Just because

Hello, everyone.

Last weekend we drove down to South Padre Island. It was "between the Easters" and there were neither the clogged crowds of Mexican Holy Week vacationers nor the mobs of Spring Break students. It was, in fact, refreshing.

This is inside the city limits of South Padre Island, the part of the barrier island that is not National Seashore, and because cars are not allowed on the beach inside the town, the city has installed board accesses with pocket parking lots. (The public has an enforced right to access the public beaches. Which are all of the beaches in Texas.) The loads of green vegetation in sight is the area that the local property owners try really hard to keep green--anything below the permanent vegetation line belongs to the State of Texas as part of the public beach.

We didn't even wander around doing a big walk and keeping track of birds, bugs and flowers. We just enjoyed the fresh breezes for a few minutes. (There are, of course, seagulls along here like nobody's business.) On the other side of the barrier island, where the water is calmer, we saw some hermit crabs and regular crabs crawling around in the water near wooden piers, and oyster shells clinging to the wood.