Sand!

Sandcastles and surf. That was last weekend, in Corpus Christi and North Padre Island.

We arrived late Friday at the Corpus Christi Omni to check into our upgraded $65 (yes!) room. This Omni is a slightly faded lady, but it didn't matter too much. They treated us well and even let us pick free room-service breakfast drinks. X and I both love room service--well, who doesn't? We were thrilled to place our card on the doorknob asking for coffee, cranberry juice and ice tea.

Oh, but on to the beach! It's about 20 minutes from Corpus Christi, and we got to choose from a patchwork of city and state beaches. We'd never been to the beach in Texas before. It was great! Fine sugar sand and warm water with big-enough-but-not-too-big waves. We stopped at a souvenir shop on the way there and got a boogie board and a small inflatable boat. That was enough to keep us busy in the surf for a couple of hours. And that was about as much sun as we could take.

Back in the hotel room, we all took naps. Then we set off to explore Port Aransas on Mustang Island. We were checking out places to stay for the next time--right up against the beach. The best way to do this, we decided, was to drive right along the beach. Hey, it's legal there. The sand was all packed down like a little country road--at first. The further we went, the looser and rougher it got. I was driving and slightly panicked. OK, maybe D would say more than slightly. We kept thinking we'd find a road off the beach that we could take back to town. Finally, in looser sand than I liked, I pulled a U-turn and plowed my way back to the packed sand onto a connecting road and into downtown Port A, as they say. Which, given my tendency to mispronounce the place as Port Ar-anus, struck me as funny. Anyway, we discovered that if we'd kept driving through the drifting sands for 7 miles, we would have found a connecting road.

The town was better than it sounded. A not-too-chi-chi spot, with more souvenir shops, one with front doors framed by 12 foot sharks with open jaws. Get the picture? No, I didn't take any. I can't get used to having a camera that will fit into my purse, so I often forget it. We looked, from the outside, at slightly run down little cottages and newly built beach houses. D watched fishing boats arrive back at the town dock, tourists carrying snapper and such.

We picked a restaurant on the dock for dinner. Our first course was Oysters Rockefeller, which I hadn't had in years. The main courses were a bit of a let down after that, but it was nice sitting on that covered patio overlooking the water. On the way back to the hotel, we bought supplies for the next day's activity: making sandcastles.

During the drive down the sand, X and I had noticed fancy sandcastle making in action. One castle looked like it belonged in a fairytale. The other was more sculpture than castle: a bust of someone. We had decided that we should try for ourselves.

Next morning, we were on the beach by 7, with our molds and a bucket. We made a basic castle and then sculpted with our fingers, the way we'd seen the pros do. We added details with the drip method, because our sculpting wasn't all that effective. We aspire to more next time.

I've written about this trip in more detail than I'd planned. I think it's because it represented a real turn around in mood for me, after my usual spring-time blues. I am glad to be back.