Day 3: Not As Interesting As Day 2

The second night was a really fun one.  We started Graham on the floor but by the time we were ready for bed, he’d moved to Jennifer’s bed.  We moved him back to the floor but back he came to Jennifer’s bed.  Finally it ended up with me on the floor and Jennifer and Graham each in a bed.  See the below graphic:

Yeah, vacations with kids are relaxing.

I forgot to add Graham's quotables from Day 2:

(as we were assembling to leave the apartment for dinner) “Everybody get in line”

(to my father-in-law) “Thank you for having a birthday”

(after being told by Jennifer not to be bossy) “Do everything I say, please?”

The next morning the kids were up and at ‘em again, this time at 5:45.  We didn’t even change them into clothes, taking them out for another walk in the wagon while still wearing their pajamas.  This time we went a different direction and made it to the beach to watch the sunrise.  Unfortunately Graham was rather disappointed that he couldn’t get into the water but at least he didn’t cry.

We made a return trip to the beach later that morning with Jennifer and her mom staying back with a napping Trevor.  It was mostly a repeat of the previous day though I found that I had to be careful how I dug holes in the mud lest I pull a muscle.  I don’t remember having that problem when I was eight years old.  Oh well.

After lunch, we took Graham and Trevor back to the house again where, um, neither one of them fell asleep.  Time to go nuclear: pack ‘em in the minivan!  Jennifer and her mother took them shopping and when they returned about forty minutes later, they were both still asleep.  I then had the option of taking them both up to the bedroom and chancing awakening one or both of them or keeping them in the minivan, driving around until they woke up. 

Duh, I drove around Port A for forty minutes. 

We ordered pizza for dinner after which Graham, Maisy Insaisy and I headed for another sundown beach excursion.  This time we wore swimsuits and drove since that would give us more time.  We frolicked in the waves for an hour and it was awesome even though the dog attempted to wrench my arm out of its socket Mos Eisley Cantina-style every time I let her run after a gull.  Again, I was tempted to let her go without the leash but that would have been dumb.  After an hour, we piled into the minivan and drove back, bringing several pounds of beach sand with us.

That reminds me: beach sand.  It is in everything you bring back from the beach.  You find it in random places around the house.  I expect to find it six months from now in unexpected places.  Writing this three days after we got back, I think there’s still some in my ears.  There’s a reason there was a $59 cleaning fee on our bill for the house.  I think, in housekeeping circles, the ultimate experience for the resume is having experience in a beachside hotel.  Thankfully our house had a showerhead on the outside where we could wash off but it still didn’t take care of everything.

Day 2 - Hit the Beach!

Saturday, 4pm – We’ve Arrived

It was a bit late to set up and go down to the beach, particularly with needing to eat around 5:30 for the kiddos, so we unpacked and hung out in the house for a couple of hours.  The act of unpacking reminded me of my bete noire: hot weather.  See, the older I get, the more convinced I am that I’m made for living in a climate that rarely gets up to 80 degrees.  When I was in high school in Houston I drove a 1990 Volkswagen Vanagon that had no air conditioning for two whole years without much thought, yet now I’ll start sweating after walking around maybe five minutes in 90 degree heat with high humidity.  I can take cold weather fairly well, not needing a jacket until it gets to 60 degrees or maybe 55 and not for those late night trips to the backyard trash can or compost pile when it’s 30 degrees outside.  So with it being about 90 and the humidity at 70%, I was sweating after the second trip back down the stairs to the minivan to unload.  By the seventh trip, I was drenched and needing a shower.  It’s not a problem when I’m doing something where getting sweaty goes with the territory like working outside but when it happens when it’s not supposed to, I hate it.  Hate it.  I can’t imagine spending a summer day at Astroworld like I did when I was a kid (and yes, I know Astroworld closed years ago).

So of course I walked around with no shirt on for 20 minutes.  We’re at the beach, rules kind of go out the window. 

