South Padre Island

 On April 15th we headed south for a couple of days. We needed to go to Sandpipers and pick up some chairs left behind. Achieved that goal plus visited with Bill and Jocelyne, our Canadian friends. Then it was on toward South Padre island. On the way we  stopped at Longhorn Cattlemans bar b que in San Benito. Good food and revived memories of previous stops when on bike rides on the Spyder. More info HERE 

 Then it was on to South Padre Island where we had been many times. This would be our first time spending the night. Our lodging choice was Isla Grand beach resort, details here It turned out to be a good choice. Room was nice, view better than expected. Enjoyed walking the beach, people watching and surprising entertainment.

 In all of our previous visits we had failed to visit Sea Turtle Inc, link . A great organization doing wonderful work. Of course one must stop and view sandcastle display if on the island, even if none are castles.

 Some scenes from our visit

Lost Maples

  After several false starts we were finally able to go camping for a bit. Our destination was Lost Maples Natural area near Vanderpool. It is best known for the bigtooth maples found in the canyon. They adapted and survived climate change over the last 10000 years. While not in bloom it is still a nice, quiet park to visit. We journeyed down to Utopia for dinner on Tuesday and over to Leakey on Wednesday. Decent meals but nothing special. Was just fun to get away and change scenery. At the park there was no cell service so we were offline for the two days.