Barrier Beaches

January 22 – 28, 2017

I'm working hard at not driving very far to get into the habit of super-slow travel. Although the park (near Corpus Christi) isn't that far, I aim for 50 miles a day, stopping for a day or two at each place.

I hit CC close to rush hour and had a nervous drive through the city. Luckily there's only one road out to the Seashore and once past downtown the traffic lightened up. Once past the last inhabited area the traffic dropped to me and a couple trucks going the other way. I drove to North Beach which is part of the Seashore but not past the entry booth.

Although windy, it was fabulous. Daily walks down the beach and nothing but dunes for the cats to play in.

The beach was well-packed sand and it looked like there was plenty of space between the water and the dunes. Had I consulted a tide chart before parking I would have known that I arrived during a very low tide. I also would have known that there would be a very high tide. Although I had a few minutes of insecurity, the water never reached more than a couple inches up the tires. Crises avoided.

Taken from my window

After a couple days I went farther into the Park to the South Beach. Wild and beautiful, this beach had softer sand and some serious blowing sand. I watched a couple cars get stuck in the soft sand near the exit and helped to push them out. Also met an older couple staying in their Airstream that is a good ten years older than I am.

Although I had the windows that faced the wind closed, on the lee side there floated very fine grains that managed to sift into everything. Open windows had sand drifts (on my bed – not nice) and the engine was coated in grains. All of my locks got gritty and hard to turn and the doors and windows became gritty and hard to move.

The weather turned from sunny and windy to rainy and windy and I was done with being sand-blasted. Sand had piled up on the windshield wipers and solidified by the rain, and all of the windows were coated in sand and salt. Since I have no washer fluid (the container is cracked....it's on the to-do list) I drove slowly to the visitor center and borrowed a bucket to wash down the windshield.

Now able to see, I braved the freeways of Corpus Christi and drove away from the city.