Da Beach, Da Beach

Because of the drought here in Texas, the sand on the beach is not the usual hard packed road for driving. It is just sand like any beach. There is a high percentage of clay in the sand which makes for good driving and sculpting. And even when it is in good shape, the 10 thousand pick up trucks of spring break tend to stir it up and folks get stuck in it. While we were driving to town Saturday afternoon, we saw a jeep that had flipped over, the top was squashed, and two cars getting towed out of sand. And it wasn't even busy.

On the way back, it was much worse. There is one area where people are staying in the motor homes and RVs, the beach is narrow there and tide was high and so was the wind. These rigs were right next to a steady stream of vehicles, two were stuck, one was trying to give tows, and everyone wanted to get by. We hoped to slip behind the RVs and get out of there. As we waited our turn we started talking to the RV folks. Paul "What are you doing here?" Me "How are you going to get out of here?" They had just gotten there, probably from the Valley as they were very tan, from Quebec but spoke ok English. Absolutely clueless. Tried to explain that it was going to get much worse, it wasn't safe, and the tide was getting higher. And in fact it was still rising two hours later because of the high winds. We suggested they try to back out of there on Sunday morning before it got real busy again. The road was too torn up to turn around, and there wasn't enouch room anyway.

For some reason, probably a pissing match with the Army Corp of Engineers, the city isn't plowing several miles of beach. It is a rutted mess. Tons of sand blew in from the hurricane this last fall. The city wants to put it near the water, the corp says no.