Day 26 - Friday, Sept 28 - San Antonio, TX to South Padre Island, TX

Starting mileage:  6013 Starting time: 8:00 am
Ending mileage: 6392 Ending time: 5:00 pm
Travel mileage:  379 Travel time: 9:0 hours

 We certainly enjoyed our visit to San Antonio and would recommend it. This is apparently a popular time to visit as it gets very hot in the summer.

 We decided to take the longer route down via Laredo. In Laredo, we went to the Museum of the Republic of the Rio Grand, a very short lived country declaring independence from Mexico in 1845. It was taken back by Mexico but then shortly afterwards by Texas and the US.

 It would have been interesting to take the short walk across the bridge to Mexico but wouldn't have been able to come back as we didn't have our passports.

 On the way down to Brownsville, there was a swarm of butterflies that made quite a mess on our windshield and the front of the car. Carmen "Googled" and found out that there is currently a migration of the American Snout Butterfly to the Rio Grande valley! The Monarch butterfly migration to Mexico is also going on but we didn't encounter them.

 There were many abandoned gas stations and motels along our route, probably due to the faster Interstate route to Brownsville construction.

 Spanish is certainly the "lingua franca" in this area. Where we parked in Laredo, it was just like being in a Mexican shopping district. When we went to a Subway for lunch, there were 3 local police there, all speaking Spanish to each other.

 We decided to stop at the Palo Alto Battlefield national historical site in Brownsville. It is the site of a decisive battle resulting in the start of the Mexican-American war in 1946 and eventual success over Mexico that resulted in Texas as it is known today.

 We are staying in South Padre Island which I hadn't realized is a very popular tourist resort. It is pretty much all large hotels, restaurants and shops. Our hotel has beach access so I went down for a quick dip after we arrived.

 We had a delicious seafood dinner at the Pier19 restaurant, on a long pier that sticks out into the bay. While we were eating, we could see dolphins out in the bay.


Day 26 map
Mexican cannon at Palo Alto battlefield - note prickly pear cactus blossom
South Padre Island beach - Gulf of Mexico

Happy Carmen with fancy drink

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