We are still in South Padre Island
until next Monday. We've been having a great time here. Some of the things I LOVE about South Padre:
The location – right on the gulf.
It's absolutely beautiful. We are on an elbow of land where the bay
is behind us and the beach is just around the corner.
We can hear the waves crashing day and night – and they pretty much
crash all the time.
We've seen dolphins from the bridge and
there are pelicans everywhere, along with several kinds of birds that
I can't identify. This gentleman appeared to be some kind of heron,
but bigger than any heron I've ever seen.
The park – Isla Blanca is a great RV
destination. I've been doing workout classes every morning. I can't
decide if I like the Zumba or the line dancing better, but I love
both. We've been bike riding most days and beach walking as well, so
we're burning up a calorie or two. There is entertainment on Saturday
nights with live music. We went out elsewhere last Saturday but this
weekend I think we're going to check it out. We've met lots of
friendly people, and met up with some of my line dancing buddies at a
bar in Port Isabel the other night. Our non-dancing boys were happy
to sit and chat over drinks while us girls worked on our steps. Port
Isabel is just over the bridge on the mainland.
The weather – The first couple of
days were a bit disappointing as it was rainy and cool, but that soon
ended. It has been sunny and warm (60s and 70s) most days, so no
complaints except for the gale force wind that never seems to stop.
If I had to pick the one think I don't
like, it would have to be the wind. It slows down sometimes, but then
kicks right back up again. One night it actually kept us awake,
thinking we were going to lose our slide-top awnings or satellite
dish. Our big patio awning has never even been out.
As to day to day life, I have a story
which I will call Adventures in Dentistry. When you're on the road,
medical and dental issues can still surface and they have to be
attended to as best they can. One morning this past week, Bill found
he had what appeared to be a cracked tooth. So we went to our
insurance provider's website and found 3 dental practices in
Brownsville, which is the nearest real town. So 3 of them...eeny,
meeny, miney, mo right? He picked one and he called to make an
appointment for later that same day. We drove into Brownsville, about
30 miles away and while it's a nice town with all the amenities you
might expect, the GPS was taking us into what looked like a sketchy
part of town. We finally ended up alongside a small airport in an
area well outside the town about a half mile from the Mexican border.
We could see a faded wooden sign almost buried between the trees that
read “Dental Clinic” with an arrow pointing up a dirt driveway.
Now, at this point I'm totally ready to bail. But Bill said “We're
here, let's check it out.” So up the dirt drive we continued. It
opened onto a yard where we saw this:
If I was ready to bail before, I was
now ready to run for the hills. I said “If it were my tooth, we'd
be peeling out of here. There are other dentists in this town!” I
also ominously reminded him that no one knew where we were.
But Bill insisted he had a good feeling
about it so he got out and headed for the door, with me following
reluctantly. We walked into the ramshackle little building and I
gotta tell you, things did not look any better. There were no other
patients, just a receptionist behind a counter who greeted us and
said the doc would be right back. “Maybe you saw him outside?”
she asked. “An old guy.” Oh, good. An old guy. Remember, I'm
still poised and ready to split but no, Bill is going to see this
through. So a few minutes later the dentist walks in and he is indeed
an old guy. About a hundred years old. He told us that he had retired down here
years ago (Years? Decades maybe? Who's counting?) But he got bored
with retirement so he went back to being a dentist. So cutting to the
chase, he took Bill into a treatment room and it turns out that it
was only a filling that was cracked, and he was able to fix it in
short order.
So no one died, nothing bad happened,
the tooth got fixed and I should probably not be freaked out by so
much by appearances. Ok, lesson learned. But I still would have bailed if it had
been just me. And so ended that particular adventure.
Today we drove down Padre Boulevard,
which is the main drag through town, all the way to the north end of
the island. The commercial area goes on for a couple of miles, then
you see a group of condos and houses that go on for another
mile or so and then...total desolation. Like the Florida keys, the
island tapers to a very thin strip of land with water visible on both
sides over some brush and sand dunes. We stopped along the road and
walked down to the beach where some folks were fishing but there was
no commercial development at all. That famous South Padre wind was
really howling and when we continued down the road we started seeing
sand drifts across the road.
At one point the only part of the road
that was driveable was the shoulder of one of the lanes – the rest
was drifted over with sand.
We made it all the way to where the road
ended but then turned back since the drifts were growing and we were
a bit worried about getting stuck. We got safely back to town and are now
settled back in after doing some grocery shopping.
We will be here through the weekend and
will be heading to San Antonio on Monday.
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