Rockport & Fulton, Texas

From the top, I will just say that our Rockport stay was too short.  There was too much left undone for my satisfaction, but that will give me something to look forward to should we get to return.

Our first night there we drove down to the Fulton Harbor just as the fishing boats were coming in for the day. These are not the yachts and pleasure craft of the last post, but rugged working vessels, rusty and grimy. We watched them unload their wares as the fog began to roll in.

Mere steps from where I took these photos was the Moondog Seaside Eatery.

We asked to be seated on the patio, but asked to by moved inside before we ordered since the heavy fog was getting chilly.

We enjoyed our meal much better without the shivering.

Our server assured me the crab cakes were good and she was right--fat, well seasoned with bits of sauted celery and onion, topped with a nice dill sauce.  I had a side of sweet potato fries.  Bobby had shrimp--see a pattern starting to develop?  Unfortunately it was too dark and the pictures did not look appetizing, which is a shame, because it was delicious.  Most of the clientele seemed to be local which are the kind of places we seek out.  The service was fair--we could have used more tea refills.

I had an afternoon to kill while Bobby was working that I spent at Rockport Harbor.

Only in Texas

The aquarium is closed just one day a week.  Guess what day I was there.

Now we're talking crab cakes!

Funny side story:

Years ago when I was still a kid at home we were on a family vacation and stayed a day or two at Rockport.  It was there that we experienced our worst restaurant ever. The Rusty Anchor has gone down in history and family lore as the symbol of dining at its lowest.  It looked innocuous enough going in--tables, chairs......And you would think, right there at the coast you could expect real seafood, right? Wrong.  In hindsight, our first clue came when the waitress seated us, waved nonchalantly behind her as she departed and said the now infamous words: "Help yourself to the salad bar."  She was using that term loosely.  There was a bowl of wilted lettuce, some other bits and pieces, and all this proudly displayed sans a sneeze guard. That was the defining moment we should have kept walking past it and right out the door.  We didn't.  We ordered fish dinners--I don't remember the make or model--but will never forget, some long while later, she brought to our table......fish sticks!  Burnt, tough fish sticks!  I can say that disastrous meal has provided us more laughter and jokes through the years that it almost made up for the crime that it was!

When we were headed to Rockport this time, I told my folks I would look up the Rusty Anchor for them, full well knowing it had to have gone out of business days after we left it years ago!  On the afternoon of my walk-about, this cafe caught my eye:

My apologies to Crazy Rusty for any dubious associations of horrors past.

"Help yourself to the salad bar" = code for "Get the heck outta here!"