Port Aransas Vacation

Tiffany and I took a much looked forward vacation this last weekend to Port Aransas, TX. We both took off work Friday and left town about 8:30 am. We got into Corpus Christi about 2:30 and picked up our friend Carla from the airport at 3:30. After that, we took off for the 45-mile drive over the Laguna Madre onto North Padre Island, across the Packary Channel, and up Mustang Island to our condo in Port Aransas.

On Friday evening we looked and looked for our condo but couldn't find it anywhere. Finally we stumbled across this building and realized it was where we'd be staying.

We headed inside to our room on the second story and this was the view we had off of our deck.

This was the view of the pool off of our deck.

After we dropped off our luggage, we headed down the boardwalk toward the beach. The beach there wasn't like anything any of us had seen. Vehicles were allowed on the beach and there sure weren't very many people there.

On Friday night we headed out for supper and I was specifically looking for raw oysters. Our first stop was at a bar and grill that specialized in pizza. We ordered chips and salsa, had a drink, and moved on to greener pastures.

Our next stop was a restaurant called Virginia's. This place had a great atmosphere and pretty good food as well. It was an open air restaurant right on the water. Tiffany had some fried shrimp, Carla had grilled shrimp, and I had some fried oysters because raw ones were out of season.

On Saturday morning, I met up with a buddy at 6:00 am to do some bay fishing. We started off chasing spotted seatrout in the Laguna Madre using live shrimp for bait and caught several of them including one keeper. After we fished some grass flats for a while, we headed over to the JFK Causeway to fish under the bridge. We caught more pinfish than we knew what to do with and caught some mangrove snapper as well.

After all of the pinfish and mangrove snapper stole the last of our shrimp off our hooks, we headed of to the Packary Channel for some big-fish fishing. On the left side of this picture is the jetty on the far south side of Mustang Island and the right side is the far north side of Padre Island. Straight ahead is the Gulf of Mexico. We sat there using pinfish for bait and watched folks up and down the jetties catch more small fish than they knew what to do with.

After we sat for a couple of hours without much action, we decided to call it a day at about 2:00 pm. After I got back to the condo, I couldn't find Tiffany and Carla anywhere. Turns out they were relaxing down by the pool.

After saying hello to the girls, I headed back into the kitchen to clean that day's catch. I had full intentions of cooking them up for supper, but really wanted to go find some oysters somewhere.

I called every seafood restaurant in town looking for oysters on the half shell and they kept telling me that even though oysters were in season, they weren't safe to eat because it had been too warm and the water level had been too low. Well, I finally found a place that was serving oysters and against stern warnings from the girls I went anyway. I ordered half a dozen of them and Carla ate one (but couldn't swallow it) and I ate the other five.

After our oyster outing, we headed to a Mexican restaurant for our real supper. We had some excellent food and then moved next door to a bar so we could watch the Houston - Texas Tech game. Additionally, the guy that took me fishing that morning was going to come over to the island and meet us for a couple of drinks. Well, by the time we got over to the bar, I felt horrible. After my buddy got there, I felt even worse. We left at halftime and I revisited my oysters and Mexican food once I got back to the condo. I spent the rest of the evening in bed while the girls did who knows what.

We woke up on Sunday morning and I felt much, much better. We headed down to the Padre Island National Seashore and it was a great experience! I highly recommend visiting the seashore if you are ever in the area. The beach was beautiful and there were no buildings anywhere in sight. The only downfall was that it was about a half hour drive from our condo. We stuck around the beach for awhile and then headed back to Port Aransas.
On Sunday, we had supper at Beach and Station Street Bar and Grill where Carla again had grilled shrimp, Tiffany had a fried platter of heaven (flounder, shrimp, and oysters), and I had a fried flounder po' boy. After supper, we headed over to Trout Street Bar and Grill to have a couple of drinks and reflect a bit on our trip.

We got up Monday morning and dropped Carla off at the Corpus Christi airport around 10:00. Tiffany and I made it back to Abilene around 4:00.

All in all, we had a great trip. I'm sure we'll head back to Port Aransas next time we are ready for a beach vacation.