Wednesday was spent driving the 300 miles to San Antonio.
(We found the best diesel price so far, $3.49/gal.) We had left the flat desert and were now in
Hill Country. We got to San Antonio by
mid-afternoon; so we had time to go to Cycle Gear, Wal-Mart and Lowes before
spending the night in the Wal-Mart Parking lot.
On Thursday we were at our 8 am RV repair appointment, then off to
Costco and a bike shop before hitting the road to Corpus Christi a day ahead of
time. Why did we leave early?
Weather! It was 15 degrees warmer
and clear skies as opposed to cold and cloudy in San Antonio.
A typical freeway interchange. And I thought Seattle was bad...
Our site at Bay View RV Park in Rockport
On Saturday we took the motorcycles on a city ride, urban
dual-sporting I guess you could call it.
We started on a mile or so of dirt roads, then it was pavement most of
the day. We started along the shores of
Copano Bay. There are some really cool homes there. We tried to stay off the
freeways, but sometimes it’s the only bridge available. We worked our way
through Corpus Christi along the bay and across another bridge to Padre Island.
We went south to the Padre Island National Seashore.
The PINS protects the longest undeveloped stretch of Barrier Island in the world. There are 70 miles of sand and shell beaches, dunes, grasslands, tidal flats and in the summer, warm near-shore waters.
We checked out Bird Island Basin. We were hoping to see the wind suffers playing, but we were too early, it was still cold. Later in the day when the sun came out and we reached 70 degrees, they may have gone out.
A couple of miles farther on, we came to the visitor’s center. Here there is access to the beach on the Gulf of Mexico side. Look at the difference in the surf.
We thought about riding on the beach in PINS. The sand is very soft and we had the heavy DRZs, not our trail bikes so we passed. We headed back north, and then turned to go across Mustang Island. Here we went down to the beach and rode the hard packed sand.
The Beach Road
When we got to Nueces County Park, a huge ship was headed out to sea through the Aransas Channel. The channel is only .2 mile across at this point, and this ship was really big; it must be a very deep channel.
From here we went to the Port Aransas Brewery and Restaurant for lunch. Beer report: Wayne said the Stout was very good. We were actually in Port Aransas, a very small, quaint Port town. I really liked it. Everything is in walking distance and right near the beach. It would never work for us, but still a neat place to spend some time.
The only way off the island at this end is by ferry. This is not your typical gigantic Pacific Northwest ferry that we are so used to. This is a little car only puddle jumper; the two biggest hold 28 cars and they can run as many as 8 ferries at a time if needed. The channel is now a little wider, .3 mile. But really, we’ve been on bridges in this area that are 1.5 and 2 miles long. I guess with all the ship traffic, building a bridge would be tough to pull off in a small area like Port Aransas.
Once back on the mainland we headed back along the shoreline
of Aransas Bay. We saw some wonderful old beach houses, tons of all different
kinds of birds and some local art. The private piers had a mix of seagulls and
pelicans, yes pelicans. It was so cool…
We didn’t know how lucky we had been on Saturday, at least
it was warm, 70 and sunny. Sunday was
cloudy, cold and rainy; but it was also Super Bowl Sunday. As a Seattle native and longtime Seahawks
fan, it was an AWESOME game. I need a 12th man flag.......
GO HAWKS!!!!
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