Port Aransas, Texas

We have lived in Texas for almost 5 years and had not made it to the beach. I think that I was in the right frame of mind when planning this trip. I certainly could not expect Hilton Head from all that I had heard and there is a nickname for this beach. I hear they call it the Redneck Riviera. How about being on a beach where all you see is Texas or UT tents and flags?? With all that said, I can say that we just had the best little family vacation and will certainly go back! So this is how it went:

There is a small channel that you have to cross to get onto the island. You drive your car right up on the ferry and they take you across. Tom and I wondered if they have heard of building bridges but the experience was pretty cool so let them keep the ferries.

The water was much clearer out farther where the ocean gets deep. In closer was more brown but the waves were better than what I had thought. The beach was not the cleanest but it had sand and waves, beach, sand. That is about all that we need to have a great day.

We stayed in a condo that was right on the beach. That was so nice for us to have a short walk and be able to go back and cool off with a nice lunch. The sand dunes were very big and we would have to get over them. You can actually drive right on the beach here. One night we drove to dinner on the beach. That is a different thing for us but also had the cool factor.

We did not spend much time at the pool. The water was very very warm! We just loved spending the time out at the beach. The sun is more intense than Hilton Head and we all got a little too much. I have to remember that next time. We are very close to Mexico making it very hot.

The entire island is more of a tourist place with tons of gift shops, restaurants, etc. The kids LOVED the gift shops. I don't think that they have experienced all the tacky tourist shops. The 99cent shark necklaces were a hit. As well as all the shells and creatures made out of shells. Larson basically wanted everything that he saw. Tom and I just let them go in one after another.

Being so close to the beach made it easy to to and take a walk at night. We had the supplies for smores but were not prepared with the fire supplies. You could have made your own fire right on the beach. Pretty much anything goes on this beach. We ended up making smores back at the condo at night time.

We had fun at the restaurants for dinner. This was Moby Dicks. A fun kind of pirate themed seafood restaurant. This was a really hot hot night.

We took this vacation to help celebrate Toms birthday. We seriously had the best family time. It was something so different from what we were use to but we totally loved it.