Day 6: Port Aransas

Wednesday

We’ve been eating fresh grapefruit every day. On Monday morning, Grandpa was giving us a tour of Port Aransas and he asked if we’d like to pick up some grapefruit. We gladly agreed, thinking he knew a place where there was a good market. He drove up to somebody’s house, and he hopped out and told us to stay in the car. We looked through a fence and saw that he was picking grapefruit from a tree in somebody’s yard! It was a friend of his, of course, so we didn’t have to worry about him getting caught. The grapefruit are very tasty! They have a milder flavor than those we get in the store – not as sour.

This morning was a bit windy, but not too much to try some tennis. After the three of us took turns hitting around, Dad and Joel played another set in the ongoing saga between the two tennis pro wannabes. This time Joel prevailed 6-4, taking advantage of the wind and the fact that his Dad is a day older than he was yesterday.

We went for a drive and planned to walk on the beach, but the wind was so strong that it was sandblasting our faces. So, instead we walked on the pier near the tennis courts and watched the pelicans glide along the waves. These are pretty big rollers that break in the shallow water where surfers try to catch them. The pelicans seem to be hunting, as they fly with their wings almost touching the water right along the crest of the wave. It appears that they are hoping to scoop up a fish that has been carried to the top of the wave, but we didn’t see any pelicans actually find a meal this way. I guess it’s also possible that this is just fun – a pelican’s form of surfing.

It was a lazy afternoon. The wind was too high for tennis or fishing, so we hung around the house. Mom sat in the sun on the protected side of the house and read a book. Dad took a nap in the easy chair and Joel did some reading and snoozing.

We invited Grandpa and Grandma over for taco salad, so that was our evening. After dinner, we played blackjack until about 8:30. Joel and Grandpa got into spirited discussions about blackjack strategy. Grandma put it well when she observed “now there’s two people who like to argue!”

The plan is to be up at 5:30 and on the road by 6:00am, so it was time to pack up, clean up the house, and get to bed early in preparation for a big travel day. It was a fast four days in Port Aransas!!!