Wind
After 5 days here, my overall remembrance of the Corpus Christie area will be wind.
While we have found warm weather, the wind has been constant.
The day we drove in from Uvalde, the wind was at our back for most of the trip. Then, we turned North on Mustang Island where we are staying and the true extent of the wind hit us. Our gas mileage dropped like a rock as we pulled the trailer along the beach highway. Thankfully, we didn’t have far to go.
The wind didn’t cease overnight, and if anything, it got stronger. We went to sleep with the nose of the Highlander behind the trailer, but twice during the night the car alarm was triggered when the vehicle was rocked by the winds. I am sure our neighbors loved us for that.
The first two days had a cold north wind. However, the weather has since turned warm, but the wind remains.
We expected there to be wind from the Gulf of Mexico, but even the locals have been surprised by the strength and consistency of the wind.
USS Lexington
Corpus Christie is the home of one of the US’s retired aircraft carriers, the Lexington. Like the Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum in San Diego, the aircraft carrier is available to tour. The Lexington is the smaller of the two carriers, and in my opinion, not quite as interesting.
When we toured the Midway, retired naval personal were available to discuss the workings of the ship. The Lexington, while still impressive, lacked that personal touch. However, the history of the Lexington is impressive. It was involved in most of the major WWII battles in the Pacific, including the Battle of the Coral Sea off Townsville Australia and later, in the Philippines. Walking through the ship, there is a real sense of history from all the displays of artifacts retained during its 48 years of service.
The Boardwalk
Corpus Christie has a great boardwalk along the downtown harbor front. It is about 8 miles long and has a wide walk way and easy parking. Unfortunately we didn’t spend too much time there as the sky clouded over and the temperature dropped as we were walking the boardwalk.
Selena, the famous Tejano singer, was a Corpus Christie native. Tragically, she was murdered in March 1995, by her former manager. Along the boardwalk a memorial and statue commemorate her life in Corpus Christie.
The Beach
The beach here is long, flat and, at times, very crowded. We have been here over the President’s Day long weekend, which has brought out the crowds. Folks down here love to drive on the beach.
On the Saturday of the long weekend, the beach was a veritable highway of all types of cars, trucks, beach buggies, motorhomes and trailers, most with big flags flapping in the wind.
In the town of Arnasas, there are many places where you can rent a beach buggy for the day, week, month or winter season. Many people in the park have beach buggies to get from their trailers to the beach.
The RV Park
This is a massive RV park; there are over 400 trailer spots. Like Phyllis’s first post “Honey I shrunk the RV”, most of the spots are filled with massive trailers. There is another couple with a small Lance Trailer in the park who are from Powell River BC. Such a small world.
Today, March 21, the winter escapee residents had a Mardi Gras parade with their beach buggies all decorated for the festivities.
Activities
Other than the beach, the town of Aransas is small and relatively quiet. We have ridden our bikes through the town. However, it was hard to stretch that ride into more than about 10 miles.
There is also a long jetty into the ocean at the north end of town. Interestingly enough, it has been protected using red granite, very much like the granite on the PetroCanada Building in downtown Calgary.
Overall, we have used our time here to recharge and plan the next phase of the trip. We have booked tickets back to Calgary and will be back in April.
We hope to see many of you then.