our un-vacation

it all started last week when i took a look at our summer schedule and realized that our 'oo we need to take the sailboat down to corpus' weekend excursion needed to happen this weekend or it would most likely not happen at all. so we made plans to take our summer vacation down to corpus. friday night we gathered up all the camping gear, hooked up the sailboat, and we were off! the chances of rain in the forecast kept us slightly subdued, but we were naively hopeful that we would escape any bad weather. i mean seriously, other than in west texas, what is the percentage of time that weather forecasts are correct? (i exclude west texas because although these weathermen also mess up the important forecasts, their percentages are boosted because most days the 'its gonna be hot and dry' works out pretty well for them)

friday night we got into town and dropped off the boat at ross' parents property and said hi to james, ross' cousin who lives next door. we then checked in to a hampton inn nearby. ross bargained our rate down by about $30 dollars (though it was still painfully high) and we tried to open our door. the lady reprogrammed our keys no less than 3 times but to no avail. i don't know whether to blame her or the door. but it worked out well. because she gave us another room, a room that was a higher rate than the discounted rate we just paid. it was a suite with a king size bed. the best bed that either of us have ever slept on. we took note of the mattress brand and had a pleasant evening. this, it would turn out, would be the highlight of the trip for me.

the next morning we hit up h-e-b to load up our cooler as we intended to camp on the beach. we then drove out to padre island and it was drizzling some as we drove. it seemed to be letting up as we got closer, yet every time we would mention 'hey the rain stopped', it would simply begin to rain again. we got out to the beach and sat in the car watching the rain. this was fun. james met us out there and then we checked out the boat ramp. we unhooked the boat, but then it started raining harder. forgive me for saying this in TEXAS in JUNE, but it was sooo cold with the wind and the rain, that we had to abort our sailing AND camping mission.





determined not to let our vacation be ruined (we DID just drive all the way down here!), we decided to go to the texas state aquarium in corpus. this was pretty fun, and we could get a good visual on the lexington from the aquarium as well, but did not go on board.






it was no longer raining but more rain was in the forecast and darkness was approaching in a few hours, so we made the joint decision not to go back out to the beach, though the sunny skies left us feeling very torn as to what to do. we set up our awesome propane stove at a park along the waterfront and had our picnic dinner there. we saw a regatta of sunfish sailboats, which was cool, but also kind of rubbing it in our faces a little bit. afterwards, we went to half price books that ross used to hang out at, and some of his old chess buddies were even there, so he got a couple games in. then we went to barnes and noble (we love bookstores :) ) for awhile. then we went and saw a movie. this wasn't quite the day we had planned, but it turned out to be fun in spite of the rain and change of plans.


so saturday night we hadn't planned to stay in a hotel, we'd planned to stay on the beach. so we tried to scout out a cheaper hotel, though the spring air avalon suite mattress back at the hampton was very tempting. so the next day we woke up and the sun was shining! we were glad we'd stuck it out, as we had considered driving back to austin the evening before. we loaded up and drove to the beach. The ramp was packed, the skies were clear, and we were stoked! We got the boat rigged up, put her in the water, raised the sail, and.....all the fishermen started coming in. A storm was coming in from the south. We could see the clouds. ross asked a guy we'd been talking to, how long, 1 hour? the guy said 20 minutes. as he said this, it began to rain. then, it began to pour. we frantically tried to pack up the boat while about 30 other boaters did the same. we could not have been wetter if we'd just gone and jumped in the ocean. so, basically, we got as close to sailing as possible, without actually untying from the dock.




and then we drove 200 miles home. soaking wet. and that was our summer vacation: sailing in corpus.