Sand, Surf and Seagulls

Quite a number of years ago, we spent a weekend visiting our Ging relatives, staying in their beach house just up the road from the beach in Matagorda. I remember playing in the surf, eating well, and discovering on the last day that I had been sharing my bed with a three-pronged fishing hook.

This past weekend, I traveled to Matagorda Beach to spend a long weekend in the current Ging beach house - a comfortable Rockwood RV. The last time there were a lot of boys involved. This time it was just us girls - myself, my aunt Linda and long time friend Marianna.

Matagorda Beach is one of Texas' few remaining primitive beaches, unspoiled by commercial development. Where the old beach house once sat is now an RV park run by the LCRA and we were sleeping just a few yards away from where I slept on that infamous fish hook so many years ago. This time I shared my bed with my two terriers, a much more comfortable experience.

The beach was covered in seaweed, but the water was beautiful and the sky was a brilliant blue.

We walked along the beach....

We admired Mother Nature's sand art along the jetty...

We listened to the pounding surf....

We enjoyed watching the seagulls busily exploring the seaweed,

looking for tasty tidbits...

...and floating in the sea breeze.

I never could get those pelicans to come close enough for me to get a good picture, but they were fun to watch flying by, playing Follow the Leader.

As before, we ate very well. We napped. We visited. We slapped mosquitoes that were almost as big as those pelicans. We visited an old cemetery and practiced grave dowsing. We explored downtown Matagorda and soared high above the Intercoastal waterway on the new bridge that replaced the old swing bridge we crossed on that previous trip. We watched a tugboat push a barge down the Intercoastal. We visited the Nature Center adjacent to the RV park. We walked down to the spot where the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

A lot has changed over the years. For one thing, those boys got really, really big and I got a lot older.

What hasn't changed is the calming effect of the waves and the sea breeze and the soothing chatter of the seagulls. I think I will hold onto that mental picture for awhile.

LSW