Padre trip

Even though the trip was not like I had pictured in my head, we had a good time on our beach trip. First off, I never realized how much work Jav and his parents did to spiffy up the condo each year. I tried to help out when I could, but still didn't feel like I helped very much. Secondly, the weather got pretty nasty the 2nd full day we were there. The front that hit Fort Worth made it all the way down south. The temperature dropped into the 60's with high winds, both of which made it pretty uncomfortable to stay outside for any length of time. Everybody thought to bring a jacket except me, so I bought a fleece pullover on one of our many trips into Port Isabel. One weird thing was that the ocean was really warm. We probably looked silly in our windbreakers and hats and shorts and flip flops, walking along in the water.

One of the cool things about the trip was the International Sandcastle Building competition, held at the Sheraton Hotel every year which is just down the beach from our condo. We took video of the winners since we didn't have the regular camera with us that first pretty day. Another cool thing was that I realized how much I like and get along with my inlaws. They have become family to me; they are such a big help with Gabriel, and I'm so lucky to have them. We all watched the finale of a Mexico-version of American Idol that they had been keeping up with, and we had such a good time together.

Gabriel has decided he likes the ocean. He was afraid the first day and preferred digging (ok-mostly eating) the sand on the beach. But that afternoon he watched a little girl who was a few months older than him playing in the water. She was a native and learned how to walk on the beach. I guess this made Gabriel think, "Well, if she can do that, so can I", and he liked the waves after that.

Jav and I got to have one dinner out, which was funny because we couldn't find a place to go. ALOT of restaurants close up on the island, so we went back over the bridge to Port Isabel, just driving around in the relentless wind looking for a good seafood place. We ended up eating at a big tourist trap right at the base of the bridge, but they had good food and good magaritas. One sad thing that happened was that there was an injured pelican hopping along on the bridge when we crossed back over. He apparantly couldn't fly, and I wanted to stop and help him somehow, but it was too dangerous to stop on the bridge. I thought about him for a long time, and hoped that someone else figured out how to help him that night.

When we left early in the morning to come back home, the full moon was shining on the bay. It was just beautiful and I was sad to be leaving the ocean. And on the way home we drove right through the Monarch butterfly migration route. For about 7 or 8 minutes we saw one every 15 to 30 seconds. They must have some pretty good radar because they seemed to float higher than the car whenever we approached. I think we only ended up hitting one of them, which made me feel so bad. I wondered how many people driving down that highway even noticed them. When I think about the thousands of miles they have to travel, the trip to Padre doesn't seem that bad after all.