Day 13 - South Padre Island - Travel from north end to south end

Southwest Texas Vacation - Trip to South Padre Island for the Birding & Nature Center

Sunday, 8 May, 2022

Leisurely morning, then we hit the road about 11am for our 200 mile drive to South Padre Island.  Other than being a lot of sitting, it was an easy drive.  Stopped once for fuel & a pit stop & arrived about 3pm.  As we were going onto the island, we had to cross multiple bridges across the water.  It seemed to be prettier water on this end of the Gulf.

We got checked in easily & moved into our balcony room.  They had supposedly upgraded us to a room with a beach view, but since the room was on the 2nd floor, the view was mostly blocked by the palm trees.  I found it interesting that the photos I downloaded from the website didn't show any palm trees!  On the photo from the beach side, our room was on the 2nd floor on the right side, almost at the beach end.  I drew in the Palm Trees to show how our balcony view was blocked.  I have circled the Birding Center across the street to show why we were down here!  We'll be able to just walk across the street in the morning for our Guided Birding tour.

After a relaxing & enjoyable "lupper" at the On the Border that is conveniently inside the hotel, we took a walk down the famed South Padre Island beach.  There were tons of folks on the beach as we headed west towards the more populated, touristy end.  I much preferred the quiet beach of Padre Island National Seashore & the Mustang Island State Park beach.  This one was more Miami/Hawaii style with tons of people coming down from their oceanview/beachside hotels.  Of course the other beaches don't allow alcohol, so this one definitely has a wilder crowd.  But I must say that there was not much trash & strangely enough, I didn't notice many string bikini's & most of the guys were even wearing tshirts.  Interesting.  Of course we were the ONLY ones in long pants.  I was wearing my Tevas, so I had sand on my toes!  It was Mother's Day & just as we had gotten to where we were going to turn around, we found this beautiful sand sculpture.  We didn't get to meet the artist, but her husband was there cleaning up & we told him to thank her for her beautiful gift.

As we headed back to our hotel, the sun was starting to set & most folks were cleaning up for the day to go home. It was a more pleasant walk without all the crowds. Still not much trash! I was impressed.  Seemed to be rather hazy - pollution or humidity?  Fairly early start in the morning, so we headed inside to settle in, watch a little TV & prepare for our tour tomorrow!