Last Day in Corpus

3-24

Charlie and Alanna were asking to go in this tourist shop that we kept driving past, mostly because they wanted to walk into the shark's mouth. Charlie wanted to pick out a shark's tooth necklace as his souvenir for the week. Alanna picked out a sparkly dolphin necklace, Molly picked out a little shark flashlight, and Hattie got a little ball that lights up when you bounce it. Big spenders, huh?

The weather was glorious the entire time we were in Corpus Christi. Mid 80's every day, down to about 60ish at night. I know the blue sky in all of the beach pictures is solid evidence of this. On our last day in Corpus, there was a chance for rain so we woke to thinly overcast skies. It was noticeably more windy and we could see it in the surf. The waves came up higher on the beach than they had been all week. I guess I was expecting more distinction in high tide/low tide, but because it's the gulf of Mexico, the tides must be more subdued. The waves came up to the same spot on the beach every day. We were out at various times during the day, too; 6am to 6pm or later and the waves stayed constant. 

We felt maybe 10 sprinkles while we were out on the beach, and though it looks like we were headed into the water, we changed our minds once we were on the sand. The water was too rough. Instead, we spent our last few hours walking on the beach looking for sand dollars and playing tag with the waves. I'm so thankful for the beautiful weather the rest of the week! We would have been disappointed if the whole week would have been like the last day.

About 2:00, we headed back to the camper to finish packing up and hit the road. We were still undecided at this point how far we were going to drive on Friday. Nate and Amanda offered for us to stay at their house again (so, so kind!) which we ended up doing. Amanda made a feast for dinner and our kids had a great time playing with the Davis kiddos. 

We pulled out of Mustang Island SP around 3pm and started the 2.5+ hour drive back to San Antonio. Unfortunately, about an hour into the drive, we got a flat tire on the trailer. Matt dug out the jack and got to work changing it without any problems at all. It was even the passenger side tire, so out of traffic! It wasn't a huge surprise considering it's 1,044 miles from Canon City, CO to Corpus Christi, TX. If we hadn't made our decision to stop in San Antonio by then, we definitely were stopping there now. Matt really wanted to get another spare (or 2!) before our next day of driving. As soon as we got to San Antonio, Nathan and Matt took off in pursuit of a spare. They came back a while later with a spare tire as well as a full extra set of tires. Amanda, all of the kids, and I ate a super yummy dinner while the guys hunted for tires. Seems fair, right?! We had a blast playing together and talking and such one last time before we hit the road on Saturday morning.

Stretch break while Daddy changes the tire!

A few more group pictures before we left on Saturday morning.

It was a full day of driving and the kids did really well. We stopped every two or three hours to stretch or get some food. Things were going well until about 10:30 on Saturday night. I was driving up Raton pass, came around a curve and found 45-7 big rocks in the road. I did the best that I could and tried to straddle them. It made a big yucky thunk under the Explorer. About two minutes later, we heard the now familiar hum of a flat tire on the camper. Ah, SHUCKS. Good thing Matt bought a spare! This time instead of it being daylight and over 80 degrees outside, it was 40 degrees and pitch black. I guess that's why Matt always puts his headlamp in the glove box when we travel! Matt put his headlamp on, went out there and changed that tire in 16 minutes flat. He had to move fast - his flipflops and shorts weren't exactly super warm at 40 degrees on a pass... Boy, those last two days were rather expensive with the two flat tires and the cracked windshield. (A rock came at us between Corpus and San Antonio and chipped the glass right on the edge of the windshield. It cracked 8-10 inches really quickly and kept going so it's now halfway across the windshield. Darn. Those last expenses really blew our 9-day beach vacation for under $600! :) We pulled into our driveway about 1am that night. What a fun, fun week we had at the Texas gulf coast. Amazing family memories for sure.