Day 15 - 13 Jan - South Padre Island, TX

This was the most glorious of days! We slept in, sat in the sun with our coffee and watched the world go by and then unplugged the LuvMasheen and headed for the ‘end of the road’.
The island is quite small and there’s not much here but restaurants, hotels (and not too many of those), and a couple of amusement parks but about one half of this part of the island is still undeveloped and that’s what we wanted to see. The road only goes about one third the length of the island before you can’t drive any further…the majority is still undeveloped and one hopes it can stay that way. However, I suspect if Ty comes here in 20 years, the road will have been extended many miles further.
After the main street ended, there was a short distance of few buildings and then a housing development. We’re not talking just a regular development however. These ‘houses’ probably start at $2 million and go up from there. It looks as though they aren’t occupied yet and tomorrow I’m going to get a few photos of them…they are beautiful!
I would think building here, and paying that price for a house, would be quite precarious as the island is less than a mile wide at that point and they appear to be built almost at sea level. A real good storm producing high waves could see most of them coming up on the mainland shores!
The road was bordered on one side by the bay separating the island from the mainland and the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf side was all sand dunes and the strong winds mean what we saw today will probably be completely different from what we’ll see tomorrow. The sand is white and soft and once you are out of the wind, the sun was hot. The local govt has brought in those big rolled bundles of hay to lay throughout the dunes to help keep the sand from blowing away. It works and in many places plants and grasses have taken root in the dunes although there are no signs to keep people from walking over the dunes and displacing the plants. I suspect that’s because a lot of this land is privately owned but who knows. We walked up and down the beach, collecting shells and watching all the different birds picking food out of the surf. It’s still a few weeks early for the holiday crowd to arrive and we love that most places, including the beach, is almost empty. Kite flying is a big deal here, for all ages. We stopped at a long, hard, flat beach area on the Bay side and it’s almost exclusively used for flying kits. Everywhere you go here, there are kit shops selling the most amazing kites…some are beautiful.
We’ve decided that tomorrow we will take our chairs with us and find a secluded spot out of the wind and get a bit of sun. The LuvMasheen is so great to take anywhere as it’s small enough to park like a van but if we need a ‘potty’ or a hot cup of tea, it’s easily available.
A quick stop for fresh food on the way home and because it’s Sunday (I think), tonight’s dinner is pot roast, potatoes, and vegetables. Life is tough on the road! We are staying here two more nights which should be enough time for Wayne to plan the route for
the Mexican part of the trip.
Until tomorrow, love and hugs to all.