We spent a second quiet night on South Padre Island before packing up to head towards Houston. Siri told us Houston was a little over 5 hours driving for a normal car, and we didn’t want to spend that much time on the road, so we decided to veer off at Corpus Christi and spend a night on Padre Island at the Padre Island National Seashore.
When we were researching this trip and decided to try to hit National Parks and state capitals, we didn’t realize how many small National Parks are in the US. It wasn’t until we were looking online for places to camp that we even realized that Padre Island is a National Seashore, which is not quite a National Park because it’s not big enough, but it’s still managed by the National Park Service. This was great news to us, and is, for us, the unofficial start of our adventure in the US because this is where we bought our annual National Park pass, which we can now use in all National Parks for the next year.
When we were researching this trip and decided to try to hit National Parks and state capitals, we didn’t realize how many small National Parks are in the US. It wasn’t until we were looking online for places to camp that we even realized that Padre Island is a National Seashore, which is not quite a National Park because it’s not big enough, but it’s still managed by the National Park Service. This was great news to us, and is, for us, the unofficial start of our adventure in the US because this is where we bought our annual National Park pass, which we can now use in all National Parks for the next year.
Tom is getting our National Parks pass and getting information about camping on the beach.
We hit a speed bump too hard on the way to the park office and flipped the air ride sensor again. This time, knowing what he was doing, Tom had it fixed in about 15 minutes. This is also where we had our first boondocking on the beach experience, which made us a little tense but turned out to be fantastic. At the National Park booth, Tom asked about camping. The Padre Island National Seashore has two established campgrounds, Malaquite Beach and Bird Island, but if you drive onto the beach after the road ends, you can park anywhere, and unlike the established campgrounds, it’s absolutely free once you’ve paid to enter the park. After the road ends, the Park Service maintains about 5 miles of beach road and keeps them passable for 2WD vehicles, and after that there are another 55 miles of unmaintained beach, some of which is passable with 4WD, and some of which isn’t. Our truck is 4WD, but it weighs 8 tons, and having never done this before we only ventured about a half a mile down the beach before we decided we’d gone far enough. We seem to have hit the sweet spot in timing, after many kids have gone back to school and before the snowbirds arrive, and we didn’t even see any other campers on the beach in sight of where we decided to park. We did see some people fishing, and some just sitting in lawn chairs near their vehicles enjoying the surf and the quiet. We’d read stories about people parking for the night and waking up stuck in the sand because the tide had come up in the night, so even though it was a new moon and we didn’t think there would be much time, Tom walked a little way down the beach to ask some people if we were safe and out of the way where we were parked. They told us it was fine to park right next to the “road” and that people would just go around us, and that the spot next to the road was safely above the tide, so we turned around so we were facing the way we’d come in, and moved just a little bit away from the surf.
We had a perfectly lovely evening, and a great night’s sleep. All of the fishermen and surf watchers left around dark, and there were no other people or vehicles in sight. In the morning, we got up and walked two miles down the beach, where we saw on guy camped in a van, one other camper trailer, and one camper trailer being pulled out past us. We decided to get our motos out of the truck and go further down the beach to see what we could see, but when we did that after breakfast it was just more of the same - surf and dunes and birds. We went a mile or so past the 5 mile point to where the sand road started getting soft, and turned around and rode back. It wasn’t the most adventurous ride, but it was fun to get the bikes out and use them.
We had a perfectly lovely evening, and a great night’s sleep. All of the fishermen and surf watchers left around dark, and there were no other people or vehicles in sight. In the morning, we got up and walked two miles down the beach, where we saw on guy camped in a van, one other camper trailer, and one camper trailer being pulled out past us. We decided to get our motos out of the truck and go further down the beach to see what we could see, but when we did that after breakfast it was just more of the same - surf and dunes and birds. We went a mile or so past the 5 mile point to where the sand road started getting soft, and turned around and rode back. It wasn’t the most adventurous ride, but it was fun to get the bikes out and use them.
We parked next to the dunes and wined and wordled on the beach with the dogs.
…so you can see the dunes and the sea.
While walking the dogs in the morning, we saw more turtle nests marked.
After a quick lunch, we packed up and headed towards Houston to visit with Kathy, Kismet’s rescue angel. The drive was a mix of open sunny roads, and white knuckle misery because we got caught in a couple of what I suspect were microbursts with fierce wind and blinding sideways rain, on a busy highway with semis flying past. As we came into Houston the weather cleared which made the driving better, although we’re still getting used to cars going between 75 and 85 miles an hour and blowing past our 60mph cumbersome rig.
