Day 18: Choke Canyon State Park, TX to South Padre Island, TX

I woke up around 5:30 this morning. The sky was still dark although the expanse of it was covered with twinkling stars and a sliver of the moon. I could hear birds cooing and splashing around in the water not far away. I got the stove going and put on a pot of water for coffee. When the sun’s first light began to creep into the eastern sky I got J up so he could take in the sights and sounds of the Texas sunrise that was unfolding. With coffee in our mugs and a bit of music playing on the laptop we broke down camp as the brightening sky revealed the surroundings of our place of rest. We really know how to pick a campsite in the darkness of night!

Our day’s journey began with a bit of backtracking to get to Route 16 south and another day on the open plains. All along the road in the plains there are ranches with miles and miles of fencing drawing the borders between properties. Each ranch has its own entrance from the road with some sort of gate or archway. Some of the entrances are simply a gate to keep the cattle in while others are lavish curving numbers with palm trees and carefully manicured landscaping. A grand entrance to a large barren tract of land (huge tracts of land!).

On fence posts along the road we saw many of this one kind of bird about the size of a seagull, with mostly white feathers and a sharp curved beak (some kind of falcon or something).

Breakfast at Ana’s Resturant (“Best food in town”) in Hebbronville cost us a whopping $12 for 5 satisfying breakfast tacos and 2 glasses of orange juice. Sweet.

Exiting Hebbronville we saw the first a new breed of law enforcement: Border Patrol. Heading south on Route 1017 we saw plenty of them and no wonder: there is heavy truck traffic on the road.


As we neared the coast, the land around us transformed from the barren prairielands to cultivated farmland as far as the eye could see.



Our arrival at the Laguna Atacosa National Wildlife Refuge, just north of Port Isabel, brought an end to the use of most of our warm layers as the temperature rose into the 70’s with the hot sun beating down on us. Warm at last!


Crossing the bridge to South Padre Island gave us our first taste of the ocean breeze and the first clear view of the heavily developed island ahead of us. It has been about ten years since I’ve been to the island and things have changed quite a bit. Big hotels are no longer five or six stories; there are several 30 plus story buildings in various stages of construction. We had no trouble finding our condo and after a late fresh seafood lunch at Dirty Al’s we took a stroll on the beach only to find that the towering hotels almost completely blocked the afternoon sun from the beach. Now there’s some good planning.

Just a few days into our trip we both could already tell that we had both taken more stuff than we needed for our trip. The condo here on the island will be our drop point for that extra stuff. The goal is to get as close as possible to fitting everything we need for our journey in the Pelican cases alone. What doesn’t make the cut? Long sleeve shirt # 3, 4 and 5, t-shirt # 3, hiking shorts, mesh shorts, camera wall plug (I know have rechargeable batteries and a charger that is smaller), some paperwork, earbud headphones (I can’t use them anyhow), all canned food, cardboard center of the tp roll.

Ok, off to bed. Peace.

-Colin