Texas! Days 1 and 2--San Antonio Riverwalk and Padre Island National Seashore

Feb 21. We drove from the airport to downtown San Antonio and felt like we teleported to a foreign country, Old ornate buildings, Spanish style. There was the Alamo compound right in the middle of the city, graced by live oaks. The air was light and cool, and the historical ghosts whispered to us. We spent some time wandering around the compound, then we walked across the street and down the Hyatt steps to an entrance to the River Walk. We were first greeted by an enterprising barman who twisted our arms to get us to buy beers to drink while walking around. (We chose a Texan beer, Ziegenbock). We walked out into the river walk and I was just floored by how much more it was than I had expected. I was reminded of Venice. (the gondolas were replaced by water taxis). There is even a Bridge of Sighs. We managed to get mildly lost for a bit.

 We shared a meal at a Mexican restaurant, then dragged ourselves away from the beautiful river walk to drive down to Corpus Christie.

After checking into a VERY nice Hyatt Place we drove over to the National Seashore as the sun set. The surf had been monstrous today. There is a sand road on the beach, and you can car camp on the beach. However, today, the road was not looking very safe. The waves were coming up to it. The National seashore looked unearthly in the twilight with it's rolling dunes. We left as the darkness descended. We tried out Doc's, a seafood restaurant on the sound side of the island. We could see it, but had trouble getting to it. We had to cross under a bridge in the darkness, and had trouble seeing where was land and where was water. (When we saw it in the light the next day, we saw all was land, but at night it looked like water. We were just scaring ourselves). After we finally found the road and got to Doc's, we were very happy with our fish and ourselves.

Feb 22
We drove back to the Padre Island national seashore to see it in daylight. We played on the entrance sign doing yoga poses. It was hard not to get blown over while balancing in the wind. At the entrance station I bought my lifetime senior pass. We asked the ranger about the battery of cameras lining the road at the station. She explained it was a live feed to homeland security. Bobbi felt concerned about the goofy face she'd made while the cameras flashed last night.
We drove to the bird island basin where there was a small campground. That's about all we saw there. We drove on the the visitor center and beach. As we walked across the deck we saw a circle of people with a ranger. We stopped to listen and learned they were about to embark on a three hour birding tour, so we joined up. The volunteer ranger gave us a Walkie talkie and told us to follow closely in our car. We went back to the same area we'd just been and got our "bird eyes" on. She had given us a check list of birds we might see. We checked off 25 species! It was wonderful to really see. She also took us back to the drive on part of the beach, which was much better today, Bobbi bravely drove on the beach. People camped on the beach and fished. We saw a bird tangled up in a garbage bag. We had to tear ourselves away to travel on, but first stopped at another fish restaurant on the lagoon for fish and chips.