Port Aransas: Sandfest

After leaving Padre Island, we drove to Mustang Island and Port Aransas.  This was the Julia-planned portion of the journey where we would stay at an rv resort and attend a festival. 

We spent more money that I would have liked, but we did have a good time.In Wisconsin, we have the luxury of good beer at nearly all of our festivals.  By good beer, I mean beer that has ample amounts of malt and hops and diverse styles.  Sandfest featured mostly Bud-style beers for $7/portion.  That didn’t work for me, so Frugal John bought a $12 plastic soda glass from the Pecos Pete soda stand (free refills all day).  Unfortunately, Pecos Pete’s assistants ran into technical problems with the syrup pumps so I ended up drinking a lot of sweet tea until the problems were sorted out.  We figure I had about 7 twenty-eight ounce cups of liquid in order to get my money’s worth.  I’m done with soda and sweet tea for awhile.  Julia had a couple of $7 Kölsch beers (a light German lager brewed at warmer ale temperatures).

 There was good music and lots of people.

The focus of Sandfest is  the sand sculptures.  The artist areas are divided into professional (with artists from all over the world), semi-pro, and amateur.  It was all great fun.  I learned a lot about the process from watching over a couple of days.  This was one of my favorites by a Bulgarian artist who appears in the foreground of one of the photos below.

I didn’t think much of the piece below in the beginning.  It looked like the artist was just creating a globe out of sand, but he was far from finished.  If you look closely, you can see that he created a hand wrapped (squeezing) around a melting ice cream cone with the ice cream representing the world/global climate change.

Here is a sand creation of sorrowful Abe Lincoln.  A Texan standing near us said, “He can’t believe we haven’t closed the southern border yet.”

We celebrated our last night in Port Aransas by dining on the second floor porch at the Bluewater Cowboy.  We ordered redfish and drum, along with sides of mac/cheese, rice pilaf, creamed corn, and local vegetables. As we were leaving, we saw this pickup truck.

Yes, the area is still rebuilding from Hurricane Harvey two years ago.  But the spirit of Port Aransas is strong.  I look forward to returning to visit someday.

We are on our way back to Houston.  Julia has a flight back early this week.

Update:  The Lincoln sand sculpture won.  The piece was entitled “Liberty Crumbling.”

Malaquite Campground

Malaquite Campground in the Padre Island National Seashore fit our needs perfectly for four nights.  While there were no electrical or water hookups, the gulf breezes kept the temperatures around 80 during the day and around 70 at night.  There was ample sun to top off the Brew Hut battery with our solar panel. The amenities were flush toilets, cold water shower (which felt refreshing during the heat of the day), fresh water, and dump station–all for $14/night and $7/night if over 62.  Of course the biggest attraction was the gulf view and wind protection provided by the sand dunes buffering the beach. No Verizon service, but I didn’t miss it.

On our second day, we drove twenty miles down the beach to Big Shell Beach which had small shells.  Little Shell Beach had no shells.  We found our biggest shells by walking a couple of miles up our own beach by the campground.  We also saw many crabs.  Julia wanted so badly to see a sea turtle, but the Turtle Patrol reported to us that only one had been sighted so far this month–none during our stay.

We found a little seafood shop with fresh local fish.  One night, I cooked red snapper.  Another night, we tried black drum.  Both were delicious.  I made French toast one morning that had Julia so happy that she performed seaside acrobatics.

On our one overcast day, we took the Port Aransas Ferry to get to Rockport, where we dined at Mac’s Pit BBQ.  I had the sliced beef sandwich, along with sides of bacon mac cheese and peach cobbler, washed down with sweet tea.

The manager was kind and welcoming, stopping to chat at our table when the lunch crowd slowed down.  In fact, he gave us his personal card, telling us that if there was anything we needed during our stay, we should call him.  I think that’s a first for me at any restaurant.

We ended our day at Rockport with Julia leaning into the wind.

Padre Balli Park

We enjoyed our four-day stay at Padre Balli Park–which was conveniently located to both Corpus Christi and Padre Island National Seashore.  On Thursday and Friday, the area was moderately crowded.  We spent our time mostly on the beach, starting our hikes before dawn.

But as Easter approached, the crowds arrived.

On one day, we sampled the beers at Lorelei Brewing Company, which had  a delightful outdoor space.

On another day we went to the Texas Sealife Center where injured or diseased sea turtles and other creatures are nursed back to health and then released.

On Easter morning, we got up at 5:30 a.m.and attended a non-denominational Passion Play held for many years at one of Corpus Christi’s waterfront parks.

By Sunday afternoon, the beach was packed as tight as a parking lot with vehicles, dogs and people.  As campers left the full Malaquite Campground at the National Park to go home, we vultured a prime campsite protected by the dunes but still overlooking the gulf.  By Sunday night, the crowds had left, and we had the beach to ourselves.

Family Reunion

After taking the Bolivar ferry across to Galveston, I drove north about twenty miles and checked into the Tropical Gardens rv park ($20/night with Passport America discount).  I needed a couple of days to do some Brew Hut repairs/maintenance/cleaning to prepare things for my wife Julia’s arrival. 

