It's in there, somewhere...

A hazy sky kinda day in the Tropical Tip.  Not cloudy, but no blue skies.  It was windy, however.  This morning, one of the Valley weather weasels said the wind would be "10 to 35 miles per hour."  That's a pretty broad range.  If we still had a sailboat, that would be: from easy sailing to: maybe we better put in a reef or two, to: let's drop the sails and motor on home.  ;-)  Most places seem to forecast the high wind speed, or maybe the average... here, they just pick a broad range.

It was a bit humid, with the high temp around 79º.  Pretty pleasant.  After lunch, we did get the scoots out for a short ride (stopped at the Welcome Center to get new owner's stickers for them), then took the bicycles out for a ride around the resort.  I guess we are acclimating - the 86% humidity didn't seem oppressive... probably because it wasn't too hot.

If the weather weasels were to do the temperature like they do the wind speed, they could get by saying, "It will be somewhere between 50º and 100º today."

When we went to the local Italian restaurant for lunch, I expected it to be packed - there were no parking places left in front of the place.  Not sure where all those people from the parked cars were, but it wasn't in the restaurant.  The food was excellent, and we were able to get across the main drag, and to and from our island.

The predictions are for an increased Spring Break crowd.  I read one estimate of 250,000 people expected to be coming to South Padre Island during the month of March.  That would be a HUGE increase.  One tour operator reported being up 32% this year.  Cheap gas, continued cartel violence in Mexico (keeping some people away from their resort areas), and Panama City, Florida, banning alcohol from the beach - all reasons for people to come here.

Although we have been away from this area during March for the last 4 or 5 years, we know how to deal with the crowds: get out and about early, before the hung-over revelers get up.  Make sure you have enough groceries so you don't have to go out on the weekend either side of Texas Week (happening right now).

Not really that much of an issue on our island - while there are some families here for the week, it is still mostly us retired folks.  The rental pool on the island doesn't rent to spring breakers, but there are some who "come to visit Grandma and Grandpa."  ;-)