Monday, January 30th, 2006 - The seashore at Padre Island National Sea Shore.

As planned we were up before dawn, had a bowl of cereal, and went out to walk along the beach. Our main aim was to find some nice seashells. The shells were not as plentiful as at our campground in South Padre Island, but in a way that allowed us to better scan for and examine each one we found. We came up with some Coquina Clams, a couple of Atlantic Cockles, some nice examples of Iris Tellin, two Saw-Toothed Pen Shells, one Scotch Bonnet, and pieces of Moon Snail, Lettered Olive, and Lightning Whelk shells. How do I know that? Well, when we stopped at the Visitor Center we picked up a one page guide to "Shelling Along the National Seashore", and on the back of it they had conveniently drawn pictures of the 15 most commonly found shells. We had already found a nice example of a Sundial shell at South Padre Island and a Sand Dollar in Florida during Wanderung 1, so we actually had a fair number of those 15 common shells plus a couple of pieces of coral.

Down at the edge of the sand exposed by the low tide were holes made by the burrowing of ghost crabs. For the most part they looked like miniature volcanoes in the sand, but some of them had intriguing patterns around the "volcano" such as a double ring or a network of "drainage canals" or some such thing. It was almost like looking at a Martian landscape, but of course it was much more evanescent as it would all be erased by the next incoming tide. In that sense it reminded me of the equally ephemeral cloud formations that I had seen while flying my airplane. I often wished I had a camera with me to capture the grace and grandeur of the ethereal castles, halls, and temples that are created from the boiling mists of clouds.

The actual sunrise was obscured for the longest time by a low lying bank of fog, but the sun finally burned through that and lit up the beach. I was particularly intrigued by the way the sun shined through a broken piece of a Saw Toothed Pen Shell that was embedded in the sand right next to the incoming waves. The sun glowed a warm yellow while shining through it, almost like a piece of stained glass.

Various sea birds kept us company on our walk, of course, and when we got back to camp the Great Blue Heron that had watched us the previous afternoon was once again standing sentry duty on the top of a dune next to the campground. The story I got from the Ranger was that this heron was watching for the fishermen who he would then pester into giving him some of their catch, or at least a little bait. I don't know if that story was true or not, but it would explain why that heron seemed quite used to the presence of humans in general and totally unafraid of us in particular.

We had a second breakfast after our walk and then joined the Ranger for a guided beach walk at 11 a.m. She really knew a lot about the flora and fauna despite being at Padre Island for only about 6 weeks, and that was impressive. We found out about the ghost crabs, the various species of gulls and other birds patrolling the shoreline, and the types of seaweed and animals that were washed up on the shore. We also collected various plastic bottles and pieces of Styrofoam that came floating by, and at the end of the one-hour walk had a sizable bag full. The confluence of two currents around the Gulf in the Padre Island area tends to push a lot of the flotsam and jetsam up on the beach. Some of it is natural stuff like mats of seaweed, but quite a lot is man made pollution.

At the end of the walk we jumped in the truck and drove into Corpus Christ for lunch. On the way out we watched a pack of coyote stalking in the grass.

After lunch we checked out the modern version of the old tongue twister, "She sells solar cells by the sea shore." Unfortunately the store in question did not actually stock any solar cells but rather special ordered them for their building projects, which was no real use for us. I also failed to find a gas station that would refill our empty propane bottle, which was kind of surprising considering we were in a resort area with a decent number of RV parks. We at least successful in doing our grocery shopping on the way back to the trailer so we had a full larder from which to choose our dinner. After dinner we read until the batteries in our fluorescent lantern finally failed. We were only getting 8-10 hours of light per set of batteries, and replacing the 4 alkaline D cells cells made a noticeable dent in our daily budget. That's when I decided to start searching for Light Emitting Diode lanterns for reading that should last more like 20-40 hours for each set of batteries. Not wanting to use the trailer lights, which would run its battery down rather quickly, we just turned in early that night.