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Welcome to South Padre Island...
That's what the sign says as you leave the 2.5 mile long causeway (bridge for most of us) linking Port Isabel with this spit of sand covered with high class hotels and T-shirt shops, oh yeah...AND LOTS OF BARS!! SPI is a year round destination for young and old (Okay, middle aged too!). In the winter time the island is over run by snow-birds or as the locals refer to them out of ear shot, Q-tips. You'll have to look at the pictures for an explanation of that one. Originally Glen & Sue Rutherford who have wintered here for years told us that we could just pull our rig onto the beach and camp, so that had been the plan from the start. The problem that we didn't consider was two-fold: our weight and our length, both formidable challenges given our quantity of both. After crossing the causeway following the directions they had provided we proceeded to Beach Access #5 and found that yes we could camp on the beach for only $3 per nite. After making the wise decision to lock the hubs and hit 4-wheel drive BEFORE leaving the blacktop we discovered that the risk of being swamped by the tide or having to pay a smiling tow-truck driver to winch us out of the sand (or both), was just to high. A somewhat friendly law-enforcement official stopped to firmly inform us that we would have to move our rig out of the so-called road about 1.5 miles down the beach. He also let us know that we could dry-camp in one of the county park lots for $15 per night and not have to worry about a possibly blood thirsty tow-truck driver, the decision was made. Off we went to Andy Bowie county park for the next few days. Next>>> Port Aransas Back |
