The Savage Traveler: Out West Adventure: Part 1--Mustang Island

Exiting the Aransas Channel Ferry

January 26-28: (Saturday) My lips are salty, my hair is a wild curly ‘fro around my head, and I can hear the waves crashing through the window behind me in the camper. We are camping at Mustang Island State Park just over a dune from the Gulf of Mexico, and 10 miles north of Padre Island National Seashore. The island was named for the wild horses that once roamed the island in abundance, but had disappeared by the mid-1800s. We visited this area in 2010 but made a day trip of it, when it was sunny and 60°. Today it was close to 80° and sunny and windy. We had closed the camper and driven straight through from Houston, stopping only to eat our picnic lunch at a rest area along Highway 59. The GPS took us across the strait on the Aransas Ferry, which we had both forgotten we did in 2010, too. Since we made a reservation this morning we knew we would have a campsite in the mostly full, small campground. It has no trees and is just a very wide, paved lot with close packed campsites up each side but at least there is no one behind us and it is far from the road. Best of all, it is a short bike ride on the road through the dune and to the hard-packed beach where primitive campsites can be accessed by driving on the beach. We did a cursory set-up, during which our next door neighbor (from Missouri) came over to check out the camper. He has a big trailer and is looking at downsizing a bit. After that we rode our bikes over to ride a couple of miles on the sand and walked for a bit, too. We saw several large cannonball jellyfish and a 5 inch puffer fish and many small shells. When we returned to the campsite we found three nice shells on the steps of the camper. Soon the campground host, Jared, came to introduce himself and give us two more shells (he had left the others) and some literature about the area. After making Dirty Rice and a salad for dinner and getting the first sunset picture of the trip, we played a round of dominoes (I lost miserably) and then rode back to the beach to walk under the full moon on the sand some more. As far as we could tell we were the only ones on the well lit beach. It was beautiful.

Peggy on the beach

The view from Marv's handlbars

Marv on the beach

Sunset over Mustang Island

Full moon over Mustang Island

(Sunday) It was a lovely, lazy Sunday morning of scrambled eggs and reading the LSJ from beginning to end while we sat in the sunshine and drank our coffee. There was a pretty stiff breeze so the high sixties didn’t feel as warm as it might have but it was pleasant none the less. We made a picnic lunch and drove the 12 miles to Padre Island National Seashore, thinking we could sit on the beach there and listen to the MSU/Indiana basketball game at noon. However, as we drove through the park we lost the signal. A stop at the Visitors Center found things much like they were three years ago when we visited. We reviewed what we had learned about the efforts to help the highly endangered Kemps Ridley Sea Turtles and then headed back towards the gate. But we turned into the drive to the Bird Island Basin on the leeward side of the island and found there a sail boarding Mecca with a few campsites, some picnic tables, several parked cars, and 6 or 7 people out enjoying the smooth water and stiff breeze. We ate our picnic on a table there and watched the entertainment and enjoyed the sun when it popped out of the clouds. After a while we decided to head back to the campsite and listened to the rest of the game on the way back. Sadly, MSU couldn’t prevail against the Hoosiers at home. L There was more sun and the temperatures had warmed into the seventies so we rode our bikes back to the beach and in the opposite direction than we had taken yesterday until we were stopped by the fish jetties. From there we locked up the bikes and walked up the beach and back for half an hour, watching the waves crash in and squadrons of pelicans flying overhead. As the afternoon waned we returned to our campsite and sat in the sun, protected from the increasing wind by the camper, to read until dinnertime. We had bean soup that we had brought from home, talked to Marv's mom for a long time on the phone, and got things ready for a quick getaway tomorrow so we can begin crossing the rest of Texas to the west and get to Arizona.