Josh had the week off before starting the fall semester this coming week, so we thought we'd visit another part of Texas that we haven't yet. We made our way down to Corpus Christi, which is about 3 1/2 to 4 hours southwest of Houston. We were excited to actually try camping on the beach. When we went to Destin in April, we camped
near the beach, but we still had to walk about a mile or so to get to the beach. In Corpus we actually had a seaside view from our tent.
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what we were expecting. It was beautiful and the water was warm, but we didn't take into account the wind and its impact on camping. First, it was a feat just to set up the tent. We had to throw all our stuff in it even before it was up just to get it to stay on the ground. Then we had to unzip all sides of the tent so that the wind would flow through it and keep it up rather than cause part of it to collapse. Unzipping it was needed anyway because it was too hot without the air flow. Guess what happens though when the winds can rip through your tent at night? You get everything that comes with the wind, and by the beach, that means sand. It was bad enough to eat the sand for dinner. We roasted hot dogs, and it was pretty much unavoidable to keep the sand off them. But believe it or not, I'd rather eat a little sand than sleep with it. By morning, our tent was covered in sand, ourselves included. Poor Eli woke up in the middle of the night crying because he had sand all over in his eyes. He and Josh spent the rest of the night sleeping in the car and left me to brave the tent alone. I definitely didn't get a lot of sleep. However, had we not had the wind, we would have roasted to death, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise. I know that anywhere in South Texas is going to be hot in August, but it was scorching in Corpus. Needless to say, we cut our trip a little short, but we did have a great adventure that we can laugh about later. :-)
After packing up our camping gear and finding a much needed shower to get the sand off, we went to the Texas State Aquarium. Can you tell we like aquariums? It was a good one. We especially liked the dolphins and sea turtles.
