Day 23 – Edcouch, TX – Gulf Coast / Rio Grande Trip

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all. This will be our first Thanksgiving in a long time that we are not cooking a turkey to share with family. The RV Park is cooking several turkeys and our fellow RVers will be bringing pot luck side dishes. We will be bringing a 4 bean salad and cherry lattice pie as our contribution to the Thanksgiving meal.

We drove to South Padre Island yesterday. It was very disappointing, especially compared to Mustang Island and North Padre Island. The southern tip of the island is too commercialized, the beaches were very dirty and we all had trouble breathing including Mik due to a red tide. We passed on the island’s restaurants. We had a late lunch on our way back to the RV park at an Mexican Seafood family owned restaurant. We had our normal seafood choices, fried shrimp, oysters & okra for me and fried fish & shrimp for Raija.

The wild, bay shrimp definitely had a much better flavor then the foreign farm raised fresh water shrimp in the grocery stores.

We stopped at a local fruit stand and purchased locally grown, tree ripen Texas Ruby Red grapefruits and pineapple oranges. The orange get it names as it’s skin has a pineapple look to it and the oranges actually have a slight pineapple taste.

 

    

South Padre Island Beach

 

Kite Surfers

 
Commercial Section of South Padre Island

A Mexican Village was originally developed here in the 1700’s to support Mexican ranchers. The     village was abandoned prior to the U.S. declaration of war with Mexico. In 1846. U.S. forces led by General Zachary Taylor occupied the village on March 24. Taylor erected a depot to receive supplies from New Orleans. The six sided fort named for President Polk. The fort was abandoned in 1850 but the settlement it attracted eventually developed into Port Isabel. Remnants of the fort were visible until the 1920’s.

  A lighthouse was built on the fort’s site in 1853. The lighthouse was a strategic prize for the Confederate and Federal troops during the American Civil War. During the last half of the 19^th century, its light projected fifteen miles out to sea to help guide ships to the safety of the Brazos Santiago harbor.

In 1952 the point that was the fort/depot and then the lighthouse became the focal point of a  state park. It stands today as a well-known Port Isabel landmark.