San Padre and Houston

San Padre:

We spent our Memorial Day weekend at North San Padre Island, near Corpus Christi, TX.  We were there with four of our friends, Ryan and Jenna Davis and Rob and Marrisa Bondurant.

After a late Friday night dinner, we all went to the grocery store to get some supplies for the weekend.  It was late and the girls were exhausted, so we guys offered to go in and get the goods.  I think they immediately regretted the decision to let us grocery shop alone when they got a glimpse of us strolling through the parking lot in these genuine HEB shirts.

In for groceries, out with these sweet shirts!

We had a great time at San Padre, but it was due to the friends we were with and not to the beach.  As far as beaches go, outside of fishing, I would not recommend North San Padre Island.  I have heard that South Padre Island is a bit nicer, but a very reliable Texan told me that the beaches there are about the same as the ones at North San Padre.  As you can see in the picture below, the beaches were covered in sea weed.  Dry, crusty,  thick and deep sea weed that made activities in the sand virtually impossible.

Our vehicles on the National Seashore.

We did visit Port Aransas for dinner on Saturday night and if you ever do find yourself in the area, I would recommend spending some time at Port A.

I was really excited about visiting the San Padre Island National Seashore. Our original plan was to stay in a hotel on Friday night, then camp at the National Seashore on Saturday night.  Rob and Marissa had to go back on Saturday night, leaving Ryan, Jenna, Laura and I to camp.  After spending Saturday on the beach, we decided that a night in a tent with the sand, salt water, heat and mosquitoes sounded fairly unpleasant… so we ended up getting a hotel for the second night as well.  And yes, there were mosquitoes on the beach…something I had never before experienced.

Something else that you might have gathered from the photo above is that they allow vehicles on the beach.  I was really excited about that, because I had never driven on the beach before.  Much of the National Seashore is 4 wheel drive only, so I figured we go drive into that and escape the crowd.  Not on Memorial day weekend.  Texas is full of 4 wheel drive vehicles, and a significant number of them were on the beach with us.  Laura and I had driven down the beach when we first got there on Friday, the sand was packed in and very easy to drive in.  Unfortunately for those who drove 2 wheel drive vehicles in on Friday and then camped for a few days, by Sunday the ruts were very deep and the sand was very lose.  On our way out Sunday, we saw quite a few 2 wheel drive vehicles that were stuck and there were a significant number of cars that did not appear to have the ground clearance to get out.  I imagine it turned into a messy scene as the long weekend ended and everyone tried to leave on Monday.

Ryan and I fishing from the Kayak

Driving down a crowded beach.

Laura and Jenna, ready to roll in the Wrangler.

The weekend was a blast, we had a great time and are very thankful for the time we got to spend with Ryan, Jenna, Rob and Marissa!

Houston:

We spent the weekend of June 5th visiting Derek and Merry McKee in Houston, TX.  Derek and I have been friends since we were like five.  I haven’t gotten to see him as much as I would have liked to since we have been in TX, but it is always great when we get to spend some time together.

On Saturday night we all went to an Astros/Cubs game at Minute Maid Park.  Before coming back on Sunday, we went with them to IKEA.  I had never been to an IKEA before, but I had heard great things about them from friends… now I know why, very neat place to shop for anything related to the inside of a house or apartment.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share from Houston because we failed to charge our camera battery.

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