Yesterday Terry wanted to drive down to the coast. He was intrigued by the towns of Freeport and Surfside, so we left around mid-morning. It was chilly outside, but the sun was bright. It was about 45 miles down there and we crossed a couple bridges and the intercoastal waterway. It wasn't long before we could see the Gulf and spotted a few oil rigs out in the distance. Surfside and Surfside Beach were hit with Hurricane Ike and many of the cabins were destroyed. We could not get onto the beach at the main access because they are moving a lot of sand around rebuilding the beach. That was really the only construction of any type that we saw. The grasses still looked dead from the seawater that would have covered it during and after the Hurricane. There were obviously some cabins that were uninhabitable, but the area looked like it had been cleaned up based on other “post hurricane” areas we have seen.

There was an inlet with access to the intercoastal and there were jettys on both sides. We parked in the parking lot and walked out to the end. It was chilly and there was some wind, but we made it out to the end. We estimated the walk at close to a half mile. It was a loooooong jetty. There were people fishing along the way and we saw one man bring in a sheephead. I scanned the waters to see if there were any dolphins in the area and I did spot one. He was close to the other side, but I saw him several times. We could see some RV's on the other side in what appeared to be a park, but we weren't sure how to get there.

Surfside is NOT a tourist trap. There is no McDonald's, Hooters, or Krogers in the area. It is rather unspoiled that way. It looks like a community of rentals waiting on tenants who come just to enjoy the peace and solitude of unspoiled sunrises and sunsets. There were no high rises, a couple restaurants recently reopened and very few people. We stopped for lunch at “Kitty's Purple Cow” which was painted. . . you guessed it. . . PURPLE! It was just a short order place, but the food was adequate and we enjoyed the atmosphere.

After lunch, we drove back across the bridge and took another turn. Terry was looking for the Quintana Park and we did eventually find it. It actually is the park we saw from across the jetty! It is a very nice RV park with full hookups. At $27 a day, it is more than we like to spend, but it has nice showers, nice level sites, many of them pull-throughs, and a very nice beach area. We thought if we get antsy and want a break during Terry's treatment, we might come down here for a weekend once the weather warms up a bit.

We were on our way back up toward Houston when we heard a lot of noise. A jacked-up truck was passing us and we thought it was his muffler set up, etc. Ho ho. Not so. It was our rear driver's side tire. The sidewall had blown out. It was super strange because we had not heard a pop or feel anything. . . just what we thought was road noise. Terry immediately pulled over and the tire was smoking by that time. Ugh. We have road service, but figured we could have it changed by the time they got to us, so we dug out the jack and changed it ourselves. The spare is quite old and probably never been used, so we plugged in the nearest Walmart supercenter into our GPS and we were off. It was only four miles down the road and we didn't have to wait long. They had our tires in stock and put a new one on and remounted our spare up underneath. It is the first time we have had to change a tire on the Sport Trac. We do have the Pressure Pro's on the Sport Trac and we may have saved the tire if we had known what was happening, but we don't keep the monitor in the truck. I think we will from now on.

Till next time. . .

Dale