Port Aransas Sand Fest Part 3

We made our final trip to the island today.  At least until December when we get back to Portobelo Village for the Winter.  The Sand Fest doesn’t end until tomorrow afternoon but we will be pulling out in the morning.  I guess for anyone thinking of going to the Sand Fest next year or whenever, I would recommend going the last day only.  There wasn’t much change from Friday to Saturday.  Of course we left there about noon today.  The wind was blowing a gale so of course so was the sand.  The first picture is one I took yesterday and the second one today.  You can see there has been a lot of wind damage to the advertising mound.

 

They were still working on the sculptures to be judged on Sunday and they were more advanced then yesterday but who knows what they will end up.  I am just going to put the pictures in without comment.  It is really amazing what they can do with just sand.

This link is to photos from past events.  Hope you enjoy.

http://www.texassandfest.com/photos.htm

Port Aransas Sand Fest Part 2

We went back to the island today.  This was the first official day of the festival.  We left the motor home about 1:30pm and when we crossed the first bridge leaving Aransas Pass they had a sign up saying the wait on the ferry was 1 hour and 15 minutes.  We took that with a grain of salt since we have seen it say 30 minutes and we drove right on …… but that wasn’t the case this time we ran into a line of cars just passed the sign that said 2 miles to the ferry.  From there on it was stop and wait at least 5 minutes then drive about a block to wait again.  From the point we got to the line till we drove off the ferry in Port Aransas was 1 1/2 hours.

When we got to the festival we ran into a solid line of parked cars and no place to park.  We ended up walking about 3/4 of a mile to the festival.  It seems that Friday is not a great day to go.  The carvers or sculptors started at 9am and although what they had done was impressive they wouldn’t be finished until Saturday or Sunday.  We will only see what is done up to when we leave Saturday.  The following pictures will show their progress on the advertising carving that I had in the last posting.

 

The castle that was under construction Wednesday was also finished.

These are some of the works that are being made.  I will have better pictures tomorrow and they should have a lot more done to them.

I think this is finished but if not will show it more later.

This is the finished scene at the lessons location.

We plan on going back in the morning and hope to beat the traffic and hopefully get to park a little closer.

Port Aransas Sand Fest Part 1

We drove over to the island today to see if they were practicing for the Sand Castle Festival Contest that begins on Friday.  We didn’t see any practice unless these two were practicing.

The interesting thing about this picture of the castle, is this is what it looked like when we first walked by but about 10 minutes later we walked by and the arches had fallen down and he was in the process of re-building them.  He didn’t seem to be too excited about it.

They were working on a large advertising carving.  They had several carvers working on it.

We heard they would be giving lessons a little further down the beach on Friday, so we drove down to see if we could locate where they would be and we found this.

The man that did this will be giving the lessons.  In my opinion it has already been worth staying just for this but I imagine it will get much better.

More chores

I have gotten more done this winter than any other winter I have been in Texas.  No I haven’t been working all the time but I have accomplished more than usual.  My last job was to fix the seam between the back cap and the roof of the motor home.  A couple years ago I had to have the air conditioner in the bedroom replaced and while I was at the RV repair shop they ask if I wanted to put some caulking on the seams between the roof and the front and back caps.  Not knowing any better I agreed.  I got a bill for close to $250 and it said they had used about a dozen tubes of caulk.  This is what the front seam looks like so I guess they did.

In my opinion, they used quantity instead of quality.  The front seam is doing alright at this time.  It may be hard to tell but the seam is about 3 to 3 1/2 inches wide.

The problem was the back seam.  It had cracks that were 1/32 to 3/32 of an inch wide and running most of the way down the seam.  I went to a local RV supplier and he recommended a product called C-10 Flow Seal.  It is designed to be self leveling.  They said to clean the crack real good and then let the product flow into the cracks.

The problem was the cracks were too narrow to be able to clean down into them.  I started to widen the cracks and found they went all the way down to the bottom of the seam.

I went back out to the RV supply and explained what I had found and asked them if I needed to use something to keep the Flow Seal from running into the inside of the coach.  They recommended I use a butyl rubber caulking tape.  They said it would stay flexible and never harden.  I ended up making a “V” shaped groove that was close to 1/2” deep in order to get the joint clean.  It appears that 2 years ago the RV repair shop just put caulking on top of cracks instead of cleaning the cracks and surprise, surprise it just cracked again.

As you can see in the above picture, I folded the tape to double it and then pushed it down into the groove.

This is a picture of the groove about half full.  I filled it up to the top and smoothed the edges to blend into the rest of the caulking.

The next step was to completely clean all the caulk prior to covering it with the roof sealing tape.

The last step was to use the C 10 Flow Seal to cover the edges of the tape to ensure no wind can get under the tape.

I don’t know why the manufacturers don’t seal these seams better before they sell them.  The roof is fiberglass and these seams are the major area for leaking into the coach.  I don’t think I will ever have a problem with the back seam again.  I hope the front seam is OK.

OK enough ranting and raving.  We are the only ones left in Texas except for Larry and Catherine Johnson.  They have bought a trailer house in the park.  They are leaving a little earlier than we are.  I think they are leaving the 15th and we are leaving the 17th.

I thought you might enjoy this picture of some of our group at a local restaurant.

Jana Huffman got their Bacon Cheese Burger.  I have never seen anything like it.  She had to take at least half of it home.