A Trip to Corpus Christi Texas – Part 2
Nov 4, 2011, 12:21 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Texas
Programs: American Airlines British Airways
Posts: 1,752
A Trip to Corpus Christi Texas – Part 2
Well back to the aircraft carrier, a ready room from WWII.
A saying on the nose of an attack helicopter.
The aircraft collection is just ok. They have a Dauntless and Avenger from WWII in need of restoration. The others are ok, but nothing exciting. For some reason they covered over the elevators, arresting gear, and catapult. These would seem to be important parts of an aircraft carrier that one would want to see. All in all it was an interesting four hours. They do let you see a considerable amount of the ship.
At this point the whinny wife wanted to eat lunch. We did not time to wander off to eat lunch. Besides leaving the area and returning would have required another parking fee. She said we can eat right here. Eat here? In this neighborhood? Let me show you what I mean. Here is a photograph of the beachfront hotel we were discussing this in front of.
The wife had been to Corpus Christi for a conference a few years before. Naturally she remembered nothing about the city except for the locations of the best bars. Right here across the street from the Four Seasons Corpus Christi, see photograph just above, she says is Pier 99. A great place she assures me. What a dump. Back on the rear patio all we find are two old farts drinking a late lunch. Now I must admit the gumbo was not too bad.
The next stop was the Texas State Aquarium. My wife loves these things. We have a massive one in the middle of the study. This one is a bit larger. A couple of random shots of it.
The dolphins showing off.
An eagle
The Lexington and aquarium consumed most of the day. With the time left we drove down to Padre Island, up to the Naval Air Station gate, and through the downtown area to a restaurant. From what I could observe from my limited city examination time Corpus Christi developed south from downtown until it met up with the development moving north from the NAS. This makes the newer part halfway in between the two. The only thing we did not get to look at was the marina and the older houses near downtown.
The travel guides suggested only two restaurants in town. Since we were on the coast the seafood joint was the obvious choice. This strange company, the Water Street Seafood Company, has two locations in town. I say strange as the two locations are within fifty feet of each other. I did not take a photograph, but here is a scan of one of their ads.
The Oyster Bar is on the left. The restaurant is on the right. Our plan was to go to the restaurant. Unfortunately for me we ended up parking on the street behind the restaurant. Unfortunate as my wife spotted a junk store beside it. My timeline included no time for wandering through a store full of crap no one wanted, which is why it is in a store for sale. Thinking we were at the front door side of the restaurant, and noticing that it looked a little dumpy I asked the junk store person what the difference was between the two locations. She said there was none. They had exactly the same menu. I had assumed that the bar was, well a bar, and the restaurant, well a restaurant. So why two within a few feet of each other? She had no clue. Her view was the bar location was the nicer of the two. So Oyster Bar it was. The food was very good. Oh, and the Oyster bar is not a bar. It is a regular restaurant. Very odd.
Time was up. Off to the airport we went. The rental car return was just as easy as the pickup. We parked it back in the spot where we found it that morning, then dropped off the key.
The TSA security folks must have been bored. We were the only people going through. No other passenger was to be seen in the terminal. So they decided to pat down my wife’s pony tail after they scanned her. Pony tail? What would she have hidden in a rather small pony tail? They also had me unload some the stuff in my briefcase. This I can understand as it was full of wires, granola bars, cameras, and so forth. No doubt it looked like C4 bars hooked to batteries. This may be why TSA swabs it for explosive residue about half the time.
The CRP airport is really very small. Here is a photograph of all of the gates.
I asked the lone gate agent if this was the whole thing. Sure enough that’s it. She said there are now six gates including the new international gate. International gate? Two of the six are not actually used yet. The architect of the terminal must have been Chinese as there is no gate numbered 4. If I calculated this correctly this means AE uses Gate 5 and Continental Express uses Gate 3. I put that in the small airport category.
