Well, here we go!
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