Padre Island

Portuguese Man-of-War

Eating lunch in the back of the truck, right on the beach

Variety of shells collected by the kids

Family portrait

Silly me to think there was a facility out on Padre Island with turtles.  When I was on the website, I knew there would be no nesting turtles or hatchlings, turtle season is from about May - Aug, but it did sound like they do talks and/or have some information /facility.  Well it's a visitor center and there is some information to browse about the whole island.  We decided to hang out at the beach anyway.  The kids picked up some junior ranger books filled with activities, and if they complete the book, they will get a patch (which they plan on doing).  When we first walked down, the sand was soooo soft, very fine.  It felt wonderful between our toes.  Then we headed down to the water.  Along the way we noticed what we thought was a jellyfish, and as we continued to walk, they were everywhere.  They were a beautiful blue color with a long top body and some blue squiggly tentacles.  Of course we knew to touch them!  Not only that, they are not jellyfish, but Portuguese Man-of-War!!!!  The water felt a little cool and first, but was refreshing.  We were a little apprehensive about being in the water due to all the jellyfish we saw along the way.  We then headed back so we could eat lunch (I packed us lunch, but forgot they drinks).  Needless to say the store was closed where we could get drinks, so we got in the car and headed back into town to get drinks.  We knew we could find beach access anywhere along this area.  Well we got our drinks and drove down the road that said beach access, and  they meant beach access...we drove right onto the beach!!!  We parked the truck and sat in the back eating and watching the waves, it was magnificent.  During lunch Bryce dropped a chip and ended up throwing it out towards the birds...big mistake, all of a sudden there was a swarm of seagulls flying above our heads, and everywhere on the ground around us.  We ended up leaving and heading towards the other island towards Port Aransas.  It was a beautiful drive and we wanted to go spend more time at the beach so we headed that way, again being able to park right on the beach.  We went for another walk - the kids collected shells, played in the waves, and we watched some people fish and reel in a spanish trout (beautiful fish).  We had to still be very aware of where we were walking due to the Portuguese Man-of-War everywhere.  You are probably about to guess what happened...YES Trent ended up stepping on one of these creatures, and let out a cry/scream.  He was very brave as we got it off his foot, lucky it was just a very small one.  It did hurt, but we headed back to the car and the stinging went away.  All in all it turned out to be a wonderful day at the beach.