Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 - Drive to South Padre Island, Texas.

After breakfast we followed the path of the Rio Grande south and east toward Brownsville and the southernmost tip of Texas. From Falcon State Park the drive lasted a little over 3 hours, but that was at our quite sedate maximum speed of 55 miles per hour. The first section was only a 2-lane highway, but the shoulders were broad enough that I could pull over on the shoulders to let the vehicles behind me pass, a practice I got used to on the highways in Oklahoma many years ago. As we left the desert areas and entered more populated regions, the highway first became 4 lanes. Ultimately it transitioned into a real interstate, albeit one with lots of construction that repeatedly narrowed the lanes, and that was a nerve-wracking thing to cope with while towing the trailer.

Watching the transition from bare brush land to hardscrabble country settlements to prosperous coastal suburbs gave me a curious feeling of deja vu despite the fact that I had never been this way before. I finally figured out that the sequence of transitions was exactly the same as we had seen in central Florida during Wanderung 1 when we drove from the bare central "highlands" to the prosperous coastal areas. Folks in Texas had even planted the tall Royal Palms here and there along the streets, which enhanced the resemblance to Florida areas like Palm Beach.

We decided to try our luck at getting a campsite in Isla Blanca County Park on South Padre Island, so we turned off just before Brownsville and crossed a long, broad causeway to the island. A row of high-rise condominiums rose into the sky from the island as we drove toward it, and that reminded us of Ocean City, Maryland, and some areas of coastal Florida where we had seen similar high levels of development. Turning south off the causeway we stopped at the entrance gate to the park, only to be told that the registration office was a quarter of a mile back up the road! Fortunately there was room to turn the rig around, and by intensively staring at each building on the west side of the road we were finally able to correctly guess which one it was--there were no signs outside on the street nor any other real clue that this was where one had to sign in to enter the park.

The park had only "dry" campsites available, which in this case meant setting up our rig on an overflow parking lot. Obviously we had no water, electric, or sewer connections, but we were just across the road from the beach and thus had a beautiful view. I set the trailer up with our front window looking out at the pounding surf, and the low "whooshing" noise of the surf hitting the beach was very soothing to my nerves and, as it turned out, quite soporific. I fell asleep while Monika walked south on the beach a bit.

After my nap I also felt like a beach walk, so we ambled northward on the surf line where the wet sand made walking easy. Except for lacking a boardwalk, the development on South Padre Island really did resemble Ocean City, Maryland, to me with high-rises coming up to the beach. We even found a sand sculpture of a mermaid complete with long, braided tresses. One thing that seemed different about Padre Island is that it appeared to be more of a 4 season resort area whereas Ocean City is a mainly summer resort area. We were there during the "winter Texan" or snowbird time of year, and old fogies predominated--we saw almost no families with children. In contrast, the water park next to our campground was advertised to be only open during the summer season and was clearly designed to attract families with children. My sons informed me that college students from the Houston area tend to flood into South Padre Island for spring break, so that would be an economic shot in the arm for the spring season. I don't know if there is any fall influx of visitors, but I would guess that the water in the Gulf would be warm enough both in spring and fall to encourage some visitors to stay and swim, beach comb, or whatever.

However, during our visit the water was cool if not cold, and the surf was rough enough that they posted red warning flags for high surf and dangerous currents. Although no one was actually swimming in the water, we saw two people trying out their surfboards and a couple of guys on the beach were flying those fancy, maneuverable kites. Both looked like a lot of fun to me, maybe not as much fun as flying down the beach like a seagull or a pelican, but close. The flight of the pelicans was particularly graceful, and I was curious why they seemed to prefer to fly in rather tight formation, resembling nothing so much as military fighter jets on patrol. I expect that it is more efficient to fly in formation, or at least I have read that about the "V" formation that Canada geese use, but group flying may also serve some social function in the flock, or whatever you call a bunch of pelicans. I know that it is a "gaggle" of geese, but a "gaggle of pelicans" just doesn't sound right; how about a "passel" or a "posse" of pelicans? Monika thought it was a "patrol of pelicans", since they always seem to be flying in formation.

For the evening we were back on propane and battery power, so we just had a simple dinner of sandwiches, read a bit, and turned in for the night. In contrast to the nights we had camped in the desert, the outside temperature did not drop like a stone overnight but rather stayed in the high 50s. The advantage of that was that our heater never kicked on, and that in turn saved us both propane and battery power.