Padre Island National Seashore-Setting up

Our view while beach camping.

    If you've been dreaming of camping ON the beach, Padre Island National Seashore is the place for you. Plus it's FREE to camp (you do have to pay a "parking" fee)! 

    Padre Island National Seashore is on North Padre Island, which is no longer connected to South Padre Island, and is accessible by driving through Corpus Christi Texas. Hot tip... when they say you need a four wheel drive to go past the five mile marker, listen. Also have a shovel and boards to get your four wheel drive and camper unstuck from the very soft sand close to the dunes where they tell you to park. Finally, you don't actually have to be that far off the beaten path, because traffic just goes around you creating a new beaten path.

    So, we left rainy Mississippi a day early to head for the sun and surf of the Texan Gulf. The interstates were horrific with litter, traffic, and road construction nearly the entire way. We also found ourselves on a local highway stuck behind a pickup, towing a pickup which was towing a tow dolly and another pickup. Hm. Interesting. We have traveled ALL over this country and have never seen that. It was like they had a bunch of junk to haul and needed three pickups, but had only one driver. I don't know. It was bizarre. But apparently it's a thing here, because not long after, we saw another triple truck tow! And then a run down little car towing a pickup full of junk. I think the Munschs should get a run down little pickup that doesn't run and just tow it behind the suburban when we need to haul stuff. Or two for that matter.

The triple threat pickup tow in Texas.

    Well, all the road oddities made travel a little slower than we would have liked (I may or may not have lost my mind and started yelling at cars) and we arrived to the National Seashore with only about an hour before the sun set. This was not ideal as we had no idea what to expect. Even less ideal was the road sign declaring, after driving 20+ minutes onto the island, that there was a boil order on all water from the park and that water should be obtained before coming to the island. This information would have been helpful, oh I don't know, 20 MINUTES AGO! Nevermind, we literally had no time to turn around for water if we wanted to set up for the night. Onward we pushed. 

    Our next obstacle was where to check in. Did I mention there is absolutely no cell service on the island? There's not. Your phone turns into a very expensive sudoku machine. At least that's what my phone turned into. So, without cell service there was really no way to figure out how to check in. Jason did attempt to pull into the visitors center to check for a self serve kiosk, but with the sun swiftly dropping and my irritation steadily rising, we just headed for the beach. Which was SPECTACULAR!

  To be fair, at first it was a little scary because we didn't really know how the sand drove (imagine like a plowed field with snow) and we didn't know how far to go, or how high up the tides came, or anything really. Also, there was also a LOT of trash. Like imagine a lot of trash and then double or triple that amount. So many single shoes and an endless supply of bottle caps. Plus appliances, emergency water bags, a kayak here and there, and miles of rope and crates of all shapes and sizes, dotted the dunes and beach. I found a brand new, with the tag still on, TJ Maxx bag that I considered washing off and using but instead filled with other trash. Jason would not have been down with a beach garbage tote. Most of the trash was some sort of plastic and I seriously questioned what was wrong with us as a society that we could and would allow such a beautiful, precious area to be filled with so much trash. Finally, somewhere just after the five mile marker, we found a slightly less litter filled section of beach and decided to set up. We now had about 20-30 minutes before the sun would set.  

    Before pulling the camper snug up against the dune, Jason and I got out and walked on the beach to test it's firmness. Everybody knows that the weight of two people walking and jumping around will give you a good idea of how a surface will handle the weight of a Suburban and travel trailer. And so it was deemed firm enough to continue. 

    Until it wasn't firm enough to continue. Which was relatively quickly. We had literally just passed the sign that said, "towing is very expensive." Well, we were not about to be towed out. I was suddenly very thankful for all the wooden boards that we haul around the country and incredibly glad that Jason had resisted my constant urging to replace them with the fun orange camping levelers. Because fun orange camping levelers would have been totally ineffectual as both shovels and at providing the needed traction to unstuck that truck.  

