Chop Chop Billy Goat

We had an amazing week at Padre Island National Seashore, on the Gulf of Mexico, Texas. We did lots of sand castle building, playing with sand toys, running in the waves, and walking on the beach.

At Padre Island, we collected many shells. One of my favorites was a molting shell of a leopard crab. It was really a leopard pattern!! Some of my other favorites were a small catfish bone, a crab leg, part of a sand dollar, a giant saw tooth pen shell, and a rust orange shell with a hole at the tip. At the RV, I glued a lot of my shells on a piece of drift wood.

On a night walk on the beach with Crazy Dog, we found some large crabs. Who knew that Crazy Dog is a good crab hunter? He tried to attack a nocturnal ghost crab! Crazy dog also found several other crabs. One night he actually sniffed a crab then jumped away. I think that the crab gave him a little pinch. That night he jumped, and when I looked there was a crab running away. Did Crazy Dog step on it?!?!?!

On the beach, we spent a lot of time cleaning up trash. There is a lot of trash on the beach because four currents converge there. We filled two bags with trash and dumped them, then picked up two more bags that other people had filled and left on the beach.  We sadly found some trash with chew marks. Did you know that turtles can confuse plastic bags and bottles for jellyfish and eat them? The plastic can get trapped in their stomach, lifting their back end and stopping them from getting air.

We were lucky enough to be at Padre Island for a turtle release. It was not hatchlings, but cold stunned turtles. Cold stunning happens when there is a sudden cold front that lowers water temps. Since turtles cannot regulate their temperature, they become immobilized and drift to shore. Rangers rescue and warm them, then the turtles are released back in the ocean. We stayed to watch all sixty-two turtles released.

We spent a lot of Thanksgiving Day cooking, as the tofurkey and the pumpkin pie each took two hours to bake. In our oven , everything was either burnt on the bottom, or under cooked on the top. The tofurkey turned out well, the biscuits were under cooked, but the pie was a little strange. The crust was “heavily toasted,” and the inside was more pudding then pie. Every thing was good anyway, and we also enjoyed cranberry sauce.

Our last day on the beach, we spent driving on the section of beach where cars are allowed. Pa had not wanted to go until we talked to some people that said they went to the end without using four wheel drive. We didn’t go to the end, but we went pretty far.

Sadly, we finally had to leave Padre Island. We set off to San Antonio.