January 8, 2017. Same Gulf, A New Campground.

January 8, 2017.  Same Gulf, A New Campground.  We moved 13 miles north of Mustang Island State Park to Pioneer RV Resort.  I have been telling you that we are on Padre Island.  I learned today that I have been wrong.  Mustang Island is a separate island connected to Padre by a road five miles south of the state park.  Mustang Island was first named "Wild Horse Island."  The mustangs, or wild horses, were left by Spaniards during the early days of settlement.  There are none on the island now.

There, that confession aside, we are settled in the campground.  The pictures tell a story of a campground with many seasonal residents.  In seven days, we'll be gone.  Most of these folks spend the entire winter here.  They plant yard ornaments and toodle about in their golf carts.  They toodle on the boardwalk to the beach and they even toodle on the beach.

I mentioned earlier that beaches in Texas are highways.  I was wrong about that, too.  Technically, they are "roads."  The speed limit on beach roads is 15 miles per hour.  The only vehicles I've seen on the beach so far which observed the speed limit were the golf carts.  I don't think they will go that fast or they would speed on the beaches as well.

One final word on Texas beaches; they are all public beaches.  There are no private beaches in the state.  So, if you can get to the beach, you can use it.  Isn't that a fine democratic principle?  National parks, state parks and public beaches are ideas which make this a great country.   We do not collect and keep national treasures to ourselves individually.  We maintain them for all Americans.  I think that is a wonderfully selfless government service, don't you?

On that thought, goodnight.