On the coast

A short business trip earlier this month gave us a chance to visit—briefly—a part of the state we don't get to much anymore. We spent a couple of days in Corpus Christi, and I was looking forward to enjoying sea views...

...but this is what you could see from our hotel balcony when we first arrived:

It was like this into the next morning, but things did start slowly clearing...

So before we left for home, we took a drive along the bay (where the photo at the top of the post was taken) to Cole Pier Park for at least a brief up-close glimpse of the coast. 

The link above tells you that it was recently refurbished, and we were impressed with how sturdy, neat, and artistic it was. Here's a close-up of the canopies that probably afford some shade on sunny days (of course, we didn't need that protection!):

And here's a look back toward land, along the pier, showing part of the very nice park from which the pier juts out:

a happy in-lander enjoying time on the water

As you might be able to tell from the photos above, not only did we not have to contend with sun, but no waves either; the water was practically flat, it was so still:

There are other things to see in Corpus, of course, but we didn't have time to do much more sightseeing. However, the view away from the bay out our hotel window was also interesting...

And on the way out of town, among the many, many oil refinery towers and tanks, I spotted this very attractive church. I couldn't figure out from googlemaps what it's called, though. Can any of my readers with Corpus expertise tell me?