 MONDAY |
TRAVEL DAY |
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Today we are headed back to the seashore, but not just any seashore. This is one of our country's ten National Seashores, Padre Island National Seashore, to be more precise. This National Seashore has the longest stretch (70 miles) of undeveloped barrier island in the world. It's the ninth National Seashore we have visited, the tenth and final one is in California, so that one will just have to wait a bit before we come to visit.
We are going to be spending two weeks here in the park (the maximum allowed) and camping without water and electric the whole time. Now you know why we had the solar installed when we did! There a five places to camp within the park. One is off-road 4x4 access only (not for us), but the other four could possibly be worth a visit.
Of the other four, two involve free camping on the beach, literally on the sand, we'll see about those two. The others are campground like in the fact there are defined camping spaces with numbers, but they don't really amount to much more than a parking lot.
We chose to arrive first at Bird Island Basin Campground ($8 per night/$4 with senior pass) which is located right on the shoreline of the Laguna Madre, another name for the Intracoastal Gulf Waterway here in southern Texas.
Four dollars a night gives us access to 2 very clean vault toilets and 2 trash dumpsters. Also included is a free waste water dump station and fresh water fill located just 4.5 miles down the main road of the park.
Oh yeah, we also get to place the back bumper of THE POD just ten feet away from, and safely four feet above, the Laguna Madre shoreline. It also comes with outstanding sunset views and plenty of amateur windsurfers to keep us entertained.
It kind of reminds me of the beginning of our trip, back in the Florida Keys, at Bahia Honda and Curry Hammock State Parks, except there we were paying $38.50 per night.
With not much going on to talk about, let's talk about hamburgers! Whaaaat you say! Yeah hamburgers, specifically cheeseburgers. Since going on the road 19 months ago we have eaten cheeseburgers in many different burger joints. Here is a list (in alphabetical order) of the Top 15 Hamburger Chains in America. Can you guess which is the only one we haven't tried yet?
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I consider only 3 of the 15 to be restaurants, where a person takes your food order while you're seated at a table! The rest are Fast Food places, do you know which 3 are the restaurants? • • • PLEASE USE THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW TO SHARE YOUR ANSWERS! • • • |
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Carl's Jr. & Hardee's 5812 locations |
Founded in 1941 Los Angeles, CA |
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Checkers and Rally's 900 locations |
Founded in 1985 Mobile, AL |
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Culver's 740 locations |
Founded in 1984 Sauk City, WI |
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Five Guys 1500 locations |
Founded in 1986 Arlington, VA |
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Fuddruckers 156 locations |
Founded in 1979 Houston, TX |
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In-N-Out Burger 347 locations |
Founded in 1948 Baldwin Park, CA |
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Johnny Rockets 310 locations |
Founded in 1986 Los Angeles, CA |
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McDonald's 37,855 locations |
Founded in 1940 San Bernadino, CA |
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Red Robin 562 locations |
Founded in 1969 Seattle, WA |
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Shake Shack 168 locations |
Founded in 2004 New York City, NY |
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Sonic Drive-In 3585 locations |
Founded in 1953 Shawnee, OK |
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Steak 'n Shake | Founded in 1934 Normal, IL |
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Wendy's 6711 locations |
Founded in 1969 Columbus, OH |
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Whataburger 824 locations |
Founded in 1950 Corpis Christi, TX |
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White Castle 377 locations |
Founded in 1921 Wichita, KS |
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How many of these burger joints have you tried? Which is your favorite?
• • • PLEASE USE THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW TO SHARE YOUR STORY! • • • |
After my breakfast, while Tricia was doing her uploading using Starbuck's blazing fast free wifi, I went in search of gasoline. Valero seems to be the dominant gas station chain around Corpus Christi. I thought the Irving, TX (just outside of Dallas) based Exxon/Mobil chain would dominate here, but it's not.
I was just about to give up when the fifth station turned out to be the charm. I always use our Duck's Unlimited VISA card to purchase our gasoline because we receive a 5% rebate on all purchases. At $2 a gallon, that's a ten cent discount! Compare that to the 5-8 cent cash discounts offered at most stations.
At my fifth Valero Station of the day I purchased gasoline for $1.91 a gallon, beating our old record of $1.96 a gallon back in Ocala, FL last winter. For the first time in a long time our average gas price we've paid on this trip dipped below the $2.50 a gallon mark.
Snapshot taken from our STATS page
After my gasoline search was over I made a quick trip to Home Depot for a few project items. Next door was a Target where I picked up our favorite cheese flavored snack crackers and I was back at Starbuck's with time to spare.
Now for our Valentine Special Treat! We finished off our Top 15 Hamburger Joints list with a visit to Fuddrucker's for a juicy cheeseburger, sweet potato fries and onion rings. It was good, probably not our favorite, but still very good.
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
About an hour later, after driving 4.5 miles down the beach and back again, the whole kite flying thing had gotten out of control. They were everywhere! I had to go get Tricia and her good camera so she could see this first hand. We got back to the Visitor Center's beach and took all these photos to share with you guys. Enjoy!
10th Annual Kite Fly
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Until next time