    And so the panicked digging began. We knelt low into the sand and chucked sand from beneath the tires with our hands, the boards, and the collapsible little green shovel we had recently added to our collection of camper tools. When we thought we were done, I urged everyone to dig a little deeper so that the boards were touching several inches of each tire's treads. Then we crossed our fingers and Jason gunned it backwards, jackknifing, but freeing the entire rig. It was only then that I realized how humid it was and how much of my skin was covered in fine, powdered sugar like sand. I would say the percent was very near 100. But the camper was free and we could finally set it up. 

    We pulled forward and much, much closer to the beaten path and dropped the camper. We were hot, exhausted, damp, gritty, and way too hungry. But there we were, camping on the beach. 

    That night, Jason urged us all to come outside to look at the stars. Had it been any other night, one or more of us wouldn't have come for one reason or another. Thankfully that night, with a new moon, we all obliged. The sky was dark except for the million little twinkle lights dotting every inch. It was surreal. It was then that I took the best picture ever (and also one of the three boys):  

Our little camper on Padre Island National Seashore.

Thankfully nobody stepped on a jellyfish in the dark.

New Orleans and Swimming in the Gulf

Chowing down beignets in Jackson Square.

    Being so close to New Orleans we decided that we should probably go and see Bourbon Street and eat some beignets so that was the plan for Monday. Hot tip-if you want to see everything in New Orleans, don't go on Monday. Apparently Monday is the day that everything closes during the week. No matter, we got done what we set out to accomplish, first stopping in the nearest café that offered beignets. 

    Beignets came in orders of three so I figured we'd need two orders, giving all the boys one and a half pastries a piece. Jason quickly corrected me and said that we'd be getting a full order for each person, or three giant pillow fry breads drowning in powdered sugar per person. Well what did I care. It wasn't my stomach that would have to deal with those repercussions. Interestingly, a woman in the café overheard us as we were leaving and said, "you can only eat two. Three is too much." Marcus, Jason, and Samus promptly proved her wrong by chowing down their entire orders in nearby Jackson Square. Lucas pushed himself hard and made it through two and a half. Thankfully, Samus bats clean up crew during meals, and no beignets went to waste. 

    From Jackson square we plodded along the streets of New Orleans, passing bars and shops not yet open or shut down for the day. Not to be dissuaded by a lack of shopping options I did manage to find a store called "Simply New Orleans" or something similarly fluffy, where we took care of our souveniring needs, complete with a voodoo doll Christmas ornament. We then stumbled upon a hat shop where Samus, Marcus, and I found our new favorite hats. Samus opted for his trademark Ivy Hat, Marcus went with the classic fisherman, and I purchased a darling pink and salmon sun hat with a short back brim to make sitting against something more comfortable. I decided right then, this is now my signature hat and the hat that I will wear when we hike the Grand Canyon in a couple of weeks. It was truly a satisfying buy. 

    New hats on heads, we hopped on a handsome cab with Jeff and his trusty mule, Red. Jeff proved to be an entertaining and informative host. As Red clopped through the backstreets of New Orleans, Jeff offered up tasty tidbits of knowledge about the city's history and it's notable attractions and residents. He was quick to point out all of the unlicensed vehicles, old asbestos roofing tiles, and windows leading onto balconies; just a few of the ways residents skirted the laws without much scrutiny. He also let us in on his code word for trouble: spaghetti. According to Jeff, he uses a neutral word, spaghetti, to signal to people he's with to be on alert, without offending or raising suspicion in the people by which the trouble could be caused. Brilliant. If you hear a Munsch say spaghetti around you, trouble may be a brewing.  

    Jeff suggested we ride the ferry across the Mississippi to Algiers Point and grab a slice of pizza for lunch. At this point, Jeff could have told us to do anything and we would have done it, because what did we know? Please note that the ferry ride to and from Algiers Point was financed by Marcus. About time these boys start pulling their weight. 

