Padre Island, USS Lexington, a dried up lake & chasing the sun west…

A car trip down to the north end of Padre Island, which is just south of Corpus Christi, got us another National Park and a lot more. This is our 4th National Seashore (Assateague, Cape Canaveral, Gulf Island & Padre) and none have disappointed. These barrier island parks stretch for miles and each has some unique difference we really enjoyed.

Padre welcomed us with a blanket of clouds and then fog that lasted well into the afternoon. It brought some of those fog covered maritime books and movies to real life and let me truly explain what a fog horn was for to the boys. I grew up on Brevard County’s finest beaches but haven’t ever experienced a day of fog like this. The boys got some football in and we parked right on the beach, despite the seagull attack 🙃 After getting a swirly in Peyton’s sand toilet 🤪 Jayden got a beach driving lesson in… Dad may have been a bit dramatic about it but Jayden did great. 😎

An additional treat was a stop at our first aircraft carrier, the USS Lexington Museum. Like the Battleships New Jersey and Wisconsin we learned a lot about these vessels involvement in WW2 and in the “Lady Lex’s” case how the carrier lost in the battle of the Coral Sea and was recommissioned the next year and later retrofitted for modern service up until 1991. Like the Wisconsin, some of the updating of the ship was astounding given the size and how this city on the sea could adapt to modern jets and warfare is amazing.

Finally we wrapped our time at Medina Lake with a great ride through the mostly dried up 14 mile lake. The rock formations and foliage grown along the bottom of the lake were intriguing. Locals told us that it refills about every 4-5 years but it’s been drought for 6 years now and everyone turned in their boats for ATVs. Great ride and some rock climbing as well as a possible Big Horn Sheep sighting but camera wasn’t ready to document and they were… much faster than we were up the rocks 😂

Now we are headed west and chasing the sun toward Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountain!