Texas Gulf Beach

Ok, I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to expect at all. Other than South Padre Island and spring break mania, I had never heard of anyone going on a beach vacation on the Gulf in Texas. I was wondering what the reason was for that. Were there refineries on the beach? Were the oil rigs so close in that they seriously messed up the view to create an ugly beach? Why doesn't anyone come here?

Well, people do come here, they are just Texans. I don't happen to know a lot of Texans. And those that DO come here would surely be smart enough not to blab about this place to the entire world. But only a very small subset of the world reads my blog, so I'm not afraid to tell you about it. Just don't tell real estate developers.

We are at a place called Port Aransas. Known as Port A to the regulars. There is a gorgeous wide sandy beach,calm surf, and from our camper, we can see the water. This town has NO nasty high rise condos, just sand dunes, behind which are little beach cottages and a few condos that are low rise and not at all objectionable. There are no mansions on the beach. The restaurants are low key places that have signs that say things like: you catch it, we'll cook it! It is the sort of beach community average people could bring their kids to and eat in any restaurant. There are a good handful of bars too. There is some spring break activity here, but it is largely contained and there has been very little police activity associated with that. This is an island and you have to take a ferry to get to, and the one thing that is missing is over water type establishments, there are none that we've seen. But almost all of the restaurants have outdoor dining. There are no chains here except for ONE fast food place called Whataburger. Otherwise even the grocery store is an IGA... There are no chain "casual dining" establishements and it is just a welcome vacation from that whole scene. So I will take some more pictures today and I will post them.