We stayed in for the evening with my father-in-law grilling hamburgers.  It’s funny how the roles shake out on these trips.  I found the house options online, Jennifer and her Mom chose, I booked the travel, Jennifer and her parents figured out who was bringing what, Jennifer got all of the kids’ stuff together days in advance, I packed everything into the minivan on the morning of, I got us to Port A, I picked up the keys to the house, Jennifer and her parents settled everything in while I took three years to bring everything inside, my father-in-law cooked and Jennifer and I took care of the kids and put them to bed.  Of course, when you have so many relatives around, including one of Graham’s favorite women in the world after Jennifer, my sister-in-law (I’ve been informed that I can call her that), you never have to read Graham a book all weekend long. 

Ah...night.  How were Graham and Trevor going to do?  We took the biggest bedroom in the house, a spacious room with two twin beds.  We stuck Trevor’s playpen in the corner furthest away from the living room, covered the two sides with beach towels and covered the windows with blackout curtains and a beach towel.  As for Graham, we had the bright idea of sticking him in the double on the far wall, letting Jennifer take the other double and have me sleep on the floor.  I used to not be able to sleep on flat surfaces...and then I became a parent.  I’m now able to sleep on hard carpet or hardwood floors with the best of them if it is required to help get a kid to sleep in the middle of the night.  Trevor went to sleep easily.  Graham followed an hour or so later.  Success!  But it couldn’t last, could it?

It couldn’t.  Around 10:30, as we were getting ready to go to bed ourselves, I snuck into the bedroom to make sure Trevor was ok.  I was able to see Trevor peek his head up over the edge of the bed Abominable Snowbeast-style right before I heard a very loud thump, followed by extremely loud crying.  Graham had rolled right off the bed and bonked his head on the floor!  Oh man!  I picked him up and quickly took him into the living room to be comforted by Jennifer.  I had horrible memories of the one time I rolled off a bed when I was a kid (1986 in my grandmother’s apartment in Charlotte, NC) and I was just imagining him being traumatized for life like I was.  I usually don’t go into uber-parent mode but this was one of those times.  Anyway, Jennifer got Trevor back to sleep and eventually Graham calmed down as well, going back to sleep soon thereafter.  And of course, he didn’t even remember any of it in the morning.

About the Abonimable Snowbeast.  Remember the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas special?  And remember how the first sighting of the Abonimable Snowbeast shows him peaking up over the mountains?  Yeah, that’s what Trevor peeking over the top of the playpen reminds us of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5rON78idQY

At some point during the night Graham ended up sleeping with me.  The night ended with me sleeping on the floor.

The next morning, while everyone else slept, Jennifer, Graham, Trevor and Maisy the Psycho Pooch went for a walk.  At 6:15am.  At least we got to see the sun rise and it wasn’t quite hot enough yet to break a sweat.  I think the day that Jennifer and I can sleep past 7am on a weekend morning is the day we stay indoors all day eating nothing but pizza and watching Duck Tales and Jane Austen marathons.  We tried to get to the beach but were thwarted by a boardwalk guarded by a sign threatening to call the police if you weren’t a resident of that neighborhood.  We turned around and went back to the house.  Luckily Graham wasn’t too put out about it.  He had felt a little cheated though when we didn’t go to the beach yesterday afternoon (a mistake I will not make a second time...the beach is the beach!).

Everybody else got up around seven and we all had a nice little breakfast.  Graham quickly got impatient to go visit the beach while we were still getting prepped but luckily he became occupied with, what else, a big pile of sand in the yard.  Awesome. 

And then, around 9:30, we loaded up the minivan and my in-laws’ Ford Escape and drove over to the beach.  Jennifer remained at the house since Trevor was taking his morning nap.  Of course, that would give her some nice time to herself.  Graham of course was raring to go.  Me too Graham, me too.

The Port A beaches are much better than Galveston in that you can park your car right on the beach, walk thirty yards to the water’s edge and you’re in.  No seawall, no major artery right beyond the beach with cars honking and music blasting.  The water is still brown (though not Galveston brown) but hey, not all beaches can be Florida beaches.  The water temperature is cool but not Hill Country cold, meaning it feels good about five seconds after you jump in. 

