Indianola, Texas, is reported to be a ghost town. We’ve seen some ghost towns in our day. Some have a lot and some have a little but most of them have something. In Indianola’s case (and admittedly we didn’t look too hard) all we saw were some plaques indicating where things used to be.
You should be able to click on this photo to enlarge it and read.
Honestly, we were not too disappointed that Indianola’s Ghostly Image was lacking in actual buildings and such. It has a really neat history remnants or not. Besides, we weren’t there for the apparitions. We were there because you can stay right on the bay or (in our case) the lakeside for the low low price of ‘free’.
We’d been looking forward to getting back near the water but were surprised to
also see a lot of blooming going on.
The Lantana was blooming in all sorts of colors (this photo and previous).
We’re still working on identification of the new flowers.
Meanwhile, just enjoy the colorful show as we did - sans the particulars.
Most of them are new for us and probably in the ‘weed’ category.
Like this one which is possibly Blue Eyed Grass.
We’ve got nothing against weeds this pretty.
An unexpected visitor to our photo.
Pretty sure this is Stachys Sylvatica.
Firewheel aka Indian Blanket just starting out.
In its glory.
Close-up of the Firewheel’s Friend.
Pretty sure at least one (perhaps all) of these next three are called Wind Flowers.
Whatever they are, they had quite an impressive little cone.
This will forever be known as the Musket Flower in our book because when she
first saw it Darlene said to Nicole, “Oh, musket flower. Musket flower!” To
which Nicole responded, “O.K. Let me get my camera ready.” Nicole then said,
”Wow, I know that plant but I’ve never heard it called a Musket Flower.” When
she had finished a really good laugh Darlene then clarified, “No, I said MUST GET
FLOWER.” She meant that Nicole should take a picture of it!
She took several.
A close up of the Sea Purslane flower (aka Musket Flower).
The Mountain Laurel bloom was just beautiful!
It hosted these very large seed pods.
Coral Bean aka Cherokee Bean
Yucca pre-bloom
Yellow Primrose considering a presence.
In full glory
Done but still pretty
Pea Family
It wasn’t all flowers. This Green Lacewing stuck around for a
bit and tolerated a camera nearly touching its wings.
It was so relaxed that it started showing off its Spiderman-like abilities.
Not to mention those eyes!
There was yet another arachnid butt surprise waiting upon computer review of
these (we think) Crow Poison flowers.
When you are so focused on focusing your focus on something so tiny (the flower)
it can be difficult to see something even tinier (the spider - butt).
Wading Willet
Flying Willet
This fella thought he’d get a better look at the fracking mess that the fracking dust
combined with rain made on our windows when we drove down the Gate Guard Highway. He’s on our back window, by the way. It and the rest of the van was freshly speckled.
Have you ever seen those little gnats that swarm around the flowers in the grass?
We count four on the yellow flower in the above photo.
Did you know that they are secretly laughing at you and your ‘Ewe, they’re all
over me’ dance?
Speaking of flying and potentially biting and stinging things. Nicole took one for the team to grab this close up. Imagine trying to hold the camera still while this one is chomping down.
And now back to a few pretty things to ease your mind...
Assumed to be in the Nightshade Family.
In the pretty little yellow flowers family.
The anticipation of what this will be is so awesome.
Speaking of awesome. Isn’t this dried up version of whatever it is that looks
like a flower... awesome!?
New Discovery #1: This pretty purple flowered vine.
New Discovery #2: Nicole can get her camera to look down inside.
Male and Female Ruddy Ducks - Lifers for us!
The Paintbrush were out in force
and looking spectacular.
Our first evening in this wonderful spot ended with the makings of a pretty nice sunset over the water. We went to sleep in anticipation of a nice long stay in this location.
With it, however, anticipation does not bring result. We were awoken in the middle of the night to some really fierce wind and driving rain. Now, we’ve been through plenty of both of those and normally the small profile of our little rig tends to shake them off pretty well. On this particular night though something was different. There was a knocking on the roof and a vibration all along it. The solar panel appeared to be catching and upward draft of some sort. We started up the van and attempted to reposition her. Then we opened the front doors to remove our screens so that they wouldn’t get torn. In the process the driver’s door was ripped out of Nicole’s hands and getting it closed completely was more difficult than it should have been.
So.... with a wonderful day behind us we opted to store those memories and make the one a.m. trek inland to Wally World where we hunkered down on the windless side of the building between many other vehicles and promptly passed out!
All things considered, it felt really good to have finally gotten back to the coast.
