Texas and Sand Barrier Islands

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From the unattractive yet beautiful in their own way...the prickly seed pods explode!! Winter kill remnants of a wildflower on the barrier island, comes in Springtime----




---a timely and graceful lemony yellow blossom









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MONDAY MORSELS



When you read portions of my blog and I mention that Bud and I drive to the island, mainly I'm referring to Padre Island. Now, on OUR section of the island we don't have the resort areas that SOUTH Padre Island has [our area is more residential and less commercial], but it's still a continuation of the very same island. SOUTH is nearly at the Old Mexico borders...near the city of Brownsville, Texas some 160+ miles from where I live in Corpus Christi. In fact, to us locals [and others]; we tend to differentiate our portion of the same island as NORTH Padre Island. But again, it's the same island as in Brownsville, Texas. The 'great sand dunes' barrier runs the coast from Brownsville, up to Galveston, Texas. Being the LARGEST sand barrier island in the WORLD!!! As you travel the island's paved highway, you will cross a man-made channel that will take you across to MUSTANG Island. This is where Port Aransas Texas is and the ship channel that the cargo and large oil tankers follow to make it to the port of Corpus Christi in Harbor Bay and the oil refineries, customs, etc. In the 1700s it was known as Isla de Santiago and granted to Nicolás Ballí in 1759 by King Carlos III of Spain. Padre Ballí [Nicolás Ballí's grandson] requested a clear title to the property in 1827. He was the first person to have the island surveyed and was the first settler who brought families to the island. Hence, the name Padre Island. The island barrier that extends the entire coast of Texas, began forming as a submerged sand bar some 4500 years ago. The entire island ---in Texas, it's considered a roadway. For most part, you can drive on the sand with autos...the National Seashore Park is only accessible with 4 wheel drive. Padre Island alone [from Brownsville Texas to Corpus Christi] by itself is the 2nd largest island in the U.S. ----this doesn't include from Mustang Island to the Louisiana border ---According to Environmental Texas, Texas has 367 miles of coastline with 624 miles of tidewater giving a total of 991 miles. Padre Island alone, is over 1/10th of that total [209 kilometers]. If you happen to view the map above I provided, you can see from the northernmost section, Corpus Christi...then, if you travel on the map south from the city to the Gulf of Mexico, you can see the black line separating the mainland to the island...the black line is JFK causeway and the island bridge. Which is the photo I took and shared here. The photo of the bridge was taken looking BACK to the city from Mustang Island. This is the only access traveling south by vehicle to the northern islands from Corpus Christi [you can go the round about way to the same area I'm standing from Corpus Christi to Portland Texas to Aransas Pass, cross the commercial ship channel over the ferry boats to Port Aransas.


The Oscars: I love watching this annual event as I love movies. I must admit I haven't seen many this past year. We did see Inception, Wolfman, and Alice in Wonderland [nominees for movie of the year, Makeup, and costume respectively]. I never did go see one I wanted to see, The King's Speech. But, I must admit, just seeing clips of this, "The King's Speech"...I know I do want to see it on DVD, and I was VERY pleased it was Picture of the Year. The women that attend the gala is of most interest tho...the dresses. Some were downright ugly, and of course some are just knock-out stunning.



My vote for best dressed, was the elegant, and very feminine gown that Mila Kunis chose to wear [pictured here].