San Antonio to South Padre Island, Texas
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2007
1
13
18
Trip End
Ongoing
South Padre Island, Texas, United States
Friday, March 28, 2008
Instead of doing one big blog, I think what I need to do is individual ones based on destinations. That's the only way I know how to keep the map accurate. As a result, you will get several e-mails instead of just one. Sorry 'bout that.
2/7/08
We put on our San Antonio tourist "T's" and drove to Corpus Christi, passing, by the way, a battleship
On the beach
. I've heard that if you've seen one, you've seen them all, but I'm not convinced. Besides, I'm battleshipped out for now. We drove out to Mustang Island and stayed at a KOA in Port Aransas. Folks there were pretty snobbish as far as we were concerned, but it was an attractive park just the same. The full moon over the Gulf made for a lovely sight. It was bright enough we didn't need a flashlight to pick up the dogs deposits and dark enough that city lights didn't interfere with the stars in the night sky. There are millions and millions and millions and.............We vegetated there for a couple days, then headed on down to South Padre Island. That's about as far south as you can drive and not be in Mexico. It's a significant destination for migrating birds. We saw so many water birds and watching the pelicans (both brown and white) was fascinating. The KOA where we stayed used to be some sort of industrial site and after the clean-up they kept two huge water towers. (short but fat). They converted one to the camp office, restrooms, laundry room, and a couple of condos. The other one was converted to a gameroom/kitchen/exercise room. I'm assuming they were water tanks and not some sort of chemical storage because the employees looked reasonably healthy.
The east side of the island is on the Gulf and the west side is on Laguna Madre, the least popular side but the side where we had the most fun
Just like snow
. We could drive out onto the beach and not see anyone else. We were able to let the dogs off their leashes and have a grand ole time watching them tear around chasing birds and splashing thru the water. You could walk out into the water a hundred yards and it would still only be up to your ankles. After three days of driving out through the sand I started to feel a little cocky about the abilities of our four wheel drive. The last trip back and about fifty feet before reaching the road, I didn't have quite enough momentum and I buried the truck up to its axles. I wasn't even completely out of the truck to survey my situation when a half dozen people stopped to ask if I needed help. Everyone loves to play with their four wheel drives. We were back on the road in a jiffy.The wind is constantly blowing and moving great quantities of sand. A huge front loader travels up and down the road keeping it clear. They do this daily or the road would soon disappear.
Other than being foggy and damp in the mornings we had great weather and stayed 10 days. The only down side to the campground was that we were packed in pretty tight. We were close enough to our neighbors we couldn't let out awning down. Brother Ralph and wife Bev from Dallas came to S. Padre to spend some time with friends vacationing there. We were able to meet up for dinner and spend another afternoon visiting. We also got some stuff from them that was left over from their "camping" days. You just can't have too much stuff.
While at S. Padre we got out first workamper offer. May the 15th we need to be at a new park in Larimer County, Colorado called Hermit Park. Its in the same area as Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park.. Hermit Park used to be owned by Hewlet-Packard but they sold it to Larimer County last year. We will be their first campground hosts and we are very excited about that.
