More trip stuff

Here are a few more pictures and a little more about the trip. We were in our hotel room by 4:30 Friday and half an hour later were in swimsuits on the beach. Gladly, we found our beach jellyfish-free. The waves were HUGE, none of which can be seen from the pictures. There was a sandbar quite a ways out that we could swim to and catch some bigger waves. Really cool.

Saturday we went to the sea turtle conservatory, which was mostly a cheap way to waste an hour or so before heading to the beach. We spent about five hours at the beach Saturday, and 3 out of 4 of us paid the price that night and next day. (The $22 for the umbrella and chairs was a great investment, as I spent half of my time lounging and taking in the view.) That evening, I made a trip to the store to get aloe and the three of them spent the evening nursing their burns. Bailey was worse in the morning. Her nose and upper cheeks were swollen with blisters, but we still had a full day in the sun planned for the next day at Schlitterbahn Beach. I was pretty upset with Bailey's condition and didn't handle it very well, but we made it work.

I'd like to say Schlitterbahn Beach was a blast, but really it was somewhat disappointing. It's a VERY small waterpark and seems to be geared towards the younger kiddos. The rides noted as "Thrilling" were not all that adventurous, and that's according to me - the less brave of the four of us. So back to the sunburns - everyone had to wear t-shirts all day at the waterpark and Bailey never took her cap off. It's not as if we didn't have fun at the park, it just wasn't the excitement we were expecting after last year's trip to Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels. So my advice is to save the extra 3 hours of travel and go to the hill country.

I was surprised at how small South Padre Island was. It's just a narrow strip of an island, so anywhere you stay will be close to the water. There's no way around it. We were very pleased with our hotel (Travelodge), especially after our ghetto-like hotel at Corpus last year. And the owners spoke perfect English and were NOT of Middle-Eastern decent, if you can believe it. No offense, but they seem to have lower standards at their hotels. That comes from personal experience, not stereotyping.

Basically, I don't see a reason to go all the way to Padre when you can find beautiful clean beaches at places like Mustang Island or other places around Port Aransas, Portland, etc. All in all, we had a good time together. Seems like those times when the four of us are away together, away from computers and cell phones, we really enjoy each other's company and have some good laughs. And we must have gotten a good workout everyday, because we all were asleep no later than 9:30 or 10:00 every night.

So one more family vacation down and a few more memories made. Perhaps next year we should head north and try whitewater rafting or something like that. I think we have enough beach experiences for a while.