We had a nice day in foggy South Padre Island.
It’s another foggy day here in South Padre Island. I once again woke up early with back pain, and might as well try to get some more writing done. I was able to get a few things caught up, sent out some save the dates to family in Brazil for Alex’s wedding, booked a fitting appointment for Monday, and cleaned up some of our upcoming reservations, as well as got another back post caught up on top of yesterday. My morning felt productive before all the ladies woke up :). Carol woke up next and went to the puzzle ahahaha… she’s addicted! :). Bia woke up next, and said “I know what I have to do”, and changed, got herself some milk and bread, ate, then went to her computer. hahahaha… funny thing is, Bella did exactly the same thing when she woke up next. With everyone up, we agreed on the morning plan, we decided to walk to the nearby beach, check out the area and go from there. I let the girls watch for another 30 minutes while I shaved and Carol and I got ready, and we left around 10am.
We went to the same spot I had run through yesterday, so I took them to see the fishing pier, the saint statue blessing the fishermen (I think), and we hit the sand and walked along the shore. We had an awesome walk, the entire time. The girls were chatting and we were enjoying the nice weather and each other’s company. They did get a lot more excited when we hit the sand and waves though :). We walked up the beach shore until we hit a 2 mile mark and the girls wanted to stop and just enjoy the sand and water, so we stoped right where we were, which just also happened to be pretty close to restrooms. Carol said her back was hurting, so she found a nice spot with soft sand and laid down. The girls were making sand castles, and building forts and trying to protect the castle from the waves. They had a great time and played quite a bit. It was pretty foggy out, so we could not enjoy the view much at all, but once in a while we’d get a bit of opening, a bit of sunshine, etc. It was like that pretty much all day, foggy, low visibility, with windows of a few minutes that opened up patches of sun light and modest to low visibility.
As it got close to noon, we were all hungry, so I found a bar and grill nearby and we walked there. It was a quick 5 minute walk, continuing up the beach front to Seaside Bar and Grill. Food there was ok, service was ok, location was great. What bothered me there was that the bartender would lower his mask and walk around, and even talk to people he was serving with his mask lowered to his chin. We caught on and we would have our masks on every time he came by, but that was a major annoyance to us. But, we had food, we had drinks… we were happy.
After we ate we decided what to do next, go back, get our stuff and go to the beach on the other end and try to take the truck in, like everyone else does here. Since the island is not wide, we walked back by cutting through the island side to side rather than walking back the way we came, and that was super quick, we were back at the campsite within 10 minutes or so. hahahaha… Over one hour walking to the spot we ate, then about 10 minutes to walk back. We got our stuff quick, fishing stuff, water bottles, buckets and Carol got Maggie as well. As we drove towards that end, the more we were into the canal, the less visibility there was, but we kept going. It was getting a bit cooler too, maybe 2 degrees cooler. Then we got to the area where trucks were going into the beach, and there were two vehicles stuck in the sand. I stopped by the entrance for a minute and watched the mess, then decided to continue and see if there was another entrance. We drove to the end and there was not another one, so I drove back to that same one, and sure enough… more vehicles stuck by the entrance. At that point Carol was already freaking out that I was even considering going in there hahahahah…. But with all those people getting stuck, I didn’t want to risk wasting time, though I don’t think we would have gotten stuck in 4×4 Low mode. I drove back a little further and when we found an area with lots of clean sand and some room for us by the water, between vehicles already there, I parked by the road and we grabbed out stuff and walked to the beach and set camp.
The girls were immediately playing with the buckets and sand. Carol laid down on the mat with Maggie. I grabbed the fishing pole and went by the water, pretending I knew what I was doing and helped the fake lure get a work out for about 30 minutes. Hahahahah…. The water was cold at first, but then you get used to it and it was ok. It was a bit breezy, and still very foggy, but again, once in a while we’d get a patch of sun light. As we hung out there for maybe 2 hours, lots of cars drove by. There’s this invisible road they have there, between the line where the waves break and the soft sand, it’s like a two lane road size, and mainly trucks would drive by in both directions, showing off, or looking for a spot to park with their group. We are very close to Mexico, and you can tell as most of the people driving by were Mexican. Carol took a nap right there with Maggie. I sat down for a while and then Bella came and we played frisbee for some time. It was nice to play there with all that soft sand, but the wind was blowing the disc a bit too much. We had a good time nonetheless. As it got close to 5, we figured it was time to go, make our way back, get diesel and Bia still had some project to work on, so we started heading back. Of course, as we made it to the truck, the girls decided they wanted to sled down some sand dunes first, so we waited a bit more while they enjoyed a few more minutes.
When we got back, Bia went in for a shower, to then work on her project. Carol also went to the shower by the campground, and then worked on dinner. I was talking to Bob and Judy and Bella was on her computer. When Bia was ready for me, Carol finished the call with Judy while working on dinner. Bia’s project was about Obama, and I had to help her find the answers online. Some specific stuff about his childhood, influences, etc. It is cool though and she likes learning those things. After we all had dinner, Bella showered and Carol and I took care of the dishes. Then, Carol cut my hair. This time, she decided to do it inside, right in front of the fridge… I guess she wanted an excuse to use her cool new vacuum. hahahahaha…. Feels good to have my hair short again 🙂
Then we all got ready for bed, girls read for some time, and we called it a night. While Carol and I were in bed we watched a video about Dry Tortugas National Park, which we are going to visit while in Key West in April, and it looks amazing! Reminded me that tomorrow I have to make some reservations 🙂
We had a really nice day in Foggy South Padre Island. We concluded this place must be super nice and pretty, but we could not tell ourselves as the fog didn’t allow us to see the other side of the streets.
