We've been planning on heading to the coast on our weekends off this month since Josh doesn't have a lot of gigs. He loves to fish and I love to just lay there and relax. So we got up Sunday morning and Josh said "let's go." It was 9am. We figured we could get outta the house by noonish and be on the beach at 3. HA! We did end up leaving at noon, but we had to make a couple stops on the way.
Stop 1 - Wal-Mart. This should have been relatively easy. Josh needed a new tackle box, some stakes for the tent, and was also going to look for a shovel in case we got stuck and some doggie sedatives for our car anxiety queen Daphne. After what seems like 30 minutes, Josh emerges from Wal-Mart and I ask him if he looked for a shovel. He said no and turns around and heads back in to Wal-Mart. Then after about another 5-10 minutes he emerges again with shovel in hand but apparently had just gotten my text that said "did you get your tackle box?" and he drops the shovel off and heads BACK into Wal-Mart a THIRD time. So now that it's 1:00, we are finally on our way to San Antonio.
Stop 2 - The bank. Josh needs to cash his check from the gig Saturday night and we kinda need the money for gas so I suggest stopping at my bank because we can just deposit the check in the ATM and get the cash out for the band on the way back tomorrow. After 6 attempts, we fail to get the ATM to accept the check. So we give up and decide to get lunch.
Stop 3 - Subway. We decide to eat fresh and not get Burger King or Whataburger. I walk inside to get our lunch ... six people waiting in line. 1 Subway Sandwich Artist. OY. So by 2:00 now, we are finally heading down I-37 to Corpus.
The doggie sedatives finally start to work, or Daphne finally figures out whining isn't going to get her out of this and she snoozes off like a little princess. THANK GOODNESS!
Soooooooooooooooo a few hours and ONE MORE STOP (for bait) later, we finally arrive at the Padre Island National Seashore. The sign says at the entrance says lots of seaweed. We go down the drive, emerge on the beach and start our drive down to find our ideal spot. I think the park people understated how much seaweed there was. It was in piles about 2-3 feet high in some spots. The masses of seaweed, combined with the 25mph winds, made the beach a lot of fun to drive on. And by fun I mean a bumpy, slippery mess. We somehow made it to the 4 wheel drive section (which is about 5 miles and at least 30 minutes down this time) and we don't go much farther. We stopped at about mile 7 and about 6pm. Only 3 hours past when we thought we'd get there. LOL. But that's how we roll.
You know how else we roll??? Causing it to be cloudy, windy and generally non-ideal conditions ANYTIME WE GO SOMEWHERE. I don't know what it is about it but it happens every time and this was no exception. Oh well. We were at the coast ... darn it ... and we were going to make the best of it! Josh sets up the tent and then heads off to fish.
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| Doesn't that look fun??? All that seaweed and it's cloudy and windy so he's gotta wear a jacket! |
Josh catches nothing but lots of world record seaweed balls. He decides to get the dogs some play time and takes Bailey and Daphne out to the water with him one by one. Daphne LOVED it. She loved jumping around in the water with him while he fished. In retrospect ... maybe next time we don't put them in the water at night when they'll have to end up in the tent with us ... HA! But it's okay they loved it.
I put on my long sleeved shirt and grabbed a towel to cover my legs as I sat in my zero gravity lounger and read my magazines. When Josh comes back up he grabs me a jacket from the truck and mixes us some drinks. There we go! The solution to our problem! Drinking will make us forget how cold we are!
The dogs were pretty low key. They were really pooped from their car ride and from running around in the ocean with Josh.
Although Josh thought that it would be a good idea to give Daphne some of his Whiskey. Or a lot of it.
It was funny though. LOL. Then he decided to go back out and try his hand at fishing some more. I decided I'd have a drink or two more ... I was just now starting to get warm!!! The wind was finally dying down!!! Or was it??? Haha.
Ya I doubt it was dying down. Pretty sure it was just me. LOL. I then had some crackers and cheese since I hadn't eaten since lunch, and my last drink turned out pretty strong, and then called it a night. I got in the tent with Rox and left Bailey and Daphne out since Josh was still out there. Josh ended up catching a fish sometime between when I went to bed about 10:30 and when he finally decided to call it a night at 3 or 4am. Haha. Here's what he caught -
Awesomely enough that fish ended up in that red cooler with our food ... cuz we hadn't brought an extra cooler to take fish back. When Josh came in he said he's seen lots of coyotes coming around so we brought Bailey and Daphne in the tent with us.
I woke up a few hours later to the sunlight coming in the tent... and the sounds of Josh cutting up the fish. My favorite part about camping at the beach is waking up to this view ...
Sunrise view from the tent... glorious! Checking out this view, wanting to capture it in photo (and obviously before taking this pic), I found myself wondering ... where did my phone go? I'd had my phone and a flashlight in my jacket pocket before I went to bed and I checked the jacket pocket and they were not there. Once I started moving stuff around in the tent I found my phone ... but the flashlight would never be seen again. It was not in the tent nor anywhere around the tent. As I uploaded my photos today when I got home I realized why my phone was not in the jacket pocket where I thought I left it. I'd apparently drunkenly taken pics of Rox walking around inside the tent before going to sleep. LOL.
Another nice thing to wake up to is sleeping, peaceful dogs ...
So cute they are when they are sleeping. Kinda like kids I guess. Ha! So I decided to get up and make something of this day. Josh was already starting to put stuff up, he said the fishing was too difficult with the wind and the seaweed and that we could pack up and go try somewhere else. I'm game. Sick of fighting the wind and eating sand. But as I step out of the tent, I get a much better view...
However, it's still cloudy and it's still windy and still lots and lots of seaweed so I'm down with trying somewhere else. There's a state park nearby and plenty of other places. We're finishing packing up and we're packing up the dog leashes and we find that Roxie's harness is missing. We look all around, dig in the sand, and never find it. Josh says likely taken by a coyote because it smelled like her. SUPER! I start getting the dogs ready for transport, get as much sand off as possible and I see that Roxie has taken a nose dive into the sand at some point.
LOL. That poor smooshy face. Got her and everyone else cleaned off, loaded up and off we went ... the 45 min or so trek back off the island and back into reality. Josh decides he wants to try his luck in the bay. He figures not as much seaweed there as there will be on the seaside. So we stop at Packery Channel Park. We stake the dogs out and Josh starts throwing casts.
I take the opportunity to clean up the truck a little. But checking in with him, alas, catching nothing but seaweed yet again. He calls it ... 3 more casts and I'm done. So he casts 3 more times, catches nothing else, and throws the rest of his bait out into the water. We decide to just head home. It's a nice day back home from what I can tell from the Weather Channel app... not as cloudy, not as windy, if we really want to we can hit the river when we get back. Josh is a little sleepy from only getting 3 or so hours of sleep so he hits the hay and so does the rest of the passengers.
Poor Bailey. Daphne is a seat hog.
We make it home about 2pm and unload the truck and rinse the sand off of every inch of us including in our ears and hair and we decide to just chill at home for the rest of the day... Oh well maybe someday we'll head out on an adventure and actually have nice weather for a change!
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