I had checked the load for the flight the night before. I looked like about one third full. However, the waiting area contained more than double that number. Had I missed something by not checking the news all day? Was a hurricane on the way? Was the Cuban Navy off the coast with an amphibious assault force? It turned out that the previous flight never left due to a pressurization problem. I was a little concerned about our flight, there being no aircraft at the gate a few minutes before the stated boarding time. Knowing a strong cold front was on the way to DFW I could just see the incoming flight being held on the ground, diverted to Ozona, or blown out to sea. But the little guy soon came chugging up to the gate. The gate agent tried the boarding by groups thing until he realized everyone’s boarding pass said Group 4. Then it was last one on has to close the door.
There was a small delay as the gate checked bags from the other flight were loaded. They ended up with three more bags than passengers. I assume these three bags are still resting at CRP. Where the owners ended up I have no idea.
The FA on the flight was a little strange. She had that elementary school teacher if you cross me I will whip your ... look. She walked from the front to the back of the plane half a dozen times before we left. Her mood may have been due to a long day of back and forth from DFW to CRP.
I had been concerned about the flight back to DFW since I had heard about the cold front arriving about the time we would be returning. If storms developed along the leading edge we might end up sitting on the plane in some far away airport for hours. Even if we arrived on time, the ride was sure to be bumpy and the landing interesting in such a small aircraft. Sure enough the pilot came on the PA to say the first half would be smooth and the second half a little bumpy.
He was right. Punching through the clouds into DFW caused quite few jumps. The approach was more stable than I thought it would be with only a couple of wing drops. The pilot did an excellent job in landing. He planted that sucker down hard on the runway to be sure it stayed there, but with no bounce. A nice touch I must say.
Now, back to my wife’s son she had not told me about. I say this as the valet fellow must have been related at least in some way to my wife. It looks to me like the valet system works on your return by retrieving the car from some far off location to up by the valet stand ready to go. I walked up to the valet fellow handed him the valet ticket, he handed me the keys, and said the fee will be… However, the keys were not to my car. The very nice pickup truck the keys opened was not my pickup truck. Panic ensued. Off he ran to the far off place to find the car. You see here is point one. He obviously is a very unorganized, sloppy record keeper just like my wife. Point two he will now be late returning our car. Point three I soon see our car flying, not driving, flying down the roadway between the parking garage and the terminal. I have never even seen my wife drive that fast. He circles the parking garage on two wheels, at least he saved the tread on the other tires, ducks into the garage to a sliding stop right in front of us. Well, not exactly sliding but it sure looked like he was practicing for pit stop at the NASCAR race in Fort Worth this weekend. Seeing no parts hanging off the car I let this go as a youthful desire to please the customer with a quick recovery from a mistake. However, a supervisor type person of some sort who observed this drag race decided to point out the inadvisability of this procedure to him as we were in the middle of settling the parking fee. Now I agree the fellow needed to be spoken to. But you do not do this in the middle of a customer interaction, and never in front of a customer. Very bad form by the supervisor person.
At this point I am tired and cold. It is time to go home. The wife cannot drive after consuming beer at lunch and two rather large Margaritas at dinner. Besides I do not need any new drama on the drive home. The morning’s adventure was enough. She informs me at this point that the car is out of gas. We will be lucky to make it to a gas station.
Not being able to figure out how to get to the gas station at DFW although I can see it, I creep and coast to the nearest gas station I know of that of course is at the top of a hill. There I am out in the cold, in the wind, in the middle of the night, as the wife nods off in the car. I suspect this was really the only reason she went with me, so that I would have to gas up the car.
That is the end of this trip. Now if we can talk AA into publishing a sale fare from DFW to PNS you will have a trip report on the National Naval Aviation Museum next. The regular fare is way too much.
A saying on the nose of an attack helicopter.
The aircraft collection is just ok. They have a Dauntless and Avenger from WWII in need of restoration. The others are ok, but nothing exciting. For some reason they covered over the elevators, arresting gear, and catapult. These would seem to be important parts of an aircraft carrier that one would want to see. All in all it was an interesting four hours. They do let you see a considerable amount of the ship.
