South Padre Island

Stardate 111709

Please note that there’s no “RV” in the Stardate date-time stamp. The RV is at home, in storage, and is moping, sniveling and whining because it’s not with us. We even farmed out Gizmo and Valentino to the Lakeside grandkidlets. Claudia and I packed our bags, locked the condo and trudged across the street to the Coaster, our local commuter train, and headed for the airport…destination, Houston.

After a short(?) flight, we arrived at Houston’s Hobby Airport where we were greeted by the Texas grandkidlets and their mother. After a short commute, we arrived at their home in League City and were warmly greeted by Marley, their not-too-purebred dog.



Two very aloof cats just looked on and allowed us into their castle without comment. As it was late, and tomorrow is a school day, we cut the reunion short and hit the sack.

The next morning, Claudia and I got up to an empty house, everyone else having already gone to school and work. We fixed breakfast and packed the car. Now, “the car” is a Ford Explorer that was recently bestowed on Rachael who just turned 16 and now has a learner’s permit. God help us all! She graciously allowed us to use it while we were here. We plugged “Karen”, our GPS with an Australian accent, into the power socket, and headed for Corpus Christi. We chose a not too direct route somewhat following the Intracoastal Waterway and arrived at the Marriott Courtyard late in the day.

We had great plans to visit Rockport, Port Aransas, Mustang Island, the Texas State Aquarium and the U.S.S. Lexington. Well, three out of five isn’t bad, especially since we got out of bed about 10:00 am and then went to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We left for our tour as the restaurant started getting slammed for lunch. Hey, we’re retired! Get off my case! The weather was threatening and we got a few sprinkles during the day. After our tour of Rockport, Port Aransas and Mustang Island, we returned to the Marriott to get ready or dinner. We again chose the Cracker Barrel for two reasons. One, the food is great and inexpensive and Two, it was now raining like hell. They say that everything is bigger in Texas and rainstorms and raindrops are no exceptions. It was coming down big time! We waited a half an hour and then sprinted to the car during a short lull. Dinner was some good comfort food. I had roast beef, pot roast style, with carrots, mashed potatoes and fried apples. Claudia had a shrimp plate. We then returned to the Marriott and prepared for our tour of the Lexington early tomorrow morning.

We woke up at 9:58 am! So much for “early”. We decided that we will do the Lexington and then see how our time shakes out. At this time, I suspect we will shine on the aquarium as we just did the Monterey Aquarium. But now, off for breakfast and the Lexington.

We found out the turn signals were not working on Rachael’s car. There was nothing in the service book for a fuse for the turn signals so we headed for the local Ford agency for a fix. They were less than helpful so we went next door to a NAPA store. I went inside while Claudia called Jeff for inspiration. I found out the turn signal/4-way flasher device is inside the steering column. Wonderful! Jacque then called and asked if I had adjusted the height of the steering wheel. “Yes”, I replied. “Put it back where it was and the turn signals will work”. “OK” I trudged back to the car, lowered the wheel to its original position…and they now worked! Must be a loose wire in the steering column. OK, fine! Drive it like it is and live with it. OK, I will! We continued on, stopping at an I-Hop for breakfast. We each had the Senior Special (which was on super-special today), two eggs, two pancakes and two pieces of bacon or sausage for four bucks and some loose change each. Yummy!

After a delicious breakfast, we headed for the Lex. The promised morning clearing hadn’t materialized as yet so we parked and ran for the ship in the rain. They had a shuttle van working so we hopped in and were driven right to the starboard (right) hanger elevator which now served as the entrance to the ship. We went straight to the Imax movie “Fighter Pilot”, the story of a pilot going through the Red Flag pilot training. (Red Flag is the Air Force version of the Navy’s Top Gun fighter school at Miramar) After the movie, we browsed around. I went inside a flight simulator of a jet fighter during a war patrol. It was cool but not as good as the real simulator I “flew” a few years ago. We continued our meandering, visited the Ship’s Store to buy a pin and headed back to the hotel.

Arriving at the Marriott, we shed out wet clothes, jumped into sweats and waited for the dinner hour. Tonight, we ate at a Chinese buffet. $11 each. I ate about $17.37 worth of food…and paid for it as soon as we got home. It was not pretty! We packed up for an early departure. This time, the alarm is set…for 6:00 am. We will be headed for the King Ranch for a cowboy breakfast.

Guess what…the alarm didn’t go off! I woke up a few minutes before 7:00 am. We jumped out of bed, turned on the coffee, got with the program, left the hotel before 8:00 and arrived at the King Ranch about 8:30. WHEW!!!! They parked us on muddy grass and we walked to the ticket tent. There were mega-persons there.



Must have been the $6.00 breakfast they were serving.



We watched some roping demonstrations, cowboy cooking demonstrations



and Texas Longhorns



being watched by a bunch of kids.



