The beaches are back to reasonable order and certainly less crowded now that the main Spring Break in Texas is behind us. WOW! What a mad house.
From about March 7 – 18, give or take a few days on either end, Mustang Island’s population exploded. The kids from all of the schools in Texas invaded the beach lands for their annual Spring Break. There were thousands of them…all with the same goal in mind…to be wild and have some fun!
The beach here is about 20 miles long and fortunately, most of the activity took place down toward the town of Port Aransas and away from our beach. Although we had a few visiting folks on our beach, most of them were families.
We felt compelled to drive through the mass of humanity a couple of times to “experience” it. It only took twice to steer us away for the remainder of the massive event. Talk about major traffic jams!
It was a never-ending line of bikini clad young women (Jim hated every minute of it) with a boatload of young (and some not so young) men lining the path to watch. One group of guys even carried a couch down to make themselves more comfortable while they gawked.
The cars were parked four deep in places and there were plenty of police cars, public works folks and a few ambulances strategically placed. The local government was ready for anything. All in all, we heard on the news last night that it was one of the safest Spring Breaks in years. That’s great news and other than a few arrests and minor mishaps, I believe the kids achieved their goals.
The major impact on us was the traffic in the town and on the highway. You had to strategically plan your trips to the store or wherever. We learned quickly that the wise thing to do was to go in the early morning while the partiers were still sleeping. Beyond about 11:00 AM, everything was crowded and there was your basic standstill in traffic. If you went into Corpus Christi, it could take 2 hours to get back.
Fortunately, we do our shopping in Aransas Pass, which is a ferry ride away. Although they are small, they have about 8 of them going full time. They move traffic very fast. Of course there’s less traffic trying to get to Aransas Pass than Corpus Christi, so we feel fortunate to have this alternative.
We’ve fallen in love with these ferries. They are so cute and even though it’s only a 2.5-minute crossing, it’s very fun. It’s a great pass time going back and forth…after all they’re free!
I spend a lot of time in a few rooms (bathroom, part of kitchen, brodoem my computer is in the brodoem). Only thing I worry about in super downsizing is how to run my small business on the road. Right now its in a closet but even that may be too much. Great blog!
I run my copywriting business from the coach on the road. It takes some adjusting and planning in terms of having enough space to spread out, but it’s not that hard. If you are traveling with someone, then your plans need to take into account where they will be and what they’ll be doing while you want to work. Learning to work with distractions is key! Good luck and keep me posted on how you do.