South Padre Island

By Uncle Hans

We recently had the time to take a road trip to south Texas. Our destination was South Padre Island. We tried to go there last year, but the weather was crappy and we just visited some old friends instead of visiting the island, which is nearby.

We have done the Keys a couple of times, and our exploration there was disappointing, kinda rundown, and very few, if any, beaches. We took our trusty LVSHACK and made sandwiches all through the night, like usual. Renee makes a mean sandwich. The first picture was a welcome site: the bridge out to the island, after 25 hours of driving......

.............South Padre is as close to a tropical Caribbean island as you can get in the USA. The temps are cool in Jan/Feb, like 70's, but mostly in the 80's the rest of the time. It has the best beach in Texas...........

...........We looked at some condos on the beach. The prices are good, but not as good as last year, and they are headed up with the economic recovery. Interestingly, the "peak season" is June/July/August, when the rest of Texas swelters in the heat and wants to come to South padre and sit on the beach. We would NEVER want to leave Cable Lake during that time, so all that rental money goes into our pocket to help pay the mortgage. In Belize, in contrast, the tourism falls to near zero in the summer. The winter on South Padre, is quiet, and it is easy to get a reservation. Spring and fall are active but not crowded. These are a couple of buildings we looked at......

.......the condo thing is a work in progress. All the nice stuff is still pretty expensive in spite of the recession. But going up by the day. Hopefully we can stretch our budget and turn Jan/Feb ice skating into beachcombing!!

....we stayed in a tiny county RV park for 17$ for electric only. right on the beach. The ocean side is for beachnicks and the "lagoon" side is for fishing, and watersporting as the water is protected from the wind and pounding surf and smoother. ....

.....we still got to visit with our friends, Ed and Judy, and they took us to Mexico to do some shopping for a day....

.....unfortunately, we had a scheduling conflict and we had to return early to take call for a colleague using Sunday as a travel day to go to a meeting. That cut 2 days off our stay. And that's a lot of driving for a short stay. This is what I remember of the driving. 10 of these stops. But still better than flying and renting a car, in our book....

......We got back for this nice sunrise on Sunday morning, just in time to do an appendectomy in Saint Croix Falls. Then on to some snowmobiling with a friend...........

By Uncle Hans