Kathy met us at a gas station right off the highway to guide us to her house. We never realized how beautiful the city of Houston is, with huge live oaks lining the streets. It still made us a little tense after the Merida tree debacle, but Kathy assured us that big moving trucks go through all the time, and we had no trouble at all either in or out.
Kathy, of course, let us keep the dogs in the house, which is where Kismet lived for a few months before we picked her up in Houston 10 years ago. She seemed to remember Kathy and a couple of Kathy’s dogs who were there when she was, and immediately made herself at home, which of course made Ty and Princh figure they could make themselves at home too. We went out for a fabulous Italian dinner, and in the morning after a walk through the beautiful streets with the dogs, Kathy took me to Central Market, which is the HEB version of Whole Foods.
We’d done a quick shop at the Walmart when pulled into Brownsville, but this was the first time I’ve been in a real upscale US supermarket in four years. I was in heaven! In Belize, we can always get what we need, but choices are limited and there are times when some items just aren’t available. Mexico has more choices, but there were some things I just couldn’t find in Mexico. For example, none of the stores have plain black tea. They have every herbal flavor you can imagine, and I finally found a small box of Twinings English Breakfast Tea to get us to the US, but no plain black tea. I also couldn’t find plain panko bread crumbs. They have other kinds of bread crumbs which I can’t use because many have milk that Tom can’t eat, and all sorts of flavored and seasoned breadcrumbs, but no plain panko crumbs. Central Market has everything, and it’s all gorgeous. I got produce, and bagels, and different cheeses, as well as having choices for all the normal stuff like tea and breadcrumbs. I think Kathy may have thought I was a little nuts because I was so happy, but she understood because she checked to make sure there were Central Markets Austin and Dallas so I can visit again before we leave Texas.
We visited a little more with Kathy, and headed for Austin in the early afternoon. After getting out of the Houston traffic, it was a fairly easy drive, and we met NJ/high school friends at the Salt Lick Barbeque in Driftwood for some real Texas food. We’re now parked on the side street by their house, and will be here a couple of days before heading north. John is a professional photographer, so some good photos will follow.
Kathy met us at a gas station right off the highway to guide us to her house. We never realized how beautiful the city of Houston is, with huge live oaks lining the streets. It still made us a little tense after the Merida tree debacle, but Kathy assured us that big moving trucks go through all the time, and we had no trouble at all either in or out.
Kathy, of course, let us keep the dogs in the house, which is where Kismet lived for a few months before we picked her up in Houston 10 years ago. She seemed to remember Kathy and a couple of Kathy’s dogs who were there when she was, and immediately made herself at home, which of course made Ty and Princh figure they could make themselves at home too. We went out for a fabulous Italian dinner, and in the morning after a walk through the beautiful streets with the dogs, Kathy took me to Central Market, which is the HEB version of Whole Foods.
We’d done a quick shop at the Walmart when pulled into Brownsville, but this was the first time I’ve been in a real upscale US supermarket in four years. I was in heaven! In Belize, we can always get what we need, but choices are limited and there are times when some items just aren’t available. Mexico has more choices, but there were some things I just couldn’t find in Mexico. For example, none of the stores have plain black tea. They have every herbal flavor you can imagine, and I finally found a small box of Twinings English Breakfast Tea to get us to the US, but no plain black tea. I also couldn’t find plain panko bread crumbs. They have other kinds of bread crumbs which I can’t use because many have milk that Tom can’t eat, and all sorts of flavored and seasoned breadcrumbs, but no plain panko crumbs. Central Market has everything, and it’s all gorgeous. I got produce, and bagels, and different cheeses, as well as having choices for all the normal stuff like tea and breadcrumbs. I think Kathy may have thought I was a little nuts because I was so happy, but she understood because she checked to make sure there were Central Markets Austin and Dallas so I can visit again before we leave Texas.
We visited a little more with Kathy, and headed for Austin in the early afternoon. After getting out of the Houston traffic, it was a fairly easy drive, and we met NJ/high school friends at the Salt Lick Barbeque in Driftwood for some real Texas food. We’re now parked on the side street by their house, and will be here a couple of days before heading north. John is a professional photographer, so some good photos will follow.