From Pirates to The Big Tree...Goose Island State Park

How can you beat a Pirate breakfast? The Resort put this on for everyone so we were there bright and early.....well, 9AM anyway.

They were prepared for a crowd.

Pancakes.....plain, chocolate chip, or blueberry anyone?

And bacon or sausage or both....please!

Plus coffee and orange juice.

Yummy breakfast!

You can tell we all enjoyed it.

 

Every bite of it! 

They even brought around more coffee and orange juice.

As soon as we were all done with breakfast, we headed out to Goose Island State Park to see the big tree! The Big Tree is estimated to be over 1000 years old probably closer to 2000 years old. Also called the Lamar Oak because it is located near the old town of Lamar which was destroyed in the Civil War.

Other large trees can be climbed on just because they know kids will do that.

The Big Tree is 35 feet in circumference, 45 feet tall, and has a crown spreading over 95 feet and it is protected by a rail fence. It has survived between 45 and 50 hurricanes, droughts, and other disasters. It was named the largest tree in Texas in 1969 but is now second to one found in Brazoria County in 2003.

There are also many smaller things to look at that are also very interesting.

The Big Tree to your right and the Gulf of Mexico to your left.....what more can you ask to see.

Well, we wanted to see the camping areas in case we came again. There are numerous camping spots right next to the beach like this.

Some repair work was in progress maybe from storm surge. It is pretty flat in this area.

There is a really long lighted pier for fishing.

There were bags of these shells bagged up by the pier.

We also toured the other camping areas which are much larger in the woods. Many of them were really nice very private sites.

Next on the agenda was a trip to a winery for wine tasting.

Some people got there before we did.

However, there was plenty of room for us.

They had two long bars all set up.

After we did the tasting and picked up some wine to take home, we headed out to Paradise Key for dinner.

It's a very large restaurant with inside and outside seating.

We only had to wait about 10 minutes before they had a table set up to seat all of us.

Dinner was really good and there was a wide variety of food to choose from.

Another great day in paradise!