Oct 24, 25 - South Padre Island, Texas

The four of us decided to head over to South Padre, a barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico, for a couple of nights, to complete our south Texas experience. South Padre is the Texas version of Florida's Fort Lauderdale, and South Carolina's Myrtle Beach. A great beach and a great play area for young people in the right season. Every water sport imaginable can be done here and then you can boogie down at one of the many night spots on the 3 mile long strip.

It is also a great place for what are referred to here as Winter Texans. Isla Blanca RV Park has over 600 spaces and they are full from mid November though to April with seniors seeking warmth from the northern winters. All over this part of South Texas there are huge RV parks, right now sitting mostly empty but soon to swell with new arrivals.

Isla Blanca is a well worn RV park and the amenities are sorely in need of some improvements. The washrooms leave much to be desired. The park will close for much of 2018 for major renovations, and not a moment too soon. Our stay was fine, the place is mostly empty right now, so there is no pressure on the facilities, and even with that, the women's toilets were a mess by our departure.

Here is a shot of G&K's Airstream crossing the bridge to the Island.

For posterity, here is George fueling us his new RAM pick-up for the first time...19.25 gallons, at $2,18 a gallon.

After parking the trailers we drove up past the inhabited part of the island to the end of the road, about 10 miles. Here the wind is moving the dunes over the road and we came upon some horse back riders coming back from the beach.

We stopped at the Visitor Center for Wi-Fi access. The town has many semi-permanent sand castles set up and hosts a huge sand castle building cost each year. These sand castles have been sprayed with a mixture of glue and water to preserve them for quite a few months before they have to be rebuilt.

We also had lunch at Dirty Al's, a seafood joint right beside our campground. Jenny and I had a shrimp Po-boy and G&K shared a blackened fish Po-Boy...we all had a beer. Karmen also bought some fresh Gulf shrimp to add to a Gumbo for our supper that evening.

Oct 25 - I was up early to get in a power walk to work off all this excess food we have been eating and when I finished the sun was just beginning to come up our over the Gulf.

You can see lots of oil rigs off on the horizon, and there is a new pipeline being built to carry local oil to Brownsville and Corpus Christi refineries. The oil economy is everywhere in Texas.

We spent the morning at the Birding Centre, where well over 200 species of birds pass through on their migrations north and south. The boardwalk provides opportunities galore to spot birds.

This is just a sample of the birds we saw on our two plus hour walk along the boardwalk.

We also spotted one turtle:

After the birding centre we went to Sea Turtle Inc. the sea turtle rescue centre. They have been saving and rehabilitating sea turtles for 30+ years and have several turtles that have been so damaged they cannot be released back into the wild. They use these rescue turtles to educate the public about the dangers of humans to the turtles. A well spent 2 hours here.

Finally, a reward. We headed over to Padre Island Brewery for Happy Hour. $8 growler fills (George filled 2 of them) and oysters for $0.75 each. We downed 24 of the little guys and all had a pint of beer. A great way to end our exertions for the day.

We finished the day with Pizza at Gabriella's Italian Grill and Pizzeria, one of the island's best light dining experiences. We shared a Soprano Pizza. Here they serve pizza with a salad and garlic bread...interesting. Most of us drank wine, but George stuck to beer. A great ending to our stay on the island.

We boogied back to Mission on the morning of October 26. Jenny and I will hang out here until Monday morning, enjoying the company of our good friends before beginning the 2,990 mile journey home on Monday.