Hopefully the last of the cold here…

Wow, we can’t believe how chilly this winter has been down here on South Padre Island. Yet another cold front has brought winds, low temperatures and fog into this part of the southern tip of Texas.

We will leave the coast and Isla Blanca Park after the weekend and are looking forward to a change. This winter has felt a lot like hanging out on the Oregon coast in early June… cold, wet and windy. I should mention that the temperatures along the coast in the winter are generally cooler for the highs of the day and warmer for the lows of the day when compared to temperatures inland.

The difference could be as much as 10 degrees or more on each end. As a result there were some days we drove over to Brownsville to walk around rather than stay on the coast because it would be in the fifties on the island and the upper sixties inland. We have come to call this stealing a good weather day…

Unfortunately this latest front has brought temperatures which start in the mid forties and barely raise into the fifties. Four straight days of this in the southern tip of Texas in late February has us really anxious for warmer temperatures. Looking ahead to our next stop in Alamo it appears we will finally get them once when move.

Of course we will miss our daily beach walks, the occasional trip to the brewery on the island and the walks along the boardwalks at the Laguna Madre Nature Trail. However we are ready to go and experience new adventures inland in the Rio Grande Valley.

And hopefully much warmer temperatures…

I have included pictures of the beautiful Roseate Spoonbills we have seen during our stay here. A small factoid about these spoonbills is that they get their color from the foods they eat. Crustaceans and other aquatic invertebrates contain pigments called carotenoids that help turn their feathers pink. The more carotenoids their food has the pinker they get which explains why the juveniles are mostly white.

NOTE: We are currently in South Padre Island TX until March 1st…