A great innovation in beachgoing I think is the large canopy.  I remember going to the beach in Galveston as a kid and having no shade to speak of, just a few blankets spread out on the sand with our stuff.  Sure, the sun is an integral part of the beach but it can get uber-hot and you just want some shade.  Well now you can get fold-up canopies that have enough shade for ten people to sit comfortably underneath.  My awesome in-laws brought theirs, allowing us to have a nice cool home base to operate out of and allowing those not getting in the water or playing in the sand to watch the goings-on in comfort. 

Graham’s favorite activities, were, in no particular order:

-          Standing in knee-deep water and slapping the incoming waves with his hands

-          Digging holes in the sand deep enough for him to hide in (having been advised by a co-worker to bring a good shovel, I brought a garden trowel)

-          Digging holes in the mud deep enough for Uncle Andrew to ‘take a bath’ in

-          Covering up my legs and arms with wet sand

When you’re in Port A, watch out for the grackles.  While no one was under the canopy, one snuck in, pulled a Clif Bar out of a bag, pecked open the corner and started eating it.  Crazy.

Jennifer called us at 10:30 to let us know that Trevor was up.  I drove back to the house, picked them up and came back so that the Tike could get his first taste of the beach.  Unfortunately, when he touched the sand for the first time, he cried.  Yeah, he cried.  Before too long he’d gotten used to it though and was crawling around in the surf without any problems.  He’s pretty interested in everything and I think he just thought it was a neat new brown place he hadn’t been.

Jennifer made the mistake of feeding the gulls with bread.  Yeah, I know you’re not supposed to do that but it was going to be too much fun not to try.  I watched while they stepped out to do it.  At first, no gulls took notice of them which was pretty funny.  Then, after fifteen seconds or so, one came flying over.  Five seconds after that, it turned into a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds.  Jennifer threw up the rest of the bread as she was walking away from the pack.  They hung around for at least five minutes after, spaced out in a perimeter around the canopy, waiting for more.  It would have been spooky except that they were Laughing Gulls.

Jennifer’s parents brought back a sandwich lunch and we all ate lunch IN THE SHADE OF THE CANOPY (love that thing!).  By that time Graham was getting pretty tired as was Trevor.  Jennifer and I took them both back to the house to see about getting them to nap.  The Tike went down like a champ but Graham, who is past having regular afternoon naps, decided to fight through it and stay up.  He was no match for the minivan, however, as he fell asleep when Jennifer and her dad drove down to Wal-Mart to find a potty seat.  Yeah, we hadn’t brought one and Graham refused to go without it.

Unfortunately for him though, we didn’t take him back to the beach that afternoon.  In retrospect, I should have taken him.  After all, we only get down there once a year.  However, it might not have been the greatest idea since Jennifer’s Mom and Graham’s Uncle Andrew were stung by jellyfish during the afternoon; apparently everyone got out of the water for a while once the jellies started floating in.

The sunburn count wasn’t so good either.  Jennifer had it on her back, Graham under his eyes (who knew I had to put sunscreen there!) and Jennifer’s mom had it on her legs. 

For dinner, we drove into town to eat some seafood.  We settled into a cozy but tight restaurant that thankfully, through the constant movement of waitstaff and customers, held Trevor’s attention the whole dinner.  When Graham wasn’t eating his food, a game of musical chairs began so that I could be next to him but then he could be next to Aunt Erin.  Finally Aunt Erin ended up sitting between Trevor and Graham, perhaps the worst spot in the restaurant.  Oh well, the food was quite excellent as we celebrated my father-in-law’s birthday.

After dinner, Jennifer put Trevor down while Graham, Uncle Andrew, Aunt Erin and Maisy the Needy Pooch took a walk to the beach.  We cut across a lawn and used a private neighborhood boardwalk to get there but oh well.  I was glad to give Graham another opportunity to be at the beach even though, um, we hadn’t put on swimsuits.  So of course Graham immediately runs for the water and frolicks in the wet sand.  Oh well.  Maisy and I joined in ourselves, running around in the waves and chasing Laughing Gulls.  I wanted to release Maisy and see what she’d do, especially since few people were out, it being sundown and all, but I was afraid she wouldn’t turn around until she’d reached the Mexico border.  Here’s a photo:

We returned to the house all wet and sandy but I felt like a good parent, indulging my son in a bonus run to the beach.  Again, we only make it down once a year.  Graham was so tired that he put himself to bed (after Aunt Erin read him four books, of course). 

