The Texas Riviera

Beach People. 

That's us.

The mountains are great, as is the prairie. 

But, should you prop us up in a beach chair with an umbrella,

be assured that if this were our last day on earth 

...we would've died happy.

Recently, that old familiar tug of the sea came 'round and since we had a few days off from work, we headed down to the Gulf Coast - The Texas Riviera. Port Aransas is only about an eight hour drive from Dallas and it fills the need.

OK - So it's not Fort Lauderdale but I've got to tell you - parking is plentiful, the restaurants are great and you can still find affordable ocean front accomodations.

Here's the view from our room at "The Sandcastle"...

Being on the lookout for oil slicks (damn you, BP) we were fortunate not to spot any. It looks like Florida took the first hit. Interestingly though, Port Aransas beaches were covered with three to four foot swaths of seaweed. After 'becoming one' with the seaweed and accepting it as a part of nature, it (ahem) sort of 'grows' on you. Seaweed clean-up crews were in force but by the time they cleaned it up, it was back again. You get used to it.

The sand dunes in 'Port A' reminded us a lot of Cape Cod but the water was a lot warmer here than on The Cape.

Although the humidity did nothing for my hair, the trade-off was that the sunsets embraced my soul.