    Anyway, the Munschs, who would normally climb to the top deck of any water craft for the breeze and superior views, rode instead inside the air conditioned main deck of the ferry for the much too short five minute trip to Algiers Point. Whelp, little did Jeff know, but the pizza shop closes on Mondays. So next door it was to Dry Dock Café, a neighborhood bar, that offered our new favorite amenity, air conditioning. The boys gorged themselves on hamburgers the size of their heads and Jason ate a Poo Boy, because, when in Rome. By all accounts Dry Dock Café was a winner. After a short, but much too hot stroll down the Jazz Walk, insisted upon by Jason, we missed the ferry back by one minute. By the time we got to the car, we were officially done with New Orleans.

    Arriving back at the camper it was as if Mississippi knew we had had enough of the heat and rain and just wanted to swim, as an oncoming storm skirted just to the east of us. We took the opportunity to frolic in the ocean for just a little while. The water was cool, but dirty and, surprisingly, completely devoid of salt. I know, because I licked it when Jason refused to believe me. Does the water from the Mississippi Delta really dilute the salt water that much? It must.

    Having accomplished all that we set out to do in Mississippi, we decided that we'd move on to North Padre Island a day early, where we would be camping directly on the beach. As excited as we were to be so close to the ocean, none of us was really looking forward to facing the southern heat without air conditioning. At least the next day would start with a nice cool eleven hour drive before setting up camp.

Mississippi and the Stennis Space Center

All my boys. 

    The plan was to stay in Mississippi for three full days. I assumed that it would be fun-filled beach time with a trip into New Orleans during one of the days. Instead, Mississippi greeted us with rain and then thunderstorms, and finished up with a big side of rain and thunderstorms. As is necessary on these trips, the Munschs rolled with the punches. I mean first, we whined and complained, but then we reorganized and made do. 

    On the way into Buccaneer State Park on the Mississippi Delta/Gulf Coast, we noticed the Stennis Space Center. Never tiring of the cosmos, we decided that the Infinity Space Center would be a good rainy day activity. The smallish science center offered an outdoor boardwalk where we were reminded relentlessly not to feed the alligators. This excited me and made me believe that we were ensured a gator sighting. As with most wild life, the gators did not care about my desire to see them and remained elusive doing whatever gators do on an overcast, hot Sunday in June. This outcome was most appreciated by Lucas, who I'm fairly certain would knock one of us down as bait in his retreat from almost anything in nature. 

I wonder if these two are related?

   After taking numerous photos of rocket engines and other spacey things, we headed down to where Logtown had once stood. It was here that thousands of people were forced to move so that NASA could safely test rockets and engines without endangering lives. A light mist began to fall when we stopped at the desolate boardwalk which led into the swamp. That was enough for Lucas to nope out and stay behind in the car. A choice I don't particularly blame him for in retrospect. 

It's like I think that by oversmiling, somehow Lucas will just smile a little. 

Human for scale. Marcus in front of part of the Saturn 5 rocket stage. 

Samus. 

    Unlike up at the science center, the bugs here were fierce and curious about our presence, diving into faces and ears. We began the Australian wave and persisted up the trail as I was sure this would be the place I would see an alligator. As we moved forward the bugs began to dissipate, but only because the light mist turned into a proper rainfall. As the rain increased, we decided to turn back so that we didn't get soaked, even though none of us had been truly dry all day due to the humidity. Sitting happily in the car on our return was a much less damp Lucas playing on his phone. 

Lucas irritated that it's raining and he's in said rain. 

        As the day went on so did the rain. Only now the rain seemed fitting considering the next part of our day, attending my cousin Tyler's memorial service via a web cast. We found a parking spot on the deserted beach and grieved together with my Van Dover family even though we were a thousand miles apart. The fiercely crashing waves and gray rainy sky seemed to echo our collective sadness. When the service was over, we got out of the car and ran to the water both in honor of Tyler and thankful for each other.

https://www.spitzerfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Tyler-J-Van-Dover?obId=21222378#/celebrationWall

First Leg-Driving and then driving some more.

