Touch the Stars

June 4, 2013

Welp, my car died. What luck, huh? Mom was still home and graciously cancelled her first client to help me get the Barbie Mobile charged up to go, but this was not a good sign for the rest of my trip. She recommended I stop by the car shop before I head out of town in case I had a bad battery, and what do you know, turns out I did! While I was temporarily bumming on the fact that I just couldn’t seem to get out of this town, Mom pointed out to me that God is good. If my car hadn’t died this morning, I would have set out on this trip with a battery that wouldn’t hold up. She said to me, “You know, God always takes care of us. He doesn’t necessarily make it easy, but he always takes care.” Words of wisdom. After a quick battery change, I was finally on my way. Destination numero uno, here I come.

9 hours later, I arrived in South Padre Island. Ah, to smell the salty ocean air. A few nights prior to my send off, I sent a couch surfing request to a few people here and a guy named John responded back. He said he was in the process of moving and had absolutely nothing in his house, but if I wanted to sleep on the floor I was welcome to come. Good enough for me!

John is 27 years old and in the Coast Guard. Some people may find it strange or crazy to stay with a complete stranger, but it doesn't bother me. Even John himself said he was skeptical of me actually following through, seeing that I am a young girl, who was traveling alone, and supposed to stay with a random guy in a town where I knew nobody. But John turned out to be an awesome dude.

Since I was there to take photos, we went to dinner at Louie’s right on the bay. Apparently, Tuesday nights are Hawaiian Luau nights at Louie’s Restaurant. Even though John lives in Padre, he had no idea this would be going on since the connected burger bar was where he frequented rather than the actual restaurant portion of Louie’s. The atmosphere was a lot of fun, and the sunset, absolutely breath taking. The food was to die for, but had a price to match. I figured I could swing the cost for just one night in celebration of my first night on the trip, but knew I couldn’t be spending anywhere near that much money on days and nights to come. After we finished eating we decided to feed the fish our left over bread. After all, wouldn’t want to be wasteful, right?  John told me the fish were mullet and literally at least a hundred of them swarmed every time we threw a piece of bread over the rail. The waiter approached us probably five times while we were feeding the fish to ask if we needed anything else. (Think he was trying to hint at something?)

Paddle boarders at sunset- SPI, TX

 

After dinner John drove us down on the private beach, and oh my goodness, it was beautiful. Even though it was dark, I insisted on getting my toes in the water. The stars shone so bright they appeared to be close enough to reach out and touch. I was in heaven.

Day 1- definite success.