Blissful Days on Padre Island

I think that if the Padre Island National Seashore had water hookups or any sort of cellular reception I would have convinced the family to settle down right there and then. The beach has always been my favorite place, but the Oregon and Washington shores are missing one vital ingredient to true bliss: warmth.

It took us about twenty minutes from arriving to be running into the water.

This Padre Island isn't the same as the spring break-famous South Padre Island, which is a few hours, well, south. The national park here has a great campground right off of the beach, with no real services but cold showers. We kicked into water conservation mode, though, and managed to even extend our stay a few days longer than we thought we could go.  We all thought cold showers were a very small inconvenience to 'suffer' in order to be camped by the beach, fall asleep to the sounds of the ocean, and pay just $8 a day.

This was the view from our dining room.

When we first roughly planned our trip we had our end point being Corpus Christie by November 1st. (Disclaimer: we never actually made it into the city other than to visit our new favorite grocery store, HEB.) That was the exact day that we arrived, with very little actual planning on our part. We'd picked this date as I'd read that it was the official end to the hurricane season, and a good time for bird watching. Over the course of our RV trip our youngest's fascination with birds had rubbed off on all of us a bit; when you are looking for birds with him and see him get so excited you can't help but let his joy infect you, too.

The beach was full of plovers, which have a hilarious way of running back and forth with the waves at comic speeds.

Every morning we'd get up to watch the sunrise, with the older two usually running out to the water's edge.

If you would have asked me before this trip if I had a favorite bird I probably would have stared at you blankly for a while, and then maybe just answered the most recent bird that I'd seen in hopes of changing the subject. Now I'd say the Pelican; the beaches there were filled with groups of these birds, and they are surprisingly graceful and social (with each other, not us). 

We spent a good portion of our third day there on the beach picking up trash. At Malaquite Beach were we stayed the shores were rather free of debris, but a bit further south where we went beach-combing the amount of garbage was shocking. It turns out that due to the wave patterns most of the garbage in the gulf is deposited here in the park. We missed the official trash pick up day (bummer; when we returned from our guided bird tour that day the lunch they were hosting for the volunteers smelled amazing), but we had no problem still finding lots to pick up the next day.

The kids got to wear some cool ranger hats and get their Adopt-A-Beach patches. 

When time for school came we headed into nearby Port Aransas, in hopes of a couple of bars of Verizon and some early morning bird watching.

At this point, we're hamming it up as usual, but also the silly face may be because we're being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Hoodies were donned to protect our necks, even though the humidity was keeping us very, very warm.

Even if you're just a marginal fan of birding, you'd love Port Aransas in November. Everywhere you looked there was something interesting. Plus, we've never met a more welcoming group of people than avid birders. The couple that ran the birding tour at the national park had recommended Port Aransas trails to us, and we ran into them there that morning. They had a rare bird in their sights, and quickly ushered our youngest over to look with them. While we were all speaking in hushed tones, I didn't have the chance to ask if she had been a school teacher, but a hunch tells me that she was from the way she had her arm around him and was explaining the colorings. After a flock of roseate spoonbills flew over head, we made our way up to the birding tower. Again, we had people offering our kids views through their spotting scopes, and explaining what they were seeing. One of the biggest things that I've missed on this trip was the daily sense of community, so this morning was a real gift in so many ways. 

It's a coot, with feet designed for walking on the reeds.

This flock of ducks (I'd ask my son what type they were, but he's sleeping) shortly took off in flight, as an alligator made it's way through the marsh. It was fun to see this--from a distance!

Again, we would have plowed through this spot without taking notice, but a birder slowed us down and pointed out a dozen types of songbirds in the trees. 

If you're in Port Aransas the local coffee shop, Coffee Waves, is a great place to spend some time. The kids were serenaded (not intentionally or awkwardly) while they did their school work. 

Not a bad way to get through a geometry lesson.

Not content with the bug bites accrued that morning, we stopped by the University of Texas' bird study site before heading home. It was very nicely laid out, but about half-way through the walk I had to adopt a weird walk/run as the bugs were starting to get to me. 

I probably shot this picture with the phone out to the side, screaming 'aargh' as I smacked my leg and ran toward the truck. The birds must be used to that sort of bad behavior, as they didn't seem phased at all.

Every afternoon we could be found at the beach, which we had nearly all to ourselves. When we were coming out of the water before dinner we noticed that we had a bit of an audience, and when we got up on the dock we had a guy ask us where we were from.

"Washington? See, I told you Bob that they had to be from someplace up north!"

"Yeah, we're from the northwest corner of the U.S., right by Canada. In fact, the kids grew up in Canada so they're really warm at anything above 70 (or 20' C)."

Insert a lot of chuckles from the gang in sweaters, coats, and jeans that had formed to watch us frolicking away content as can be. I can't imagine not feeling warm when it's 85 and sunny, but I think if anyone offered me the chance to stay on the gulf coast long enough to find out I'd take it.

~Judy