I’ve been MIA from posting this past while.

I had forgotten how busy it gets in our park and in our lives over the holidays. I’ll save those details for another post. I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas.

For now, I’ll continue on with our visit to Padre Island.

Padre Island, at 115 miles long, is the world’s longest barrier island. That said, it’s only 1.6 miles wide at it’s widest point.

The town of South Padre Island sits at the southern tip.

Each time we visit SPI, we take a drive north of the townsite to where the highway ends. Beyond this spot, is a nature preserve that’s not accessible to people. Corpus Cristi is on the north end of the island, but to access it, you must take a different route.

About 200 yards to the right of the sand dunes in the photo below, is the Gulf of Mexico. There are many access points from the highway to just pull in to a quiet beach with powdery white sand.

It’s a full time job for the highway crews to keep the sand from overtaking the highway.

Something we always love about this drive is how it demonstrates the frivolous notion man has that he can overcome Mother Nature.

“Mother Nature is the great equalizer. You can’t get away from it.”

Christopher Heyerdahl