An absolutely beautiful day in the Tropical Tip: sunny, some breeze, daytime high around 80º. This morning on the local news, the weather person said, "Looking ahead towards the Thanksgiving holiday, it looks like we will have some real autumn weather with a high of only 77º on Thanksgiving Day."
Yes, she really said that. I had to chuckle. The weather here has been mostly warmer and dryer than normal since we've been back.
After lunch on the island, we took a nice long walk on the beach. I had to gasp when I saw the price for park passes: they have more than tripled in price for a 90 day pass. Well, that's not exactly true - there is no more 90 day pass. That price for a 90 day pass used to be $18; now, it is $23 for a one month pass. The annual pass used to be $38; now, it is $58 (a 53% price increase). Once over the sticker shock, I felt bad for the young man at the gate - no doubt he is taking a LOT of heat from the winter Texans, and it's only going to get worse. He said, "Yeah, everything went up except my wage! People have been mad."
You can get to the beach at a bunch of different beach access points; we like to use the county park at the southern tip of the island; besides the great beach, they have good parking, restrooms, a view of the ship traffic that comes and goes through the Brownsville Ship Channel.
Price hike aside, the beach was spectacular. There is still some remnants of the red tide in the area - you can feel it in your throat as you walk the beach, but it wasn't bad.
You can see here how crowded it is this time of year...
Yep, we walked a couple miles and saw maybe a half dozen other people. The hotel and restaurant owners aren't thrilled with this, but it is very typical for this time of year. Many of the hotels along the main drag post their prices... the lowest we saw today was $21.99. That's unusually low. And it will change a lot in the next month or so.
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