Well, we were talking about going camping with the kids before the weather turned really hot... yeah like it isn't already hot here... but we are talking the scorching oppressive heat that is a Texas summer day. So going to Pedernales Falls State park was gonna be the choice of camping location when I heard the morning guys on the radio talking about camping on the beach at Port Aransas. Hmm camping on the beach, the kids would sooo love that. I remember camping on Pismo Beach CA when I was a child, it was awesome and an experience I wish my kids could have. Soooo in light of recent events in the Gulf with the British Petroleum oil drilling platform exploding and continuing to pump millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico maybe its a good idea to hit the beach sooner rather than later when the oil sludge starts washing up on the sand. I've never been to Port A before so it would be an adventure for me too.
All week the weather forecast kept saying scattered thunderstorms for the weekend. Great camping in the rain isn't fun and at the beach really isn't fun. So we kept watching and hoping that it wouldn't rain. Game plan was to load up and leave Friday morning-ish and stay until Sunday afternoon. Its a four hour drive from Austin. Friday the day went out every direction but how we planned. So we thought we'll leave late afternoon and get there Friday night setup camp and go to bed. As the day progressed we decided we'll sleep at home and get up really early (by 5 am) and head out to get to the beach by mid morning. Yeah that worked... 5 am and its a massive storm outside, thunder, lightning and a gully wash of rain. Good thing we threw a tarp over everything loaded on the roof rack of the truck or it would have been a really unpleasant experience with a wet tent. Needless to say both Hubby and I rolled over and went back to sleep until the storm was over a few hours later. A friend of Hubby's was also at Port A with his family (staying in a condo) and he texted message that it was storming really bad there right about the time we had been planning on arriving to the beach. Sooo because of the Hunter Family tradition of getting a late start on a trip totally worked in our favor. If we'd gotten down to Port A on Friday we'd have been in the rainstorm in a tent with 4 freaked out kids aka we'd have been sitting in the Land Cruiser watching everything get soaked. Or if we had gotten up at 5am and headed out we would have been in the middle of that storm... don't know if the kids would ever want to go camping with us again... don't know if I'd ever want to go camping again. LOL!
So we finally got on the road and heading to Port A late Saturday morning. We did a leisure drive down and stopped at a local Farmer's Market on the way and picked up some peaches and a watermelon.
Hubby decided that he wanted to camp as far away from other people as possible... so instead of camping at Mustang Island State Park where there are shelters and electrical plugins and BATHROOMS... he decides we need to truly camp further down the coast at Padre Island National Seashore... about 4 miles down the beach away from any civilization. seriously?!?! So we didn't even get to have one of those semi-sheltered picnic tables. We were on the empty beach. Yeah got to teach the kids how to make a "cat hole" because there weren't any bathroom facilities.
It was early evening once we picked a spot. The kids went down to play "near" the water on the beach while Hubby and I unloaded and set up the tents. At one point I looked up and with the sun low in the sky and looking over the seaweed dune line between us and the kids I could see them jumping and hopping along the sand all carefree and joyous. It was that perfect Kodak home movie moment... of course the camera was in the truck at the time and the kids all wanted to pose once Hubby got the camera and tried to catch them unaware.
It was beautiful to see though.
After we got the tent set up and a fire going we enjoyed hot dogs and then later of course s'mores. I think that is really the reason the kids love to camp. LOL!
Kids also got to chase a little sand crab around for a few minutes. Especially once it vacated the tent.
Kids went to bed while Hubby and I enjoyed the evening and the stars. We even got to see a little sand mouse scurry around in the darkness.
Sleep wasn't the greatest because we couldn't use the air mattress, the pump that uses the car plug didn't get packed... so it was sleeping on a thin pad... not that great, I'm an air mattress camper now.
A good time was had by all though we made a few discoveries on items to always take with us camping... a good sun cover being one of them.
Everyone got burnt except for Child #2 who kept reapplying sunscreen every couple of minutes... he had a distinct bluish cast from the Avon "disappearing blue" sunscreen. Guess he learned from last year's camping trip to Pedernales Falls where he got blistered on his back & arms. Very bad mommy for not noticing that he'd taken his rash top off and was out of the water/shade most of the time!! Boy doesn't take his rash top off now.
Hubby and Child #1 got it the worst on their backs... definitely two crispy critters.