Port Aransas - Day 1 - The Drive Down

Dude!!!  The fam is in Port Aransas and, since Jennifer wanted me to write a travelogue last year and, um, I didn’t, I guess I’d better write one this year.  The Trevornator is taking a nap, I have the house to myself and I’m so serious about getting this blog going I’ve disabled my internet so I won’t check Facebook.  Take that Mark Zuckerberg! 

I won’t disable iTunes though so let’s have a listen to Trevor’s new favorite song while I’m writing this
If I Ever Stray – Frank Turner (looked up AFTER writing this)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVx2RuANAyk

Port Aransas, or Port A, as most people seem to refer to it, is in my opinion the best place in Texas to hit the beach.  It’s not as chaotic as Galveston (and you don’t have to drive through Houston to get to it), you can park on the beach, there’s plenty of parking, there’s not tons of people and it never feels crowded, either on the beach or in the town.  It even has a cute ferry to get you over from Aransas Pass if you don’t want to drive through Corpus (a big city but nowhere near as crazy as Houston).  Last year Jennifer, Graham, my father-, mother- and brother-in-law and two dogs rented one of those houses on stilts in a neighborhood not far from the beach (actually, I don’t think there are any neighborhoods that aren’t far from the beach) and had a nice four day weekend.  We liked it so much that we’re back for another round, this time with the Trevi Trevs and my brother-in-law’s wife (why isn’t she my sister-in-law?  I don’t get it).  And you know what it means when you do something twice: you have a Tradition!  Or maybe a Routine...whatever.

As has become a bad habit, I stayed up late the night before, even though I was going to have to drive at least four hours the next day.  My excuse was good though: I needed to finish a particularly excellent book.  I’m always trying to have my cake and eat it too in those types of situations.  Well, Trevor showed me by waking up at three and not going back to sleep until four, giving me five hours of interrupted sleep.  And since I hadn’t done any personal packing or loading of the minivan the night before, we left at 9:25, a full 25 minutes later than we’d hoped.  That’s a fault of mine of never being in a hurry to leave on trips unless there’s a plane flight involved while Jennifer, who is the better detail planner, would always have us leaving at least ten minutes early.  I sort of still had cake as Trevor was still able to take a nap, despite us leaving a little after his normal morning naptime. 

Actually, we weren’t sure how well the Tike was going to do on this trip sleeping wise.  One time we came back from Houston and not only did he only sleep thirty minutes on the whole trip, he cried for about an hour and a half.  If he starts to get bad, poor Jennifer has to hop back into the middle row, squish herself in between two oversized carseats and attempt to humor Trevor enough so that he doesn’t cry.  By the way, an underrated feature of minivans is the ability for the person riding shotgun to be able to get into the middle row without exiting the vehicle.  Consumer Reports, get on it! 

We took the new 130 Toll Road south of Austin-Bergstrom Airport for the first time just to see whether it was worth it.  I’d read that Cintra-Zachary, the private company that runs it, is losing money and I can see why.  First of all, the feeder roads have speed limits of 60 mph but no traffic lights; it’s like they left the old Highway 183 right there with the addition of a few blinking yellow lights.  Second, the speed limit on the toll road is 85 mph!  85 mph!  We’re talking autobahn speeds now and you can bet there are people speeding past that.  Well, that’s great for you Jimmie Johnsons out there but for those of us who don’t like driving faster than 70 or 75 (I usually drive 68 myself), you’re constantly looking in your rearview mirror watching for the F1 drivers to make sure they change lanes and avoid rear-ending you.  Speed limit increases don’t have a big effect on the number of accidents as long as everyone continues to go around the same speed; it’s the difference in speeds that makes thing dangerous.  Well, and of course the severity of crashes increases the higher the speed.  Anyway, on the way back I’ll save our three bucks and stick with the feeder, even if Trevor is crying.

