Padre Island Adventures

This past weekend Tom, Pepper and I decided it was time for a vacation. My school year jobs are done, Tom is about to start TAing this summer and soon my summer student teaching will start.

We packed up and headed south. To the Gulf of Mexico. We drove the back roads down to the coast. Stopped in Corpus Christi for a while and then headed to the National Seashore. North Padre Island. We camped on the ocean and spent our days romping in the sun, sand and salty water. It was beautiful, relaxing, and so much fun.

Here are some highlights.

We decided to avoid the interstate and drive the nice back, country, Texas roads. We saw a ton of birds I'd never seen before and some great roadside attractions, like this one. Disco? Buy 1, get 11 free? Really?

We stopped in Corpus Christi for a little lunch and to walk around Corpus Christi Bay. I was quite entertained by these gulls. One on each post, and there was always one trying to get another one to get up and move.

We spent two nights on Padre Island, camping, playing and just enjoying the water, weather and the view. Pepper spent much of her time playing fetch.

She was a little confused by the sand. She would dig furiously and then stop, exhausted with a face full of sand.
The first night we camped right on the shore. The sound of the water and wind blowing, pelicans flying by, and the sun shining until the last little bit went down.

Pepper really loved the sand and water. We've been trying to get her swimming more and she wasn't really that into it. But the water was a warm 80 degrees and she went running in and jumped over the waves.

We'd run in and jump the waves until Pepper got overwhelmed with the big waves went over her head, then we'd race back to the shore. I had her on a rope just in case of jellyfish.

The second night we camped behind the dunes that line the shore. It was a nice change of scenery. You could still feel the wind and hear the waves, but it was a little calmer nestled in the dunes.


Portuguese Man-o-Wars. It's like a jellyfish, only it's not. It's an entire colony. It's tentacles can reach 30+ feet, it's sting is much much worse than a jellyfish and can still sting after is has washed up on shore. They are amazing creatures. We saw a handful of them washed up on shore.

These are just a handful of the many pictures I took from our trip. If you're interest take a little trip over to my flickr account and check out the whole album. Lovely pictures of waves, sand, and Pepper.

I love Texas. :-)