Padre Island Beach Trip

Hello!! A once promised blog is being delivered to the people at last! This weekend, John and I drove to Padre Island National Seashore which is south of Houston. We made very quick disorganized plans to camp on the beach and lest early Saturday morning. The National Seashore is one of the largest in the world, I think. It was about 60 miles of beach on the Gulf, but it's a pan-handle off Texas. Anyway, we drove our car right out onto the beach and set up camp arriving at about 11:00am. It was a beautiful day! A little breezy, but perfect for the beach. The breeze kept us all from being hot hot hot! I think it was in the 90s. Above is a picture of the beach that John took peeking up over a dune.

Here is a picture of my Coca Cola advertisement...

Chester was so happy all day. He was running all over the beach faster than a speeding bullet (well, fast for Chester). He was jumping through the water and playing in it. He was too afraid to go against the waves since they were about his height. He tried several times and got plunged under the waves making his whole face wet. So, we opted to carry him out a ways and let him ride the waves in! It was so cute! I think he thought he could swim really fast! He loved it. I love this above picture of him! He is so content, soaking wet and soaking in the sun.

Here is John looking hot in all of his scuba gear. He went out for a swim just to snorkel. He looks so cute! He loves to snorkel and brings all of his stuff anytime we go somewhere with water. When John was done snorkeling we were both pretty wiped out from the sun and running around with pugs. So, we got in our tent and laid down and took a nap. It was so nice to be away from anything that would occupy our attention and stress us out. When we got up from our nap the wind had picked up considerably. The sand was blowing into the tent and onto us. Every part of my body was covered in sand and I could not wipe it off because I was sweating from the heat and humidity! Plus after about an hour of sand blowing onto your skin, it starts to hurt! We had plans for John's cousin, who lives in Kingsville, to come find us on the beach and grill some food. We thought it would be too hard to start a primitive fire with the wind blowing that hard, plus the sand thing was really starting to make me grumpy! So, we packed up camp about 7 pm and drove out. On our way out, luckily, we passed by John's cousin Christina. We all decided to go to their house and grill there. I HAVE NO REGRETS AT ALL!!!! I was so happy to get to know one of John's cousins. We had so much fun with her and her husband! We grilled, and then Casey (Christina's husband) made a fire in their backyard (Kingsville is like Pendleton where you can do things like that) and we made smores! He actually had a "burn barrel" and I think that only people in my family may know what that is ......


Charlie made me promise not to post pictures of him on the beach. He didn't want people to see the evidence of him eating seaweed and sand, rolling in seaweed, being terrified of water, and vomiting up seaweed later. He had a lot of fun, but of course would "never behave like such an animal since he is of such sophisticated blood" (his words). So here is him laying down at Christina's house. He looks handsome!

The next morning, the amazement and wonder continued when Casey made us breakfast of none other than Chicken Fried Steak.....only the steak was DEER TENDERLOIN! Holy smokes deer is delicious and I love to be reminded of that! We also had biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and potatoes. Yum yum! Thanks again Casey and Christina!! You really made our weekend great! Above is a picture of all of us that we took in their back yard.

After eating a yummy rancher-style breakfast, we got a tour of Kingsville (again, much like Pendleton). Then, instead of working hard on the ranch all day, we hopped in the car and sat....so as to allow the breakfast to better stick to the ribs. The road trip was beautiful and I may have been a little high from the food-induced coma. Above is a picture of some fields. The colors were so pretty and these fields were all over. I don't know what the crop was, but it was everywhere and pretty!

And, as you can see here. Someone was TIRED from a very busy day just being a dog at the beach. Please take a look at the massive folds up top and soft belly sticking out below. For those who do not know. Chester would never normally allow me to hold him like this. But on this day he SLEPT like this for about 15 minutes! Case closed the beach trip was a success for everyone! We had a blast getting away from the city!