Obligatory leaving the driveway photo.
At least one out of three of them smiled appropriately. 

    Twenty minutes after I arrived home from a teacher's conference, the Munschs hit the road for Kansas. 

    Every year we plan a day to leave on vacation and  almost every year, we leave the day before because  we're just so excited we can barely stand ourselves.  This year was no exception. So instead of leaving the following day and driving for a million hours to Oklahoma, we took off a half a day early and "turtled" in Kansas. Excuse me. It wasn't actually a turtle but a tortoise. Turtling the camper for us is when we park and don't pull out the bedroom slide or unhook the camper from the Suburban. This provides for minimal work in the morning when leaving early. Anyway, this was not strictly a turtle job as we did pull out the bedroom slide, so the boys decided that this was more of a "tortoise" situation. Don't ask me how they came to that conclusion. They just did. 

    So, pretty big news right off the bat-did you have any idea that the construction through Sioux City was complete? It only took like two decades, but I-29 is wide and luxurious. What a pleasant surprise and a positive start to the trip. 

    Anyway, Kansas was okay. The reservoir we were staying at was flooded and so it smelled something terrible. It's sort of funny when we go on these trips and we just stop at one place, we totally judge the whole state on that one experience. So in our minds, Kansas is flooded, smelly, and humid. But they do have beautiful sunsets.

Very sunsetty in Kansas. Please note that taking a decent
picture of this crew is an extreme exercise in patience
and perseverance. Even then someone is usually doing
something ridiculous. 

    The next day we didn't have far to go to get to our stop in Oklahoma, on the account of leaving a day early, but we couldn't check in until 4, so we decided to find a Bass Pro Shop and an Academy Sports so I could do some shorts shopping. Hot tip--go to Academy first. You may not even need Bass Pro Shop.

    Oklahoma, it turned out, still smelled weird and was humid, but seemed less flooded. Shortly after dropping the trailer we decided to go find the "natural falls" after which the state park is named. We quickly found an unworn, but marked path and headed toward the sound of falling water. 

    The trail was steep but results were fairly quick taking us almost directly to the sound of falling water. However, this monstrosity could not be the alleged natural water fall and was actually a concrete damn holding back a ton of gross green moss covered water. Irritated, we persisted down the trail, taking note of the fish darting about in the now clear turquoise stream. Eventually there was a twisted, somewhat unstable looking bridge crossing the stream and the Munschs obliged it by crossing. 

Rickety bridge that bounced when we walked across. 

    On the other side of the foot bridge was a spectacular grotto complete with a deep aqua pool that danced from the dripping water above. This alone would have been worth the hike, but around the bend was an even more beautiful grotto, five times as large, and the promised natural falls. While not the biggest or most elaborate falls I have ever seen, these falls were pristine and delicate, flowing over and from within caverns on the moss and vine covered rock face. A good hike indeed. Well done Oklahoma. 

Pictures never do these things justice. It was absolutely magical. 

    The next morning was an early one, hitting the road by 6 on our way to the Mississippi Delta.

Prologue

    While I knew that this trip would be like none of the others that we had taken, I had no idea how that concept would manifest. This is the trip we were supposed to take last year but couldn't because as Jason said then, "the camper is fixed, but the world is broken." Just as we finished putting back together our very broken camper, COVID upended our lives in so many ways. I was suddenly teaching kindergarteners from my living room and deck, while the boys were fighting with online programs designed to help them learn, and Jason had set up a "temporary" office in our bedroom, which meant bringing home his plant and monitors and plopping everything on a camping table. Temporary is in quotations because that office is still in our bedroom. I might add that the plant is thriving. Anyway, due to the volatile situation all over the country, we decided to cancel the trip and stay home. Or rather travel a little closer to home.  