Tropical Gardens was a very basic park that featured mostly full-time residents in older trailers; however, it was equipped with a shower and laundry facilities, along with full hook-ups.  Then I headed to Houston’s Eastlake RV resort, which was conveniently located to the Houston airport.  I’m not a big city person anymore, and Houston is a huge, sprawling city with terrible traffic and tollways that do not take cash.

I picked up Julia without too many problems and drove back for a late dinner of shrimp, pasta, wine, and a late night hot tub soaking. 

On the next morning, we pulled out under cloudy/rainy skies and drove to Padre Island.   The weather was overcast, and severe storms were predicted for that night.  We considered free beach camping but ended up checking into Padre Balli County Park's Campground.  Next to the campground, there was a restaurant and bar on the Bob Hall Pier.  We decided the price and location were right ($25/night).  We took full advantage by getting in a long walk on the first day and a nice dinner of oyster po’ boy, shrimp tacos, and good drinks.

The photo of the restaurant above was taken the day after the storms, which did turn out to be severe and gave the Brew Hut quite a shaking.  Julia felt bad enough for Callie to let her crawl in with us for comfort.  But by 8 a.m. the front had moved through.  The forecast for the next few days is for lots of sun.

Bolivar Peninsula

I left Sea Rim State Park  and followed the road back north to Port Arthur and then back south to the outer reaches of the Bolivar Peninsula.

Reviews at Campendium for Bolivar Flats free beach were favorable.  When I arrived mid-morning, there were wide expanses of open beach.  Several groups of horse campers were set up on the right side of the beach where camping is allowed for a $10 permit.

On the left side of the beach were several large fifth wheels set up back towards the sand dunes.

I asked a senior gentlemen with the horse campers where I could buy a permit, and he said that I could get one at any of the local businesses–8 miles back.  But he told me that unless I had strong feelings about camping on the right side of the beach, the left side was totally free.  He said that the horse campers all had permits because they liked to support the public beach.  If there had been a donation box/ or self-serve area for permits, I  would have kicked in my $10, but there wasn’t so I didn’t.  I pulled in behind the fifth wheel campers close to the sand dunes.

This is strictly boondocking, but with some benefits.  There is one porta-potty, and  a lot of trash barrels set up along the beach.  Also, the local sheriff’s department regularly patrolled the beach to make sure everyone stayed in line.
The beach was spectacular, and the horses were fun to watch too.

I did have a bit of excitement on the first night.  Just after dark, four horses escaped from their corral/pen and galloped close by the Brew Hut, drawing frantic barking from Callie who knew they needed to be herded back where they belonged.    Pretty soon, several kids came running after the horses, drawing more barking.  Finally, two pick-up trucks joined the hunt.  The horses ran back and forth along the beach, having a great time.  Eventually, the galloping stopped.  A young woman from the horse camp confirmed the next morning that all horses were returned to their proper places.

The wind blew and blew that night.  In fact, it blew so hard that my refrigerator flame went out.  I got it back going the next morning, and then the wind shifted to the opposite direction but kept blowing just as hard.  During these days, high tide was around 12:40 p.m. (I looked it up on the internet).  The waves were within about 20 feet of the Scamp door at high tide.  The fifth wheel trailers backed out of the beach right around 12:45 p.m. If they would have left at 11 a.m., I would have followed, but I had a pretty good idea that the waves were as high as they were going to go by 12:45.  You can get an idea from these photos how close the gulf was.

Bolivar Flats was a great place to stay for two nights.  However, after about a week of beach along the Louisiana and Texas shore, I was ready to get some of the sand out of the Brew Hut and attend to a couple of maintenance issues.  On the next morning, I hitched up and headed for the Bolivar-Galveston Ferry.

Sea Rim, Days 2 and 3

When we arrived at the campground office at 8:25 a.m. on the next day, our campground lady had great news. We could stay at our current site for two more nights. I paid up, unhitched, and went on an 11 mile hike on the beach with Callie. When we came back, I wanted to do something special for supper. The campground lady recommended a place called Roadaire Roadhouse for really local shrimp and live music. About half-hour drive away, we managed to find the place. With temperatures in the 80’s, full sun and no parking in the shade, it was not a good place for Callie to stay in the truck. We went to plan B, which was a grocery store called Food Marketbasket (or something like that). 

I bought two pounds of gulf shrimp, fettuccine, garlic, jalapeno, tomatoes, and mushrooms and cooked up this dish in the Brew Hut, washed down with Shiner Juicy IPA.

That night the wind howled all night long, although there was no rain. On the next morning, the beach was gone. I mean it had literally disappeared under water. The strong offshore winds blew the waves right up to the grassy sand dunes. A woman riding an atv who helps maintain the beach told me that she would have needed a boat to do her job that morning.

Due to the inaccessibility of the beach, Callie and I walked the boardwalk and some of the day use area roads. One area was called the Blue Crab Day Use Loop. It lived up to its name, and gave Callie something to think about.

The high tides also washed up a dead alligator. This one was partly eaten by the time we arrived.

There were still plenty of live alligators moving about. In this photo, you can see the two bumps, which belong to the eyes of a large mama alligator. The one bump in the foreground of the photo is one of her babies.

Momma was not happy to see Callie and I standing on a picnic table taking pictures. As she moved towards us in a big hurry, I stopped taking photos and retreated to the parking lot.

That concludes our time at Sea Rim State Park. We continue west-bound on the gulf.