Week 31…Christmas At The Beach

When we left camp in Del Rio Monday, Christmas Eve morning, we had planned to stay outside of Corpus Christi. Campgrounds and boondock spots weren’t coming up with any recent reviews and it seemed many were still recovering from the hurricane this past summer. My good friend, Linda, has spent time in the area because her daughter lives there. After texting with her, she advised that anything south of Port Aransas and the JFK memorial causeway on the beach was fine. So we redirected and headed out to the beach. With the government shutdown, we haven’t run into any problems getting into the parks. There are signs up advising of the shutdown and that trash and bathrooms are not being tended to but we haven’t found that to be a problem.

We drove out to the beach and found many others had the same idea. It was a beautiful warm night and we were happy. Linda had also suggested Lazy Beach Brewing. Since it wouldn’t be open on Christmas Day, we headed there after getting camp set up. The place was cute and the beer was really good. I thanked Linda and she said her daughter, Kristyn, was only a few miles away and she wanted us to stop in.

After getting a few growlers filled, we made our way to Kristyn and her husband, Kyle’s house. I hadn’t seen her (or her cute dog Jackson) in a couple years since she moved down here but they were so welcoming.

We met a few of their friends, they shared all their wonderful food, had a few beers, and we had lots of laughs. We had a great Christmas Eve! We learned about living in Texas, all the bad things in the ocean that can hurt you and all the places we shouldn’t miss before we left. Kristyn, Craig and I argued that Unsalted and Shark Free is way better than man o’ wars, sharks, and salt mist that ends up on everything! We would’ve loved to stay longer but we had to make our way back out to the beach 30 minutes away.

Gus had been peacefully sleeping in the Jeep while we were visiting, or so we thought. We came out to a massive pile of throw up in the Jeep, on my sweatshirt, down the tailgate and piled on the street under the Jeep. It was pretty awful. We cleaned things up the best as we could and were a little frustrated after having such a great night. We got back to camp and Gus went right to bed. Poor guy. He’s a trooper but he is definitely having some issues.

Christmas Day was wonderful. We had gotten back to camp late and we slept with the windows open and listened to the crash of the waves all night. It was awesome. We all slept in. The weather was beautiful. The sun was shining and it wasn’t super windy and we could enjoy our breakfast and coffee sitting outside. It was a nice change from hunkering down in the trailer to escape the cold mornings and nights we’ve been experiencing.

We took walks on the beach, read books and after a taco salad lunch, we hopped in the Jeep and drove the beach to the Bob Hall Pier and continued until it turned us onto a road into town. We grabbed some ice and drove back on the beach. We continued in the Park south of camp and found the south beach area that people camp on. As we drove in just a few miles, the weather started to turn. It started to rain and the wind was picking up. We headed back to camp to close up windows and not get stuck unloading in the rain.

Wednesday morning we woke up to our entire camper shaking in the wind. It was pretty crazy how much it was moving. We went in the trailer for breakfast and coffee, hoping it would die down soon. We wanted to continue driving the beach south and hang out for another day. It was almost noon when the rain and wind picked up even more and we couldn’t even be outside without getting sandblasted in the face. We decided to pack it up.

Breaking down camp in gale force winds was not fun at all. Sand blew in any door we opened and you couldn’t leave the door open because the wind would either slam it shut or slam it the opposite way. We both had to pry the back door of the trailer down to get the Jeep in. I lowered the camper top and before I could latch the back, a wind gust came and started picking it up. I didn’t want this to happen so I was holding onto it for dear life and screaming for Craig, who couldn’t hear me because of the wind and waves. Thankfully he finally did hear my scream and came to the rescue and we got it latched down.

When we finally sat in the truck, we were both coated with super fine salty sand, soaked to the bone, the truck was also covered inside and out and we felt horrible. We weren’t sure where to go next but we knew we had to get off the coast. At least we had one nice day on the beach.

I found a campground in El Campo, TX that had laundry, showers and a restaurant on-site. We made our way there. It was still raining and windy but not as bad. We grabbed a quick dinner and I was able to get a few loads of laundry done. The forecast said it would be nice the next day so we were banking on that.

During the night, the winds picked up again and shook the whole camper once again. And then a couple loud cracks of thunder and the monsoon began. Okay, it wasn’t a monsoon but it rained really really hard early morning and continued for a few hours. Not what we were hoping for, but we powered through.

Craig brought the Jeep to the power washer, I finished laundry, tried to clean the trailer and camper as best I could and even Gus got a bath too. Sand is still appearing from everywhere. After showers we were feeling a little bit better. The sun did finally come out and after another stop at the power washer to rinse off the truck, camper and trailer, we were on our way.

We’ve heard that Houston roads are horrible and to avoid them at all costs. Since we were already inland and not ready to go back to the coast, we headed north and east as far away from Houston as we could. We came across the Kelly’s Pond Campground in the Sam Houston National Forest. The road and all the surrounding trails are pretty wet here too. We are just happy it’s not raining and we are settled in with some trees to look at.

Our next stop is New Orleans. Neither of us have been there and even though we aren’t party city people, we’ll give it a shot. Our dilemma is when to go. We assume the weekend before New Years is going to be crazy but we’re on track to be there Sunday. We’ll probably just do a day trip and get out before the craziness starts. With our rig, we don’t want to go into town so we’ll end up driving in with the Jeep. We want to experience it even if it has to be a little low key.

Off to New Orleans…