    During those first long weeks, that turned to even longer months, Samus suddenly was unable to walk properly and developed a fairly severe case of drop foot. Indicative of all kinds of terrifying neurological diseases, we were pretty afraid of what might be on the other side of the myriad of tests he was scheduled to take. Thankfully, we found out rather quickly, that he did not in fact have some life altering disease but that he damaged his sciatic nerve during his hours and hours of swinging, which he used to ease his anxiety and fill all the new found time that he had on his hands. Now he had less time on his hands due to the months of physical therapy he was prescribed and switched to biking instead of swinging. Turns out biking is really good for strengthening the foot and leg and healing a sciatic nerve injury. Who knew? 

    Some time shortly after Samus wrapped up physical therapy and we all got used to going to school wearing face masks for eight hours a day, Lucas found himself quite sick. Was it COVID? The test said no. We decided it was probably constipation given that I have never seen anybody drink less than this kid. So for three days, Lucas laid on the couch with a steady diet of Miralax and Gatorade. Still, nothing was taking away his pain. Finally we decided to head to acute care, where we narrowly escaped being turned away because of Lucas' fever. Within minutes, the doctor, after having Lucas straighten his right leg and then pounding on his heel, declared it was appendicitis and we needed to high tail it to the ER. Sure enough, one emergency appendectomy and a couple of hospital days later, Lucas was not constipated. 

    Then along came Christmas. While we had really hoped to head to Aberdeen after missing Easter and Thanksgiving, it was not in the cards. Neither the boys or I could risk being sick and missing school and we didn't want to accidentally get anyone in Aberdeen sick either. Turns out, it didn't matter what our plans were because I had come down with a mystery 16-day illness that resulted in two negative COVID tests and a negative antibody test. Either way, I was sick as a dog and on anti-nausea medication until Christmas Eve. 

    The hits kept coming as in January of 2021 my beloved grandfather, Grandpa Jer, passed away after a long battle with dementia and a short, swift battle with cancer. Then tragedy struck again, before we even had a memorial for my grandfather, as the home my grandparents shared for over 50 years, and sold to my cousin several years ago, burned almost completely to the ground in May. With the help of some very brave men, my only Van Dover cousin, Tyler, was rescued, but succumbed to his terrible injuries just a few weeks later. 

    Please know that I did not write this prologue as a pity party for us, but as the background for what makes this trip, the trip after a year of lock down and loss, such an important and precious trip. In the past year, we have ridden the roller coaster of life, experiencing the joys and sadness of life and death in our family. And truly, there was plenty of joy and we did not lose nearly as much as others during this year. But I write this to remind myself how fortunate we are as I sit with my computer on a Texan beach on the Gulf of Mexico. In a year filled with hard things, the Munschs are still here, still able to travel and still overcoming hard things, to love one another and those around us. Thanks for traveling with us.  

Mississippi and New Orleans

In front of a Saturn V rocket stage

Our first real stop was in Mississippi at Buccaneer State Park which is just outside of Waveland. It was rainy weather during our stay with some pretty heavy storms the first day. The fun and sun we had planned was out for the day so we headed over to the Stennis Space Center Museum, I knew it was close but didn't think we'd have a chance to drop in so I was pretty excited to see it added to the agenda. It was a pretty good, but small and didn't take very long to go through, the Saturn V rocket stage they had outside was the highlight. That was about all we got to do the first day, we drove around a bit and tried a hike by Logtown in the rain but it turned into a down pour so that didn’t last long. Mostly hung around the camper in the rain, the evening before sunset (which happens crazy early about 8 down here) Becky and I walked down to the Gulf from our campsite to check out a little beach area they have and got to see a great rainbow. 