We then signed up for a nature tour at 2:30 and went into town to kill some time. The first place we hit was the King Ranch Saddle Shop where they make high-end leather goods. I saw a really nice engraved and embossed leather briefcase. Take a guess! Higher…MUCH higher! Would you believe $1,115.00? I put my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t accidentally break something. We left without purchasing anything. Sorry kids. No presents from here. We moseyed down to the King Ranch Museum and saw an 11’ 2” alligator that was taken from a pond on the ranch a few years ago. That eliminated any thought of a swim call! OK, back to the ranch for the tour.

We split our group of 12-15 into two groups, jumped into a pair of nine-passenger vans and took off. Our guide was a young lady (mid to late-20’s I’d guess) who had a masters degree in wildlife management. Her specialty was birds. Two passengers in the van knew just as much, if not more, than she did. Great! We wanted a nature tour, not a freakin’ feather frolic. We went on and our guide and the two know-it-all’s pointed out one redbrested yellow-beak knatcatcher after another. They then went ga-ga over some “raptor”.



I thought a “raptor” was a small prehistoric dinosaur that I saw in the Jurassic Park movie. Wrong! How silly of me! A “raptor” is another bird, a hawk, or something like a hawk, some bird that rips apart small animals or other birds into little bitty pieces and eats them. We then went by a pond and I spotted an alligator.



WOW…a real animal! That lasted a whole 20 seconds until Mrs. K-I-A spotted a yellow crested feather duster sitting on a limb and drew everyone’s attention to it. We moved on. I spotted another alligator. They spotted some more birds. I spotted some javalinas.



They spotted some more birds. We spotted some whitetail deer. They spotted some more birds. And so it went.

All in all, we did finally wind up spotting a bunch of critters (animals) and varmints (birds). I had some whitetails within 50 feet. One was missing its right antler



and another was a really good 10-point buck, a real trophy animal.



We spotted a 200# feral hog,



well within muzzleloader range and probably saw over 50 javelinas. I was less than 10 feet from one of them.

The biggest ‘gator we saw was about a six-footer. It was a good trip.

After returning to the ranch Visitor Center, Claudia and I took off for South Padre Island. I don’t like driving at night in Texas because of all the deer but we didn’t have a choice. We made it without incident, checked in and got all unpacked and settled by about 10:00. Claudia did a load of laundry, made two cups of hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows and we went to bed. The kids arrive tomorrow and the party begins! An odd thing just occurred. Everyone here is coughing and we are no exception. We found out why the next day. At the Visitor Center, the lady there told us there was a pretty significant red tide right now. A red tide is a plankton bloom and the rough surf throws a lot of bacteria in the air which causes everyone to cough constantly. All we can do is to drink a lot of water. Does beer count? It is mostly water. No? Rats! The red tide also kills fish, eels, and Portuguese Man-o-War jellyfish.

The beach was littered with rotting carcasses. You really had to watch where you walked to avoid getting spined. One fish, an estimated 35# jack crevalle, had a nice munch mark in its belly from a (probably) Bull shark.

After sleeping in late (you expected otherwise? Silly you!), we headed for WalMart to stock up with food and beverages. We succeeded in almost filling the back of Rachael’s car and should now be set for the week. We then drove the island to get an idea of where things are. We saw the sea turtle rescue center, a few very dilapidated buildings, several sunk and rotting shrimp boats

(probably victims of a previous hurricane), a tropical furniture store and a Bealls for a pair of good-looking flip-flops. I couldn’t find a gun store anywhere so I amused myself by listening to football games. Right now, the Chargers are up 7-0 over Denver.

The kids are here! We got the car unloaded but had to use two luggage carts due to all the pillows, games, food, suitcases, kites and other “necessary for a great vacation” stuff they brought with them. The weather looks like it will be good tomorrow but rain is forecast for Monday night and Tuesday so…tomorrow will be a beach day. The not-too-set-in-stone itinerary includes kite flying, walking, beach combing, shelling and other such non-strenuous sports.

After a great breakfast and lathering our moon-tanned bodies with SPF-30 suntan lotion, we all trudged to the beach and set up the blankets, chairs and accompanying accouterments. The first order of business was to check out the temperature of the ocean. Hmmm…not bad…about 70 degrees or so. However, with the red tide in progress, a jellyfish infusion and nasty aggressive bull sharks in the area, I decide to stay in the shallows. We don’t have bull sharks in California, but they have been described as “a nasty attitude with big teeth, fins and a tail”. We scored on a fairly nice selection of seashells

and a garden eel,

which was soon the center attraction in a sort of sand castle.

We then headed for the pool and soaked in the jaccousi for a while before returning to the room for lunch and showers. Boy, did that shower feel good! We are now awaiting sunset for an anticipated outstanding sunset picture looking back over the island causeway. With the approaching weather system, the sky should be spectacular. We shall see. It wasn’t! Now we have to wait for the rain tonight and tomorrow.

