Wanna do the beach thing here in Texas but don’t want the “usual” Spring Break crowds in March? Consider Padre Island National Seashore!

When you come up to the booth, pay the rangers the $5 entrance fee and you’re free to explore miles of natural shoreline, and is known to be the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world, according to the National Park Service. (Our ranger was really nice and gave us free ice cream cups that they had to get rid of)!

The Malaquite Visitor Center was lightly staffed due to capacity restrictions, but all your stamps and souvenirs are there, and they were happy to answer your questions. There’s also very clean showers and restrooms to use on the extremely spacious covered decks of the center.

There’s wonderful bird watching, and once a year, the ridley sea turtle hatchlings are released into the water, and is open to the public (though they suspended this last year cause of COVID). These poor guys were also rescued this past February from the extreme winter freeze temperatures.

The waters can be very choppy this time of year; there was a riptide warning the day of our visit. I actually kept my hoodie on because it was so windy and cool (and it helped to not get my shoulders sunburned).

The rangers were happy to talk about the bin they had with samples of real sea life, such as blowfish skeletons, and large seashells the size of your head (they did say those were rare to find, though).

It was so fun and relaxing to play in the sand, and have the water on your feet. It was definitely too cold to go swimming in! The birds were fun to watch as they scuttled across the sand chirping towards the water:

And this blue guy washed up:

The Rangers confirmed it was a Portuguese Man O’ War jellyfish, which is comprised of a combination of other organisms, also known as a floating terror! While on the beach, it still writhed and swelled as if it was breathing! But don’t touch: the stings are supposedly very painful, even fatal!

There’s a deck you can go up on to get a better view of the shore, and in the parking lot there’s a little shaved ice truck that sells its cool cones.

A long day of beach fun calls for some hearty food, so in the early evening after checking in the hotel, we found the Padre Island Burger Company, with its juicy burgers and gluttonous fries. I had the Hangover burger, which had a fried egg and corn smoked bacon. I added the green chili cheese fries and they were absolutely delicious.

Nearby at downtown Corpus Christi is the USS Lexington, a great naval museum:

The Texas State Aquarium:

And finish those tours at the Pier 99 Restaurant, with its seaside view of the Lexington right outside:

It was nice to get out and about and get some salt air in the lungs again.

Smell ya later!