January 3, 2017. Another Walk on the Beach.

January 3, 2017.  Another Walk on the Beach.  Another quiet day on the beach in Texas.  The weather cooperated.  It was warm and partly cloudy.  The temperature topped out at 80.  It seemed cooler than that in the shade.  There were two women who appeared to be taking a break from a conference in front of us.  They were wearing dresses and carrying bags.  When they got to the beach, they removed their shoes and walked along the Gulf in their bare feet.  They were easily the best dressed people on the beach.

We saw the usual birds and sea shells.  The beach is open to primitive camping.  There were several campers parked in the sand.  The beach is hard-packed and you can see tire prints along the way.  I read somewhere that beaches in Texas are officially state highways.  The National Seashore, just south of here, is open to primitive camping, too.  There are 60 miles of it.  Annie isn't interested.

We haven't had the bikes down yet.  The campground is about a quarter of a mile long.  I suppose we could ride back and forth and let the other residents gawk at us.  We are a spectacle, you know.  There are several eateries about five miles down the road.  However, Annie doesn't want to bike along the road.  The shoulder is ten feet wide.  But that doesn't matter.  Cars drive by and push the air onto the shoulder and it blows the bicycles.  They might blow the bikes off the shoulder and into the ditch. It is too dangerous.

There's the difference.   Annie sees danger everywhere and I don't see it anywhere.  When I was a boy, my mother once asked me why I couldn't see danger.  I don't recall the near-disaster which prompted the question.  I had plenty of them, so it could have been nearly anything.  It may have been the time I jumped off the roof of the house with quart-sized orange juice cans tied on my back like Flash Gordon.  I told her that I could always see danger in retrospect, after I hurt myself or broke something.  She tried, and failed, to convince me to look for danger before it enveloped me.  Annie tries too, with the same result.  I still can't see the danger in biking along the shoulder of the road.  Can you?  Annie can.

We may roust Harvey from his rest tomorrow.  There is a commercial campground in Port Aransas, about thirteen miles north of here.  We'll look it over as an alternative for when we leave here.  We are also talking about going south to the southern tip of Texas to Port Isabel.  Port Isabel is just opposite the southern end of Padre Island.  However, it is another 200 miles from home and 200 miles from here.  I don't expect a great change in the weather.  We'll see.  This I know with certitude, we won't be biking along the shoulder of the road to get there.

Goodnight.