I realize now that if the climax of this saga is the final destination point, I probably shouldn’t have named this post ‘The Beach’. It kind of ruins the big reveal.

Guess what?

I also went to the beach.

See what I mean?

Actually, while the seaside was fun, it was a bit anticlimactic. Texas is not really know for its beaches, though there are over 600 miles of coastline, according to Traveltex.com. (Oddly, when the question “How many miles of coastline does Texas have?” is asked of ask.com, the answer is – and I quote – “About 370,”  immediately followed by, “624 miles.” Anyway, who really cares? Miles are just numbers, and numbers are just math, and famous people like Kim Kardashian don’t need math to have someone measure the area of their asses, so as long as you can count the millions your big old bookie booty makes you, don’t sweat it.)

I went to Mustang Island, which is about 25 miles from Corpus Christi and includes the town of Port Aransas. Allegedly Mustang Island used to be home to a cannibalistic Indian tribe, and later to famous pirate Jean Lafitte, who, legend has it, secretly buried some booty there. (But not Kim Kardashian’s. It was not yet worth gold, though there is a good chance it had already been plundered. Argh!)

Really, there’s nothing wrong with the beach on Mustang Island. It’s fine. Plus, what do you really want from a beach? Sand, waves, sun; it has all of that. It’s just that I am not much of a beach bunny; sand is scratchy and has a way of working itself into my delicate nether regions, waves try to drown me and hide sharks and dangerous Sea Chupacabra, and sun makes me sweaty and fries my bikini bared belly. Plus, there are sea gulls and big, obnoxious families, and people who ride loud jet skis or those weird hover crafts that are irritating and should be banned. So there’s that.

And also, I am really spoiled. My friends talked about how every summer, as soon as school let out, their parents would load up the station wagon and the whole family would road trip to Galveston or South Padre.

My dad wasn’t that kind of guy. We took trips to the local dumpster, ghost towns, caves, or Indian burial grounds. In fact, most of my childhood outings with him involved some form of death, entropy, or lost ways of life. My mom, on the other hand, took us to lots of beaches, but she is from Paris, and so the beaches she took us to were places like the special beach in St Tropez where all they wear is Bain de Soliel,  which is on The Cote D’Azur, or French Riviera, or to St.Malo (which is where Jean Lafitte was born) or Quiberon, which are in Brittany, in northwest France, or Mimizan, in the Landes area of southwestern France. I’ve stayed on the tiny island of Oleron, in the Atlantic, and the bigger island of Maui* in the Pacific. I’ve been to San Francisco and Jamiaca and the Cayman Islands. The last beach I went to before this vacation had beautiful, rocky cliffs that over looked the tippy-tip of Long Island in Montauk.

Those were all really amazing beaches.

Port Aransas was kind of anti-climactic.

But only kind of, because I had a great time. I went with good friends, and we walked and talked and laughed and drank cherry-lime Smirnoff Ice, which starts off like a good idea, but are almost immediately as bad as they sound. I bought new sunglasses, which the sunglass hut lady said made me look just like Jennifer Aniston. It only costs $7.99 to look just like Jennifer Aniston, y’all!

http://texaslesstraveled.com shows this sandcastle on it’s website to promote Port   Aransas, but I got to see this awesome sand structure: 

Know what it is? I couldn’t make it out either. Fortunately, I discovered this just a few paces away: Oh, I get it! Clever! There was also this Gaudi inspired chateau and super sand star:

and also scary sea creatures, like seaweed (What? It’s alive, isn’t it? It could kill!)

sea slugs, and jellyfish,

but of course, the most frightening of all were the bird-shit bombadiers, the seagulls.

Sure, they look lovely enough here, but really they are just assessing their targets. It all makes more sense when you see where they come from – a sand portal to Hell.

Creepy, huh? I’m sorry to scare you, but it’s better that you know the truth.

Here, these pictures will calm you:

Aaahhhh! Better? I thought so. Isn’t it peaceful and lovely?

I guess that the beach really was the perfect end to a whirlwind start of the summer. Maybe it was just what I needed; a strong dose of calm at the end of a stormy school year. In the words of Isak Denisen, “The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears or the sea.” If she had included Nyquil in a shot glass with a salted rim, I would agree with her completely.

She also said, “I had a farm in Africa!” but that doesn’t apply here.

SPECIAL VACATION TREAT for all of my friends who have small children, courtesy of my dad: http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=FeKxIaG_f_c My dada never said this to me, but his favorite game to play with us was called “Bears Hibernating in the Winter.”

Really, it wasn’t as fun as you might expect.

* I recently heard marine photographer Flip Nicklin talk about whales and their songs, some of which are recorded in Maui, and can be heard here: http://www.whalesong.net. I found out some interesting humpback stuff. (Humpback – heh, heh, hehe!) Only the males sing, and like most lead singers, they are loud- up to 160 decibels at the source, and able to be heard at over 100 miles. Researchers believe that they used to be able to project their tunes from one pole to the other, but no longer can because of noise pollution from ships, obnoxious families,  irritating hover crafts, etc. Anyway,  it’s strange that they sing at all, because whales have no functional vocal cords. They make their noises by pushing air around in their respiratory systems. They sing in breeding grounds, but females rarely come to hear their love opera; only other dudes show up. It’s like a Yes show, I imagine. Once all the guys are there, they choose a leader – I’m guessing it’s the one who looks the oldest, so he can buy the beer- and then they get all dressed up to go scamming for whale chicks. But here’s the weird thing; once they find the ladies, all the lesser dudes  act as wingmen to help the alpha dude score. This is virtually unheard of in the 7th grade human world, which is why scientists say that whales are highly evolved. There is the theory that most human males do not evolve passed the 7th grade, so this is particularly impressive.