DAY 81

Hi ya all!  A big Texas "how ya doin".

We did stop by The Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood just south of Austin for lunch on Friday.  What an operation it is!  They do $50,000 (avg) in sales every day, seven days a week, all cash and that is all food, no alcohol! I think we said previously that it is a BYOB kind of place and they just happen to have a winery on site where you can purchase wine to drink in the restaurant or carry out. They can seat 800 at a time and on busy nights and weekends there is usually a two hour wait. They have to smoke 24 hours a day to keep up with demand. They do weddings, parties, catering, and more. There is a second restaurant in Austin that is a replica of the original Driftwood location and they have locations in both the Austin airport and the Oklahoma City airport.  And, they take online orders for shipmet anywhere in the country.  Finally, they even have a winery in California. For all you BBQ lovers this is the place! Happens to be Bobby Flays favorite in the country. We liked it a lot but would not want a steady diet of it.

We wanted to camp on the shore at Padre Island National Seashore but it's first come - first served only.  Not wanting to be turned away on a late Friday afternoon (and the beginning of Spring break) we booked two nights in a Corpus Christi RV park.  Our plan was to have a "base" to check out the available options.  As usual, despite being highly rated, it was awful!  As soon as we set up we got in the car and drove out to Padre to "check things out".  Had we taken our chances we would have gotten the last open site on Friday.  We could have reserved it and drove back to the RV park to get the RV but it would have been too late.  It takes about 30-40 minutes to get from Corpus Christi to the Padre Island campground.

So, we forfeited our second night at the RV park.  Packed up first thing Saturday morning and got that open spot right on the Gulf.  Booked it for 5 nights at a cost of $4.00/night.  That's it in a nutshell.  It's been warm, but windy.  Blue sky Saturday, overcast today.

A few spring breakers are around but this is not the place to be after all.  That would be South Padre Island about 150 miles down to the end of the Seashore near Brownsville.  If we had a four wheel drive vehicle and the "balls" to give it a go, we could drive about 60 miles south on the beach.  It's allowable to drive and even camp anywhere you want to here on the sand.  Checking out the areas yesterday we saw some pretty big RVs right on the water's edge.  However, the caution is if you get stuck or get caught up in a high tide or a sudden storm you may need to be towed out at a cost in the $$ thousands.

I'll try to put some pictures on below but we are so far away from town the internet connection is slow (and telephone service spotty).  If not successful today, I'll take the computer to town with me tomorrow and upload the pictures while there.

Not able to do pictures!
Please look at tomorrow's posting.