Port Aransas

After a very busy past month-Mercy Chefs deployments to West, Granbury, and Moore, we were more than ready for a vacation.  We have been planning this one for a couple months.

We started off by getting stuck in the mud the night before our trip.  We had to call our son to bring the truck to pull us out of this mess.  Looking back, it was a good memory.  At the time I was a little freaked out!

Jeep now unstuck, we left Friday morning to head to the coast.  We made the call to ride with the top down.  I had checked the forecast for both home and Port Aransas, and neither had rain in the forecast.  What I failed to check was the forecast for the area between our departure and destination locations.  We soon drove into a rain storm and had to pull over and put the top up.  We had to re-arrange some of the stuff in the trailer, but we made due, and continued on towards the coast.

As we got closer, we stopped to get our food for the weekend, and then spotted a little local fish market.  They had actually just closed, but they let my hubby in long enough to get some fresh shrimp.

And then we headed for the island...I love my first sight of the water!

What I didn't know until we got there was that we actually got to cross a ferry to get to Port Aransas.

Our campsite was quite literally a walk from the beach.  What a great view!

Lots of seaweed this time of year, but I can easily overlook it and just focus on the sand and the waves.

Huge, sandy beaches!  Just gorgeous!  The beaches here are much larger than those in Galveston.

We drove down the "road" along the beach, which was actually just firmly packed sand, and this seagull flew along with us for a while.

How neat to drive along the beach for miles!  We drove all the way to Corpus Christi, with this amazing view.

Of course, the beach is much more than views-we had plenty of time to play, too.

And then we cleaned up and did a little sight-seeing.

Since there was no Wal-Mart on the island we did have to leave at some point on the vacation to get some supplies-on the ferry again.

A friend of mine that lives in the area told me about the dolphins that swim near the Station Street fishing pier, so of course we made our way there to find the dolphins.

Sure enough, lots of dolphins showed up!

That night my hubby hooked up a projector outside and put a shower curtain on the side of the RV so we could watch a couple movies-so relaxing!

And then-another beautiful day at the beach!  

We went back out to see the dolphins, and while there we noticed a lighthouse in the distance.  I said I wanted a closer look, so we inputted lighthouse in Port Aransas into the GPS.  We were in the Jeep quite a while until it took us here-a lighthouse restaurant in Rockport...how funny!  IN a non-vacation world I probably would have been irritated, but in vacation land-I kind of enjoyed the ride!

We tried again-we headed back to Aransas Pass, and got about this close to it-it appeared to be on an island pretty far out.  I guess next time I want to see a lighthouse I should wait until we have a boat.

That night we decided it was time for a date!  We went out to a restaurant on the island called Shells.  I had one of my favorite seafood dishes-a crabcake and shrimp.  My food was tasty, but we were not impressed with the restaurant.  If we ever make a trip back to Port Aransas, this restaurant will not be on our list of restaurants to try.

After dinner, we decided to go out for ice cream.  We stopped at a little place called Desserted Island.  This was such a neat little place-very colorful and cheery with neat little decorations all over.  There was a long line, but it was worth the wait.

We had such a great vacation, but they all must come to an end at some point.  We stopped at a beach shop on the way out of town.  This particular one had a great photo-op!

It seemed like everyone decided to leave the same time we did, and we had quite a wait to get on the ferry again.  We did enjoy the view while we waited, though.

One last look at the water before heading out...

We passed this port on the way out of town, but I cannot recall if it was in Aransas Pass or Corpus Christi.

We had such a relaxing time-it was so nice to have no agenda, and to just be beach bums for a few days.  I am already looking forward to my next vacation.

My Version of a Mud Run

There was a Mud Run Saturday right in front of my house.  I knew the day was coming, but I also knew I had other stuff going on; plus it cost a little more than I was interested in paying.  Fortunately for me, quite a bit of it was still set up on Sunday afternoon, so my youngest son and I went for our own version.  Here was the real Mud Run underway while I was on my way down the driveway:

First obstacle on our version-the hay bale climb.  My son stopped to pose.

Me on top of the hay bales.  I'm pretty sure if I had done the actual Mud Run a picture like this would have been out of the question.

Next obstacle-the tires.

Then there were a few logs to jump over.

Followed by a maze...

And a log crossing... 

Then we made our way through a dried up creekbed.  I was nervous in this area because poison ivy is my arch enemy.

And then onto some gorgeous views of the lake.  The water levels are so low.  Normally the sandy looking area is covered in water.  We need rain!

The dried lake bottom is pretty, but sad that the water levels are so low.

We only completed about half the mud run:  nature called, and once we were inside, the A/C felt too good to go back out into the 90 plus temps.  Perhaps another day.