At this point the whinny wife wanted to eat lunch. We did not time to wander off to eat lunch. Besides leaving the area and returning would have required another parking fee. She said we can eat right here. Eat here? In this neighborhood? Let me show you what I mean. Here is a photograph of the beachfront hotel we were discussing this in front of.
The wife had been to Corpus Christi for a conference a few years before. Naturally she remembered nothing about the city except for the locations of the best bars. Right here across the street from the Four Seasons Corpus Christi, see photograph just above, she says is Pier 99. A great place she assures me. What a dump. Back on the rear patio all we find are two old farts drinking a late lunch. Now I must admit the gumbo was not too bad.
The next stop was the Texas State Aquarium. My wife loves these things. We have a massive one in the middle of the study. This one is a bit larger. A couple of random shots of it.
The dolphins showing off.
An eagle
The Lexington and aquarium consumed most of the day. With the time left we drove down to Padre Island, up to the Naval Air Station gate, and through the downtown area to a restaurant. From what I could observe from my limited city examination time Corpus Christi developed south from downtown until it met up with the development moving north from the NAS. This makes the newer part halfway in between the two. The only thing we did not get to look at was the marina and the older houses near downtown.
The travel guides suggested only two restaurants in town. Since we were on the coast the seafood joint was the obvious choice. This strange company, the Water Street Seafood Company, has two locations in town. I say strange as the two locations are within fifty feet of each other. I did not take a photograph, but here is a scan of one of their ads.
The Oyster Bar is on the left. The restaurant is on the right. Our plan was to go to the restaurant. Unfortunately for me we ended up parking on the street behind the restaurant. Unfortunate as my wife spotted a junk store beside it. My timeline included no time for wandering through a store full of crap no one wanted, which is why it is in a store for sale. Thinking we were at the front door side of the restaurant, and noticing that it looked a little dumpy I asked the junk store person what the difference was between the two locations. She said there was none. They had exactly the same menu. I had assumed that the bar was, well a bar, and the restaurant, well a restaurant. So why two within a few feet of each other? She had no clue. Her view was the bar location was the nicer of the two. So Oyster Bar it was. The food was very good. Oh, and the Oyster bar is not a bar. It is a regular restaurant. Very odd.
Time was up. Off to the airport we went. The rental car return was just as easy as the pickup. We parked it back in the spot where we found it that morning, then dropped off the key.
The TSA security folks must have been bored. We were the only people going through. No other passenger was to be seen in the terminal. So they decided to pat down my wife’s pony tail after they scanned her. Pony tail? What would she have hidden in a rather small pony tail? They also had me unload some the stuff in my briefcase. This I can understand as it was full of wires, granola bars, cameras, and so forth. No doubt it looked like C4 bars hooked to batteries. This may be why TSA swabs it for explosive residue about half the time.
The CRP airport is really very small. Here is a photograph of all of the gates.
I asked the lone gate agent if this was the whole thing. Sure enough that’s it. She said there are now six gates including the new international gate. International gate? Two of the six are not actually used yet. The architect of the terminal must have been Chinese as there is no gate numbered 4. If I calculated this correctly this means AE uses Gate 5 and Continental Express uses Gate 3. I put that in the small airport category.
I had checked the load for the flight the night before. I looked like about one third full. However, the waiting area contained more than double that number. Had I missed something by not checking the news all day? Was a hurricane on the way? Was the Cuban Navy off the coast with an amphibious assault force? It turned out that the previous flight never left due to a pressurization problem. I was a little concerned about our flight, there being no aircraft at the gate a few minutes before the stated boarding time. Knowing a strong cold front was on the way to DFW I could just see the incoming flight being held on the ground, diverted to Ozona, or blown out to sea. But the little guy soon came chugging up to the gate. The gate agent tried the boarding by groups thing until he realized everyone’s boarding pass said Group 4. Then it was last one on has to close the door.