It didn’t! The morning dawned bright, sunny, beautiful and humid. Maybe this will be an outdoor day after all. The girls made reservations for horseback riding on the beach at 2:30 and we took off to visit the Sea Turtle Hospital and some shopping. At the hospital, there were numerous tanks with turtles of all sizes,

some whole and some with partial or full fin amputations. Four of the five local species were in residence. We got a great presentation of the life of a sea turtle and what they are doing to preserve them. About half-way through the presentation, we heard thunder. Shortly thereafter, the wind went from calm to “hang on” in about 0.3 seconds. It got pretty snotty real quick! We bailed out and headed for some inside shopping. All the stores had nothing but tourist crap or way overpriced decent items so we returned home for some clam chowder. Claudia then announced that “WE ALL are going to the movies” and that if I stayed home I would be labeled forever as a “show pooper”. The emphasis was definitely on the “we all” part. I decided to go to the movie.

We saw “Blind Side”, starring Sandra Bullock. Good movie! It was the true story of Michael Oher, an offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. We then tiptoed through the raindrops that were falling on the tulips and the grains of sand that were stinging all the exposed parts of our bodies, ran for the car and returned to the condo. No sunset tonight. Totally socked in. The ocean is not only “angry”, it is furious!

The wind is still blowing heavy today (Wednesday) and the ocean is still furious. Jacque and Jeff took off to see the lighthouse over in Port Isabel and have breakfast at Pier 19, a local bar, restaurant, fish market and fishing charter location. The girls are still scheduled for another try at horseback riding on the beach at 2:30. We shall see how things work out. I would guess that to be about 50-50 right now. Whoops…they just called Jacque. It’s going! Yahoo and yippie-ki-yay!

We moseyed down the island toward the stables but, as we were early, we stopped at a couple of tourist-trap souvenir joints on the way. Jacque and the girls checked in for the ride. They picked up some horse food and fed the horses and llamas. All was fine until the llama got pissed off about not getting enough food and started spitting at Jacque. She saw it coming but was not quite fast enough to get totally out of the way and caught a wad on her cheek. YUK! Anyway, the ride started. As soon as the wrangler unhooked Kyndi’s horse, it took off fast to catch up with the rest of the horses. I’m not sure what happened, but her horse made a turn at and up against a fence and Kyndi hit the ground. The wranglers checked her out, brushed her off and got her back on a new horse. She had a bump on her chin and scrapes on her arm and knee but was OK. She wanted to come back after the ride and punch out the horse, but we talked her out of that. We then headed for Port Isabel to see the lighthouse, a few stores and have dinner. After coming home, the girls made a salad for tomorrow and we killed the night in front of the TV set. Tomorrow, T-Day!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! The sun is out (somewhat) and the birds are chirping. The day is starting out great! J,J,K & R headed for the beach for a while and will return for some sightseeing later in the day. C & I are staying here while the kids are beaching it. We did some cleaning (yeah, I helped…a little) and some “research” on the Internet (mostly about hunting, Texas hunting laws and dreaming about “needed” supplies to be picked up this weekend at Academy Sports and Bass Pro Shops).

Dinner time soon arrived. We all gave thanks for everything good in our lives and proceeded to inhale a great dinner consisting of the usual suspects. We then proceeded to play a dumb game called “Life”. I lost! Claudia won! Like I said, it was a dumb game. Tomorrow is “Return Home Day” so we called it a night and started to get organized and pre-packed to split for League City in the a.m.

Revile was early (for us)…about 8:00 am. Breakfast, a shower and packing and we were out shortly after the 10:00 am deadline. We fueled both cars and went to a gift store just over the causeway into Port Isabel. Jacque and Jeff bought a couple of things for their house and another item that I cannot mention, describe or infer anything about at this time. We then went to Bobz World at Seven Seas where Kyndi bought two hermit crabs, “Eeyore” and “Squiggles”. “Eeyore”, as in Winnie the Pooh fame, had a donkey decal on its shell, hence the name “Eeyore”. “Squiggles”…who knows? It later snuggled up too closely to Rachael and pinched her pretty good. An unconfirmed rumor has it that she was harassing the animal and it retaliated. We then headed for home.

Around 3:00 pm or so, the girls car, which was in front of Jeff and me, suddenly braked hard and shot left into a left turn pocket. My phone soon rang. It was Rachael with the news that they were hungry and that Grandma (Claudia) had just programmed “Karen”, our GPS, into taking us to a Cracker Barrel restaurant. We twisted and turned through several minor streets. Jeff and I were becoming skeptical. We soon turned a corner and pulled into a convenience store with gas pumps out front, sort of like a 7-11 store. The sign above the door proudly proclaimed we were at the “Cracker Barrel Gas and Liquor”, not quite what we expected. We soon found a rundown restaurant that proclaimed it served good home-cooked food and pulled in. It wasn’t much to look at but the food was great! After dinner, we continued on and arrive at the kids house somewhere around 8:30. The first order of business was to unload two cars and settle in for the duration (two days).

The “duration” consisted of shopping, shopping and more shopping. I even managed to squeeze in a visit with some old friends and past customers from the 2004 Alaska trip, Pete and Betty Finley, who were in Galveston awaiting their time to board a cruise ship to Cozumel. Jeff and I scoured Academy Sports and the local Bass Pro Shops outlet while the girls did girly things. We have had a ball and are not looking forward to it ending. However, it must end and we must return to Encinitas on Monday.