It is hard to believe that just a little over a week ago we were in South Padre and there was not a single cloud in the sky. As Houston is being hammered by tropical storm Harvey, looking at the pictures with the beautiful beaches and sunny days feels surreal. Hopefully, it is not going to be long until we get some sun here in Houston and everything goes back to normal.
This year's trip to South Padre was our second trip as we already visited the island a couple of years ago. Therefore, we were pretty familiar with the area given that South Padre Island is not that big. Well, it is, but the strip with the hotels and public beaches is not. The strip itself is very narrow so it would take you a couple of minutes to get to the beach even if you are staying on the opposite side of the beach. Our stay in South Padre started on Wednesday so for a first couple of days the beach was pretty crowd-less. However, Friday evening and Saturday afternoon there was an influx of locals trying to get some sun. The beach in South Padre is not something out of this world (like Destin), but it is very clean and the water is very pleasant (unlike Galveston).
South Padre Island has a bunch of different types of restaurants, however, most of them specialize in seafood. Given that we were in the gulf city, we decided to stick to eating seafood only. As a result, we consumed God knows how many pounds of shrimp, fish and other sea creatures. Bars in South Padre are really cozy and most of them decorated in a sort of a tropical theme. It makes you feel like you are somewhere in the Caribbean. That and the fact that you are so close to Mexico's border makes it feel like you are on vacation in some other country. Given that there is not much to do in South Padre outside of laying on the beach and one-off activities, such as put-put golfing, majority of our evenings were spent in different bars enjoying the views, great food and fruity cocktails.
One cool thing we did get to witness is the fireworks show. Apparently, during the summer season there are fireworks every Friday, Saturday and Sunday being set off from a barge in a bay. I am not sure who pays for all these festivities, but if you go to any of the restaurants located on the bay side of the island around 9PM you will catch an awesome show. We chose Louie's Backyard as our hangout spot for the night and grabbed a table on the outside deck of the top floor. We got there around 8PM in order to ensure that we get prime seats and some food before the show. It is worth noting that while we expected just a couple of bursts, they actually did put a lot of effort into the fireworks show. It was going for good 7-8 minutes and included colorful display of different kind of bursts.
We really enjoyed our stay in South Padre and hopefully Harvey did not wreak havoc on this beautiful island. If you are looking for a cozy and relaxing place nearby South Padre is a perfect getaway spot for a couple of days!
PS: All the photos in this blog post have been taken with my cell phone, so the quality of these pictures are not that of DSLR. But I think you can tell that South Padre is still a pretty awesome place to visit!