South Padre Island

Nueces River Park

We got an early start this morning leaving San Antonio in our rear view mirror at about 7:45am, and heading directly south on I-35 to Corpus Christi. Our goal for the day was 120 miles to a soccer park located just north of Corpus Christi just off I-37 that allows free camping for 3 days at at time, right on the Nueces River. Naturally, I feel right at home near a soccer pitch, and as I write there are young kids attending soccer practice. Once we had selected our spot, a 100' long turnout, and parked, we unloaded the 'Bird and drove into Corpus Christi to City Hall to obtain our free camping permit. After that task was completed by Brenda in Parks and Recreation on the 3rd floor we headed further south on to Padre Island, and specifically to the gate of Padre Island National Seashore Park where we would obtain our Senior Pass, formerly called Golden Age Pass, enabling us to enter National Park, BLM land (Bureau of Land Management) land for either free, or 1/2 price for the rest of our natural lives. There are two requirements to meet....1) You must be 62 years of age, and 2) be a US citizen. After satisfying these requirement the on duty Ranger quickly gave us our magnetic strip cards.



The soccer pitch right behind our coach


This will be our first real test living off our batteries for 3 days, and depending on our solar charging system to bring us back up to snuff each day. We are dry camping, and off the grid for 3 days. As I write I am watching Fox News courtesy our house batteries 270 amp hours of power, and our 2,000 watt inverter, and using my computer to make this blog post.

After picking up our Senior Passes we continued south for 4 more miles to Malaquite Beach Visitor Center to eat lunch, and walk on the beach.

Just before crossing the causeway to Padre Island

Chasin' t-shirt and short pants weather....

The Lovely Elaine on Malaquite Beach on South Padre Island

After a pleasant time on the beach we headed back north, stopping by Nueces County Park to check on reservations for this weekend for a site right on the beach....OK.....50 yards from the beach. We're booked, and will head down from our current dry camping spot on Thursday.

We have the whole place to ourselves!

Looking north along the Nueces River

Thanks for stopping by!!!