Padre, Part 1: Getting There and Getting Settled
We've been back from our mini-vacation for several days now, and as it seems to always go, life swept me up into itself so I'm only just now able to sit down and put the recap into words. Hubby and I plus mother-in-law headed down to South Padre Island, TX for 4 days to attend Hubby's cousin's wedding. I don't believe I've ever been to South Padre before, or if I had it was a long time ago when I was a wee child.
We left Saturday morning from home about 10:30am to head towards the airport. Our flight didn't leave until 1pm but we had a few errands to run on the way. Getting to the airport was pretty uneventful - in fact, the entire trip was uneventful in a "disaster" kind of way. So, if you are waiting for that you will be sorely disappointed :). This was the first time in her life that my mother-in-law had ever flown anywhere on an airplane! I couldn't believe that when she first told me ... but she did really well, wasn't freaked out by the flight at all. I was more scared than she was! Of course I do have a bit of an irrational fear of flying - but that is a post for another time.
We've been having major rain here in DFW for the past, oh I don't know, 80 days or so, so we were a bit concerned of storms hindering our departure. We did leave about 10 minutes late which put us arriving at our destination about 20 minutes late but all in all that isn't bad. We were flying from Dallas Love Field to Harlingen with one stop in Austin. Upon arrival in Harlingen we walked into SUMMER! It was hot and humidy and sunny and rainless. Just what you would think June in Texas to be like. Finally! Weather for swimming in. An exit was missed on the way to South Padre Island from the airport so we actually went on a detour through lovely Brownsville, TX. Ha! Oh well, worse things have happened.
And did. I had to do something that I hate doing with every ounce of energy in my entire body. Those of you that know me, know that I would not have done this if I had any other choice. We needed to stop and pick up a few things before getting to the condo. We were in Brownsville. There were few choices. Then it happened. We arrived in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart Supercenter. I won't go into much detail because I'm about to go eat lunch and would really like to enjoy my food. Let's just say that every reason that I hate Wal-Mart is still there, and magnified 10 times over. It was dirty and dark and there were screaming children and rude adults and we were accosted by a group (literally standing in between the exit door and the parking lot) of people as we left attempting to guilt us into buying these crosses made out of wood and giant nails to raise money for some youth organization so they could go to church camp. *Sigh*. The only upside I can think of is that this particular location had self checkout which I opted to use so I wouldn't have to interact with any employee at all. Thank goodness. But, lets move on to happier things.
We got to the condos and checked into our room - after only a slight key mishap. These are privately owned condos that the owners rent out during the summer so they are all decorated differently. And might I say, we hit the jackpot. We stayed in a 2 bedroom condo with us in one room and mother-in-law in the other room. It was 2 stories, bedrooms/bathrooms downstairs and living areas upstairs. We had a phenomenal view of the beach and our condo looked like it had been recently decorated with not many expenses spared. All the furniture was beautiful as well as the linens in the bedrooms. There were gorgeous 12" tiles laid in the entire upstairs. We had granite counter tops in the kitchen as well as a large screen TV. These people knew how to have a beach condo! We got settled in and rested for a bit and then all went off for a "rehearsal" dinner, even though there really wasn't a rehearsal :)
We ended up at a restaurant called Scampi's which was pretty nice. Now .... I am not a seafood eater. At all. Ever. And being as how we were on an ISLAND at a restaurant with the name Scampi's I was pretty sure this was going to be a seafood restaurant. However, as with most seafood places I've ever been to (which admittedly is not many) they offered steak for those of us who aren't friends with the food from the sea. I had a lovely steak and baked tater and all was good. There were lots of people there and we had a really good time visiting with everyone and meeting this new extended part of our family. After a lot of food and fun, visiting and pictures, we headed back to the condos to collapse and get ready for a full and fun day of sun worshiping and wedding festivities.
Padre, Part 2: Sun, Swimming and Wedding .... coming soon!
