Sunset Paradise ...
Trip Start
Oct 06, 2006
1
13
76
Trip End
Sep 14, 2008
South Padre Island,
Texas,
United States
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Hello and how are you?
We hope you're doing well and will have a happy Thanksgiving Holiday! Finally we get around to update everyone on our trip and post some new pictures. Check out some more South Padre Island footage at http://philippschonger.spaces.live.com. Credit for these pictures goes mostly to Mariela! Thanks baby! Mariela and I are still on South Padre Island (SPI), Texas, and have been here for the last 4 weeks. The wind has been on and off over the last couple of weeks. The last week of October seems to have been more consistent than the month of November but in general there were more kiteable days than not. The weather has been consistently nice with blue skies most of the time and hardly any rain in November, temperatures in the upper 70s and 80s with an occasional "cold front" day or two where I chose wearing a full wetsuit to stay warm. There was a solid 6m day this last week, simply nuclear and fun! But besides the great kiting here on SPI ... one thing we never try to miss are the sunsets! I had numerous sunset sessions and they are simply amazing. Make sure to check out some of the pictures of Sunset Paradise.
Over a week and a half ago I twisted my ankle very badly. I was still on the wet and slippery sand (not on the water) with my kite up in the air, when I simply slipped and twisted my ankle. Yeah... stupid, I know, it wasn't even pulling a kite-loop! Anyways... I was out of commission for the week but have been kiting the last 3 days already with a bit of a stiff ankle - so no action photos this time, sorry L. I'm good to go now, but I learned my lesson that you have to be very careful, no matter what.
While I had some pain, this was nothing compared to what Mariela has had to deal with over the last 2 weeks. Her stomach ulcer has started to act up again and has caused her severe discomfort and pain. I won't go into details but her symptoms have been severe at times. She's basically been eating papaya and oat-meal only to not irritate her stomach any further. She's also started to take some medicine her doctor (her dad J) recommended and hopefully this will help. Let's all hope she'll get better soon.
Just before Mariela got sick we bought some tickets to fly to Austria from December 6th to January 16th to spend time with my family as well as to search for some snowkiting areas around where my parents live. Looks like there might be some places that have already been designated to snowkiting such as this snowkiting arena near
Innsbruck but I'm sure there are many more still to be discovered. Unfortunately with Mariela now being sick we might need to change our plans. Traveling that far adds a lot of stress which doesn't help someone who has an ulcer. The cold might also have a negative impact on her stomach. We'll see... So, we're a bit up in the air about what to do about this and our plans could change last minute. If we don't make it to Austria for Christmas and New Years, we'd probably stay in the warm climate and head to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras until April or May 2007, and then go to Europe for the summer. We will need to find a place where Mariela can get better without any stress.
Well... now you're pretty much up-to-date with what's going with us. Oh before I forget... we had some visitors from Seattle, namely Tom and Rose here on SPI and now for the next two weeks Tony and Carol from Stevenson (in the Gorge) are visiting. It's great to see some familiar faces and we hope to see many more wherever we go. We miss all of you!
Until then!
- Mariela & Philipp
