Beaching It at South Padre Island

We always make the drive to South Padre Island at least once each winter for a little beach time. From our camping spot in Mission, Texas, we're about an hour's drive from the Gulf. Our first stop is usually at the visitor's center on the Main drag of South Padre. We've taken pictures of the massive sand castle in front of the visitor center many times, but today's picture looks much different.

After five years in this location, the sand castle is being demolished. If you look in the bottom right corner of the picture below, you can see the "message from the artist," that is a permanent part of the display. So it was fun to get to talk to the artist--Andy Hancock--in person. He described the process of tearing down the old sand castle, which had been preserved in place by coating it with glue.

Now he was chipping off that sand/glue exterior that had kept this masterpiece standing for five years. He plans to have the bigger and better sand castle completed in time for the spring break crowds. Because we were watching with such interest, he gave us a little piece of sand castle history. It's a sand falcon from the castle--petrified by glue five years ago.

After spending time with the sand castle process, it was time to hit the sand at the beach.

The water was a little nippy, but the air temperature was just lovely. The best part was that the usually gusty ocean winds were perfectly still.

When Denisa was taking the picture above, she was waiting for a nice big wave to come in for a good background. That wave brought the water up higher than Mark had planned, getting his rolled jeans wet. Yes, that Gulf water is very nippy!

Last year we discovered that the west coast has few sea shells, so it was good to be back on the Gulf of Mexico. We were glad to see a sea-shell-strewn beach once again! Nothing fancy and no sand dollars, but lots of delicate shells makes it look like a healthy beach.

Over the years we have come here for many windy trips, getting sand-blasted on this beach. So today it was nice to stroll on such a calm day. We left Denisa's Mother sitting on a beach chair while we got a mile walk in the sand.

Turn-about is fair play, and Mark caught Denisa trying to get away from an incoming wave that got her jeans wet as well.

While on our beach walk, Denisa picked up black and gray shells. She doesn't keep the shells, but enjoys using them in a picture. This was her tribute to our day in South Padre Island.

We drove back across the causeway, to the town of Port Isabel. Last year the lighthouse was shrouded in scaffolding while it was being refurbished. It looked fresh and well-cared for against the cloudy skies as we drove through town.

We usually eat at Dirty Al's, but we decided to try Joe's Oyster Bar this time. Good fried and grilled fish and shrimp for dinner completed our successful day. We stopped by the local fish market for several pounds of gulf shrimp for the freezer. We ended our day in the not-so-glamorous job of de-veining those shrimp, but we have a little bit of the Gulf to eat in the days to come. It was a good South Padre Day!