TUMBLEWEED

Because they come from Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart is from Arkansas,

folks are beginning to call them  ARKANSAS TUMBLEWEEDS. Note the Urban Dictionary definition at this link:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Arkansas%20Tumbleweed
Those startling white plastic bags that react wildly to the slightest of breezes and become tangled in bushes and trees to die a slow lingering photo degrading death as they mar the beauty of America.

At first, they had their bags made in the readily identifiable Wal-Mart blue. However that quickly associated them with this blight upon America so the color quickly changed to the present generic white.

The truth is that Wal-Mart can’t control how their bags are handled after the sale and the bags leave the store. But they do chose the design of their bags based on cost.

So, how about a design change on those awful bags ? Are you listening Wal-Mart ? If the bags weren’t so prone to being carried by the slightest of breezes, then maybe this blight wouldn’t spread so badly.A mesh bag maybe ? From what I’ve heard about Sam Walton, he loved America and he loved Arkansas. I’ll bet that if he could see this farmer’s field behind his Corpus Christi Texas store, Sam Walton would turn over in his grave. This BLIGHT on America’s landscape needs a solution.

YARBOROUGH

Yarborough Pass through the barrier dunes is the only legal road through from the ocean side to the Laguna Madre side of the island. It isn’t maintained and is usually silted up pretty heavily. Lots of evidence of folks getting stuck here. 

Padre Island National Seashore Yarborough Cut

With our stock tires not aired down, we didn’t go through to the Estuary side of the barrier island.

MANSFIELD

Padre Island National seashore, Mansfield Cut, sixty plus miles down the beach from the end of the road.

Padre Island National Seashore Mansfield Cut

Look how Dillon keeps going back to the drivers side front tire. I think he had figured out something that we hadn’t discovered yet, that tire had been punctured by  the skeletons of hard heads and was loosing air. Before the trip was over we would be racing time, stopping occasionally to add air to the tire. From here back to the end of the pavement it is sixty plus miles of raw beach driving. We made it back ok, but the tire was fit to only be used as a temporary spare. 

BOARDWALK

Great view from the Malaquite Beach campground’s boardwalk and observation deck.Talk about a great place to spread a picnic lunch ! Many of us here at the campground start or end our beach walks here.

Malaquite Campground Boardwalk and Observation Deck

DEBRIS

Stuff that drifts up on the beach comes in all forms. We are constantly amazed at the never ending supply of debris. Here is a look at some of it:

Friends Brian & Sharon share a hot tub with Betty, It has washed up 50 miles down Padre Island. Jelly fish. Star FishContainer. From Galveston. Tar. Shoe tree. Dolphin. Rope pile. Fender. Trailer. Wrack line. John Boat. Coca Cola Box. Kiddie 4x4 Buoys.

BEANS

Today we drove fifty miles down the beach to look for sea beans. Beans that drift in from far away shores. In this photo Betty shows a few that we found.

Hanging on the back of the Jeep are other beach treasures, small floats, buoys a offshore work life jacket, ect..

Here is a bean called a sea heart that I found;

Lots of stuff washes up here on the beach. Some of it you expect, some you don’t:

Here is the trailer before it was pulled out of the sand:

We wondered, was it abandoned here, or, maybe drifted in ?

BAREFOOT

After a day of beachcombing forty miles from the end of the pavement, a eighty mile beach trip, we went to the Padre island Barefoot Mardi Gras Parade.

 

Held right on the beach, the tide is at it’s highest and some of the floats drove in the edge of the surf.Dancers and Mermaids were some of the highlights of the parade.

The first video is the color Guard of the Nueces County Mounted Patrol. As is fitting, Old Glory Started off the Parade.

Great music on this one.

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   The attention to detail and the amount of labor involved was amazing.