Three weeks ago we drove to the Texas coast for our very first time ever. We decided it would be nice to take a couple of days to get away - just the five of us. We booked a hotel on Padre Island and planned to play at the beach. As you know, we're big fans of The Day Tripper, so we had some ideas of places we wanted to visit while we were down south.
Our first stop was the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi. We didn't tour the museum, but we walked around the area admiring the largeness of the ship. Next we decided to test the water. The water in Corpus Christi Bay is like bathtub water. It was so hot and humid outside. That combined with the warm water was quite strange. We're so used to cool beaches with frigid water. Oh yeah, and pretty much every surf shop around there had a giant shark you could walk through to get into the store
By then we were hungry, so we drove into downtown Corpus Christi to eat at a two story Whataburger. That was the one thing Ainsley absolutely wanted to do and not because of the food. She informed us that taking a picture with the Whataburger guy was on her bucket list. Check!
We toured the Texas Surf Museum and then headed to Padre Island.
Our hotel was in a great location. We had a view of Corpus Christi Bay and an incredibly short drive to the Gulf of Mexico. Across the street from our hotel was a huge souvenir shop that looked like a giant sand castle on the outside. There were mermaids kind of by the dolphins that had super creepy fingers. They looked like claws, haha.
The next day we drove into Port Aransas to go to the beach. Ainsley and I had hoped to rent a long board, but the waves were so weak that there was no way we would have been able to catch a wave. Instead we all played around on our bodyboards. It was perfect for Landon. He was up to his chest in water and only had a couple wipe outs. He loved it! The rest of us had a great time too. Chris even decided to try out body boarding for the first time. Yay!
The water was cooler than the water in Corpus Christi Bay, which was nice. The weather was still hot, but there was some wind which kept us somewhat cooler. The water was super salty. Saltier than the Pacific Ocean. There was tons of seaweed too, and I really mean tons. There were bulldozers creating mountains of seaweed so that it wasn't completely littering the beach. There was a lot of seaweed in the water as well. It was really scratchy - much different than the seaweed in CA. Also, there were little fish swimming around us. They kept jumping out of the water and every once in a while we'd feel one brushing by our legs.
We had a great time! It was definitely a different beach experience than what we're used to. I'll admit that I prefer California beaches, but I think Chris would say he prefers Texas beaches. Honestly I don't even care. I just like the beach. If Chris told me we were moving to the Gulf Coast I'd go in an instant. There have been good things about living in the Austin area, but I feel like part of me withers when I'm not on the coast. What can I say. I'm a beach girl!