There was a small delay as the gate checked bags from the other flight were loaded. They ended up with three more bags than passengers. I assume these three bags are still resting at CRP. Where the owners ended up I have no idea.
The FA on the flight was a little strange. She had that elementary school teacher if you cross me I will whip your ... look. She walked from the front to the back of the plane half a dozen times before we left. Her mood may have been due to a long day of back and forth from DFW to CRP.
I had been concerned about the flight back to DFW since I had heard about the cold front arriving about the time we would be returning. If storms developed along the leading edge we might end up sitting on the plane in some far away airport for hours. Even if we arrived on time, the ride was sure to be bumpy and the landing interesting in such a small aircraft. Sure enough the pilot came on the PA to say the first half would be smooth and the second half a little bumpy.
He was right. Punching through the clouds into DFW caused quite few jumps. The approach was more stable than I thought it would be with only a couple of wing drops. The pilot did an excellent job in landing. He planted that sucker down hard on the runway to be sure it stayed there, but with no bounce. A nice touch I must say.
Now, back to my wife’s son she had not told me about. I say this as the valet fellow must have been related at least in some way to my wife. It looks to me like the valet system works on your return by retrieving the car from some far off location to up by the valet stand ready to go. I walked up to the valet fellow handed him the valet ticket, he handed me the keys, and said the fee will be… However, the keys were not to my car. The very nice pickup truck the keys opened was not my pickup truck. Panic ensued. Off he ran to the far off place to find the car. You see here is point one. He obviously is a very unorganized, sloppy record keeper just like my wife. Point two he will now be late returning our car. Point three I soon see our car flying, not driving, flying down the roadway between the parking garage and the terminal. I have never even seen my wife drive that fast. He circles the parking garage on two wheels, at least he saved the tread on the other tires, ducks into the garage to a sliding stop right in front of us. Well, not exactly sliding but it sure looked like he was practicing for pit stop at the NASCAR race in Fort Worth this weekend. Seeing no parts hanging off the car I let this go as a youthful desire to please the customer with a quick recovery from a mistake. However, a supervisor type person of some sort who observed this drag race decided to point out the inadvisability of this procedure to him as we were in the middle of settling the parking fee. Now I agree the fellow needed to be spoken to. But you do not do this in the middle of a customer interaction, and never in front of a customer. Very bad form by the supervisor person.
At this point I am tired and cold. It is time to go home. The wife cannot drive after consuming beer at lunch and two rather large Margaritas at dinner. Besides I do not need any new drama on the drive home. The morning’s adventure was enough. She informs me at this point that the car is out of gas. We will be lucky to make it to a gas station.
Not being able to figure out how to get to the gas station at DFW although I can see it, I creep and coast to the nearest gas station I know of that of course is at the top of a hill. There I am out in the cold, in the wind, in the middle of the night, as the wife nods off in the car. I suspect this was really the only reason she went with me, so that I would have to gas up the car.
That is the end of this trip. Now if we can talk AA into publishing a sale fare from DFW to PNS you will have a trip report on the National Naval Aviation Museum next. The regular fare is way too much.
Last edited by Paint Horse; Nov 4, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Nov 4, 2011, 6:45 pm
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Texas
Programs: American Airlines British Airways
Posts: 1,752
I do suppose you could catch a taxi back and forth from the airport to the museum. It is not very far. The cost should not be very much. As the photograph of the motel shows I assume there is no shuttle service by the establishments in the museum area.
Once you get to the downtown area there is a tourist type bus service that covers a large area. Based on the wife's conference experience from a few years back, there are a reasonable number of things to do and see in the downtown area. The restaurant where we ate is easily walkable. The other recommended one is in one of the hotels.
I would suggest you make a contact at the Naval Air Station. There should be some common interests with some of the folks there. You might be able to arrange a tour there as well as the Lexington.