Speaking of Trevor, he slept for about an hour which was pretty good.  Luckily for him he slept through the pleas for votes for the Luling Watermelon Queen.  Oh yeah, part of the tradition is driving through Luling (no boring Interstate for us, thank you!) just before their annual Watermelon Thump during which it is apparently vitally important to vote for the Watermelon Queen.  This year’s candidates that we saw were Carina, Addie and Katelyn.  We haven’t yet stopped to inquire whether we’re eligible to vote since we don’t live in the area.  However, if we had a choice we wouldn’t vote for Katelyn simply because her signs were small, narrow and yellow with green letters, making them very hard to see when you’re driving by.  We decided that Katelyn needs a new Marketing Department. 

Sometime after Luling Trevor woke up but was content to giggle at Graham making faces at him.  It’s a great thing to be a parent and see your kids getting along; at these ages this is one of the ways we see it with our two.  Let’s hope they’re having 3-D videoconferences with each other in thirty years, eh.  Jennifer didn’t get into the backseat until we stopped in Nixon, a small crossroads town in the hinterlands.  It was also a good excuse for a potty break for the Graham-a-lam seeing as you can’t always trust that he’ll tell you when he needs to go and, worse, he might fall asleep and go accidently in his pants.  So hello Nixon Dairy Queen, great to see you again!

Getting everything done at the Nixon Dairy Queen was like a special dance.  Here’s how it went:

Act 1: Daddy (me) gets out of the car, attempts to convince Graham to come in and go potty, then goes in by himself after Graham refuses to do so.  I had to go myself and thought, well, better I help him when I’ve got my own business taken care of.

Act 2:  Daddy returns to the minivan, parked discreetly away from the building in case Jennifer needs to feed Trevor.

Act 3: Daddy returns to Dairy Queen with Graham in tow, protesting he doesn’t need to go to the bathroom but enticed with the promise of a treat.  Graham’s entrance into the Dairy Queen elicits one of those ‘I know what you’re going through but aren’t little kids cute’ remark from an older gentleman dressed like my late grandfather John would have dressed (and actually, Granpa would have said something like that too...I love small town restaurants sometimes). 

Graham:  (looking up at menu)  I want some ice cream!

Old Farmer/Rancher:   They always want a treat don’t they?

Daddy:  Yeah, I was hoping the menu wouldn’t have pictures.

In the bathroom, Daddy successfully gets Graham to pee.  Daddy wonders if Graham had been a girl if he would still have had bathroom duty.

Act 4: Daddy and Graham go to the counter to decide what to get.  While being watched by the two young women behind the counter, who clearly had nothing better to do in the Nixon Dairy Queen at 10:45 in the morning, Graham once again declares he wants ice cream.  Daddy, miffed there are no little treats like a cheesestick or something, orders a cheese sandwich instead. 

Act 5:  Daddy and Graham return to the minivan with a full kid’s meal (Daddy didn’t realize that was what he had ordered) and a medium coke for Daddy and Mommy to split.  Graham gets buckled in, Mommy stays in the middle row and Daddy pulls out of the parking lot.

The next item on the agenda was to have lunch.  Last year, on our drive south down Highway 183 through Luling, Goliad and Cuero, we tried finding a good local place to eat but quickly learned that there are only three kinds of restaurants in small south Texas towns: fast food joints, barbecue joints and Tex-Mex restaurants.  That’s it.  We like places we can easily run in and out of, preferring in particular sandwich joints, so that’s means we’re stuck.  Barbecue joints usually fit this bill as well but we wanted to eat a little healthier this year.

So anyway, we’d made sandwiches in advance and decided to have a picnic lunch instead.  I had spent probably fifteen minutes with Google Maps trying to find the city parks in the towns we’d be driving through.  I then made little maps on a sheet of paper for a reference sheet.  No GPS for us as I love the thrill of trying to find someplace with an actual map.  Well, Google Maps failed us in the next town, Kenedy, as the park on the map was just a natural area in town with no access at all.  Reaching the southern end of town, we turned around resolving to find some big parking lot to picnic in the corner of.  Luckily, while stuck at a traffic light, I happened to glance to the left and saw one of those brown official ‘City Park ->’ signs.  Bingo!  We took a right, pulled a u-turn, crossed the intersection and then pulled into Joe Gulley Park.

