Day Four: Laredo to South Padre Island

Aprroximately 230 miles

We lost Travis Fiedler this morning. Travis, who works for Nestle needed to be back in Iowa on Wednesday for a meeting, so he turned north and began the long trek up I-35 towards home. That reduced our group to four, Denny Villhauer, Eric Keith, Dave Lau and me.

After a wave to Travis, the four of us pressed on to the south and east.

Now that we’d visited Mexico, we wanted to accomplish our other trip goal: visiting the Gulf of Mexico. We followed U.S. Highway 83, which followed the Rio Grande River and wound its way south and east. Our destination was South Padre Island, home of beaches, resorts and – we hoped – fresh seafood.

I’ve never been this far south in Texas before and I had hoped the ride would be scenic.

It wasn’t.

As we rode on, through towns like Zapata, Roma, Rio Grande City, McAllen and Harlingen, the landscape remained brown and barren. And, this was April. You couldn’t help but wonder how desolate the scenery would be in mid-July.

Traffic was fairly light, so we made good time.

Late in the afternoon, we arrived in Brownsville. Traffic started to heat up because of rush hour, so we decided to find a local watering hole and wait out the rush. We found a bar just off the main drag and ordered a round of Coronas from the bartender, who looked pissed that we interrupted her TV watching and phone conversations.

But the place had a pool table and a big screen TV, so we threw some money in the pool table and turned the TV volume up loud enough to drown out the soap opera the bartender was watching on a smaller set behind the counter.

By the way, Dave and I won the pool matches, defeating Denny and Eric, 2-1.

Once rush hour was past and traffic cleared, we headed east on Texas Highway 48 and caught Texas 100 to Port Isabel. At the tip of the mainland, we paused to look the three-mile long bridge that connects Port Isabel to South Padre Island. It was a massive sight, rising high in the air before settling in for a mile-long run to Padre.

The ride over the bridge was probably Dave’s favorite part of the trip. The view was awesome though the ride was pretty windy. Midway through the crossing, I offered up a helmet to the Gulf of Mexico. I had my Skid Lid tucked under my cargo net and, with all the bouncing and vibration, it had worked through the strings of the net. As we were crossing, I felt something fly off the passenger seat of my bike and turned just in time to see the helmet skip twice and bounce over the guardrail into the Gulf.

Oh well, a trip isn’t a trip unless you lose something along the way.

Once on the island, we found a motel room (since we were three weeks behind spring break, the rates were cheaper expected) and took turns cleaning the road grime. The room had a balcony with a great view of the ocean and was located just a block off the main drag.

Of course, everything in Padre is within a block of the main street, sort of a concentrated party zone when the students visit. The island has hotels, bars, restaurants, a grocery store, liquor stores, boat dealers and real estate offices.

We ate a fabulous meal at a restaurant called Blackbeard’s and visited the Coral Reef Club for a few beers after dinner.

My best memory of South Padre Island was the view from our hotel room balcony, where we sat, drank more beer and watched the waves wash up on the beach. I’ll return someday.