TWO DAYS TOURING CORPUS CHRISTI

Thanks to the power of advertising and Ana's desire to "go somewhere" before her one year gig starts Monday at Valley Baptist Hospital, we made a pleasant two day run through Corpus Christi.

"I want to go to Corpus Christi to buy seafood," Ana had been telling me.

A place called Paul's Seafood Market had been advertising online "blue crabs and fresh shrimp $4.99 lb."

In no more than 30 seconds, Ana bought 5 lbs of blue crabs, 5 lbs of shrimp and some frog legs.  "Paul's" threw the ice in for free.

Our next stop was the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center where we cavorted with butterflies in a screen enclosed nursery and hummingbirds in another.

A tour of the USS Lexington, walking down tiny metal steps several floors down to the engine room, reminded me that anyone joining the U.S. Navy need not be claustrophobic.

Ana's big takeaway, though, was seeing a map on the the wall inside the huge ship, depicting the "Battle of the Philippine Sea," one of the fiercest battles of WWII, fought June 19, 20, 1944.

"That happened even before my father was born," exclaimed Ana.

Filipinos, particularly the older generation, hold Americans in high regard.

In the center of Manila, the capital, is a cemetery considered sacred ground with 10,000 graves of American soldiers.

Former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos requested burial privileges there, but was denied by the Philippine Senate because he "did not qualify."

For lunch we drove to the outskirts of the city to sample Filipino cuisine at the Lumpia House.

Corpus Christi, a disjointed city of over 300,000, with several highway construction detours, would be almost impossible to navigate without GPS.

Fortunately, the tourist spots, museums, the aquarium and the USS Lexington are clustered downtown adjacent the sea.