Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi: This town is always a place I wanted to visit. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like a city on the coast of Texas, right on the Gulf of Mexico, with an intracoastal waterway, protected by islands that were mostly National Seashores, would be a beautiful and unspoiled paradise.

Not really.

My Mom was the first person to tell me that this was not so. I was undaunted, and decided to make the trek anyway. After all, Corpus Christi was only 150 miles from San Antonio, and Mom had been wrong before... Maybe I should have listened.

As you first get a glimpse of Corpus your thoughts turn to the Wizard of Oz, and the Emerald City. But, the closer you get those fond memories fade as you realize that these spires are on fire as they burn off the excess fumes from the refineries that they really are. And, you realize you are not in Kansas anymore.

This city was built from Oil money, and there are more refineries on the horizon than anywhere I have been before. Refineries consume a lot of energy, so they are accompanied by many power lines and huge electrical grids. Since the refineries (probably) came before most of the infrastructure, everything else appears to have grown up around them; and it's not as attractive as it might be.

We spent a day and drove out to the Gulf, and Padre Island. Here the sand goes on forever! The beach is very much like Ocean Shores: no trees and a small hill of dunes just inland. But, the Texans do not take care of their beaches very well and they are littered with garbage, plastic, and glass. Many people warned us not to walk on the beaches without shoes. This kind of spoiled the beach for us. Also, it is very shallow in this part of the gulf so the water "appears" murky (although I think it is just the brown sand below a few feet of water). Nevertheless, no one was swimming.

Real estate here is cheap! You can buy a 3 bedroom, 2-bath home, on the water with a dock for your boat, for $250,000. After much head scratching, we determined that it is so cheap because there are not enough people who want to live here (although I think Corpus has a population of about 300-400,000 people). Simple economics. New homes that were quite nice (wood floors, granite counters, 2-car garages, stucco, etc.) were selling for under $100 per foot. Perhaps it is the humidity which makes it quite uncomfortable; and the fact that this area is subject to hurricanes?

Before we left Corpus we toured the USS Lexington:

She was a WWII era Aircraft carrier converted into a floating museum. The entire tour was self guided and you had the ability to see most of the ship on your own. Of coarse the kids figured this out very quickly and we adults spent most of the time hunting them down. But it was pretty cool!

From here we are headed towards Houston and specifically, the Galveston area.

Unfortunately, I do not think Corpus is worthy of another visit in my lifetime.

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The Paton's