Ah, South Texas parks.  The park was fairly wide open with a couple of baseball fields, a little hike and bike trail, a pavilion, several picnic tables and a playground.  Being South Texas, the pavilion was occupied by a group of mostly Hispanic people playing Tejano music or something similar on large speakers.  It wasn’t like there was an official party going on or anything; it was just maybe twenty people eating and chilling out while having these two speakers set up playing the music.  It wasn’t loud enough that we could hear the words but it was definitely a South Texas experience eating our lunch in the shade of our minivan while listening to the beat of the bass.  Dum, dum-dum-dum, dum, dum-dum-dum.  Love it.  Graham was content to play with three Cars (Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks [still his favorite] and Clutch-Aid) on and behind the large rocks placed by the parking spots to keep people from offroading onto the grass.  The sky was clear, there was a nice breeze and thus even though it was hot we had a nice little picnic in the shade.  Still wouldn’t want to live in Kenedy but it was nice.

After Kenedy we headed south on Highway 181.  The terrain became quite flat, we passed out of the fracking zone with all the big 18-wheelers carrying natural gas and drilling equipment and we got to where the road became four lanes instead of two.  Driving the two lane roads is always more scenic and interesting but the downside is that occasionally you get stuck behind someone you just can’t pass.  For whatever reason, on two separate occasions a slow person with multiple vehicles trailing them turned on their hazard lights, pulled onto the shoulder and almost came to a stop to let everyone pass.  I’d never seen that before.  For my part, I flew past one extremely slow 18-wheeler (and gave Graham his first thrill for speed) and later a truck (I got a bit overexuberant and passed him on a bridge, a definite no-no) and pulled onto the shoulder to let one pick-up truck pass.  Actually, the pick-up truck didn’t pass which meant one of three things: 1) the driver didn’t know the rules of the road, 2) he was going to turn soon anyway (he didn’t) or 3) he was not driving in the best of conditions. 

Anyway, we also hit our first bypass in Beeville.  Why Beeville decided a bypass was a good idea, I don’t know.  Seems they’d want to draw as much business through town as they could.  Anyway, we stopped at the Stripes truck stop (Stripes is the big gas station chain down here, apparently) and was thrilled to see a man with a big star tattooed into the back of his head.  It really made his fade haircut look even cooler.  It was snacktime for Graham and, since it was our vacation for the year, I treated him to an M&M cookie ice cream sandwich.  I got my usual driving drink of a Starbucks Frappuccino since I like the taste, the caffeine helps and drinking most sodas now gives me acid reflux (which is a great way to stop drinking unhealthy soda, let me tell you). 

We were going to go into Port A from the north and take the ferry across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway but saw an electronic message board after Sinton that said that the ferry wait was one hour.  Should we stick with the plan or take the longer route through Corpus and to Port A from the south over the 385 bridge?  Well, Trevor had fallen asleep again (yes!) and it was likely he’d sleep longer in a moving car than a stopped one waiting for a ferry.  Corpus, here we come! 

We drove through Corpus without incident and turned onto Highway 358 to head into Port A.  After picking up the keys from the property manager, we found the house we’d be staying in.  We’d decided last year to rent a house rather than mess with hotel rooms, particularly with little children who would be needing to nap during the day and go to bed early at night.  Perhaps you can get suites in hotels to help with that sort of thing but we became enamored with the idea of having one of those houses on stilts to ourselves.  This one has three bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen with silverware, plates and bowls, a shaded deck and, quite importantly, a yard for the dogs.  We haven’t ever asked anybody to watch after Maisy the Psycho Pooch and the $100 pet deposit is still much cheaper than boarding her for 3.5 days (and much less stressful for her).  Plus my brother-in-law and his wife have their dog so the house works best.  Last year’s house was slightly on the decrepit side with a heavily creaking bed and a tiny third bedroom but this one is pretty swank.  It has hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and a deluxe master bath with a shower that has two showerheads and two nozzles that spray you from the side.  Holy smokes.