 

The next day we headed into the big easy to see what it's all about. I only had two items on my list, have some beignets and walk to Bourbon St. We hit those right away, the beignets were great but really just fry bread with powdered sugar instead of cinnamon and sugar like we have at home. And Bourbon Street was... I guess weird, just a street with shops, overall the area was tons of raunchy t-shirt shops and bars. Pretty much confirmed the general debauchery I expected, Bourbon Street wasn't any different than any other street they all seemed the same to me.  Around Andrew Square we got on a Handsome cab tour that took us around and filled us in with some local info and it was the best part of the trip. Taking a tip from our Mule driver (the original autonomous vehicle, our "driver" was looking behind at us most of the time. That Mule wasn't going to hit anything) we decided to walk down to the Mississippi river which was fairly close to where we parked and take the ferry across the river and have pizza at a place he recommended. Get to take a boat ride get some food sounded fun. We took the boat ride and got across and not much there, a couple of restaurants and a bike path. When we walked up to the pizza place it was closed on Mondays so that didn't pan out. There was a café aka dive bar next door that had food so we ate there instead, service was friendly and everyone enjoyed there food so overall it was a success. The bike trail lead to a Jazz walk thing that I tried to drag everyone on but it was hot and humid so everyone wanted to go back to the camper and try to go swimming instead. Back on the ferry we went.

 

And finally we got to go swimming in the Mississippi Gulf, our campground had a small beach but it was little and a bit nasty so we headed east to some better beach areas in Wavetown we saw the day before driving around. We tried to swim but was mostly wading as we had to go way out to get into water that was even waist deep. But it was a good time, the boys spent most of the time wrestling one another. The forecast for tomorrow is rain so we're looking at switching things up and heading out instead of sitting around another rainy day. Where we're heading in Texas looks sunny and dry.

Jumped out of the car to check the water in the rain

Becky in the Gulf

 

 

 

Still kicking it together after all these years

 

OMG, double rainbow

 

 

Samus destroying some beignets

 

 

Jackson Square and a cool picture

 

Samus and Marcus in front of our Mule for the day, Red

 

Voodoo lady's place we passed on the carriage ride

We're on a boat and looking super happy about it

 

 

Shot of the city from the boat

Everyone enjoying their food at the Dry Dock Cafe in Algiers

 

 

We're swimming in Mississippi!

Or wading... this is a long way from the shore

Horsing around

Pretty cool rainbow after the storm

On the road again

And by on the road I mean ON THE ROAD... We've been in the car on the road for about 1300 miles and almost 24 hours as we sprinted to the gulf.  But it's great to be heading out on a big adventure again. Waiting two years was way too long, but June is here again and we're on our way! This year we're doing a variation of the trip we had planned to do last year. When we planned it 5 months ago we decided to cut our California and sub'd in Mississippi and Colorado instead, making a tighter loop and to Becky's dismay cutting out a stop in Oregon.  We haven't stayed in Oregon just driven through and we're now set on camping in every state so that's going to be a hard one to hit now sitting out there all on it own.

So we've arrived safely at our first multi-night stay destination and it's been a long uneventful (thankfully) three days. Our original plan was to spend two 10-12 hour days but I got an extra day off work for memorial day so we decided to leave a day early and break up one of the drives (and let Becky grab KS as a place we've camped). Becky had a work conference so we couldn't leave till noon leaving me had the whole morning to leisurely finish getting the camper ready and everything packed up. Usually it's a super late night and little sleep that first day so this was so awesome. Dragging the drive out to 3 days instead of 2 wasn't as awesome but that's easy for me to say now and might not have been so good had we done two long drive days in a row.

We stopped in Hillsdale State Park, KS the first night and Natural Falls State Park, OK the second. I snapped a few pictures when we got out and explored a bit.

 

Hillsdale State Park, KS

The aptly named Natural Falls State Park, OK

Log bridge trying to find our way to the falls from our campsite, pretty sure we weren't on the approved trail at this point.

Another shot of the family. Lots of cool grotto type caves in the rock.