For those of you who have never been down to Corpus Christi and Padre Island, there are reasons to go, most of which I won't discuss here. Yes, James B., I count you among these individuals probably, if you are reading this, which I doubt you are, but anyway....There are reasons to actually enter Texas. Padre Island would be one of them.
What follows may sound like typical tourist claptrap, but most folks know little, if anything, about Padre. Padre is a barrier island, the longest in the world, just off the southern coast of Texas. The western coast of Padre is called the Laguna Madre, a stretch of waterway that is actually saltier than the ocean, with numerous kinds of shellfish and crustaceans peculiar to the area. Most of the island is encompassed by a national park and wildlife refuge on the island. These public lands provide over 70 miles of coastal white-sand, pristine beaches which are unreachable by anything but you and a 4 wheel drive dune buggy. You can camp on these beaches for a mere pittance. The gulf waters here are so warm--like velvet, you can swim practically year round. Typical seaside activities are abundant, fishing, crabbing, and the like, but the waves are fairly shallow. I don't think the surfing is all that great here--at least it has not been evident the last couple times I've gone.
Anyone who does know anything about Padre probably thinks of it as a spring-break destination for the southern college kids. All true. It's a madhouse. Also, Corpus Christi is hideous, scabrous, and ugly. There are huge industrial complexes all around Corpus--probably oil refineries, but I don't feel like looking it up, but trust me, they are ugly. It's odd such an ugly city adjoins a beauty spot like Padre Island, but such is Texas.
And so it goes....
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