Life's A Beach...

Since "my" on-ramp to get onto the freeway heading to the islands is closed due to construction, I've been taking the residential street to get away from that and be able to access the freeway farther south from home. While driving the street, I noticed a huge cactus in someone's yard and it was the most heavily blooming cactus I have ever seen. I had to get a picture. Some cactus bloom at night, often seen are bats nearby, which I think this is one night bloomer. It seems the blossoms are beginning to close for the daylight. Looking through my zoom lens, I saw many black June Bug like bees collecting their pollen. The red pods are seed pods from spent blossoms [we used to get prickly pear and saguaro jelly from those pods when we lived in Tucson - a tart/sweet concoction]...

- - - -

Once I got to the islands, I decided to try one pier that was heavily damaged during the summer hurricane that hit just north of our city. Nope, that beach road is still cordoned off. I continue to drive to Padre Island National Seashore [federal park], then realize I left my Senior Pass at home. I took the first access road before entering the park and stopped and parked on the beach there and then walked. It was a gorgeous morning! Sun, but not hot. Quiet. Only one other person walking, and she was way ahead of me by about a 1/2 mile! A perfect outing. While I was there, I began looking for a long piece of driftwood. I eventually found a sizable piece and marked the area in my head so I could pick it up on my return to the car, later. But in the meantime, I enjoyed the ambiance, the cool breeze, the sound of the gentle surf, the birds, the numerous amount of sand crabs, by the hundreds, scurrying ahead only to drop down in their excavated homes on the beach. Some of the birds seen on this day were: seagulls [3 different species], two kinds of plovers, curlews, willets, turnstones, sandpipers, herons, and terns. On the drive there, I spotted an osprey with its breakfast, and a white tailed hawk, hunting for breakfast. I eventually got my steps counted, returned to the car not forgetting my driftwood and headed back home. Here is some of what I encountered along the walk....

...keep i mind, the trip to walk the beach was day before hurricane Delta hit the Gulf coast!