Gravel...

Not talking about my voice.

An absolutely gorgeous day in the Tropical Tip; not unusual after a front blows through.  It is generally a bit cooler with low humidity and plenty of sunshine.

After breakfast and some "taking in the beautiful weather on the deck," we took the scoots out.  We have a pretty firm agenda: let's ride around, then stop at Padre Island Brewing Co for some cheese curds.  ;-)

Heading out...

Looking west down the Intracoastal Waterway from our bridge...

Yes, that water is looking lovely - a tough call between the scoots or a boat outing.  If we were looking to make it a short outing, we could get them both in.  Today, though, is about some riding.  To quote the philosopher John Kay (of Steppenwolf): Get yer motor runnin'; head out on the highway...

Formulating a plan while on the fly, we decided to stop at a parking area that is part of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, and then find some backroads...

We were the only ones there.  Yes, some hunting is allowed at certain times on the Refuge...

Doesn't sound very hospitable, does it?  Leaving there, and onto the aforementioned back roads...

Someone has a sense of humor: that sign above is for a 30mph speed limit, only slightly altered to read "80."  The road got narrower, and then...

Yeah, I really don't like riding on gravel.  Besides the large rocks and uneven spread of the gravel, it kicks up a lot of dust on the wheels and underpinnings of the scoots.

We eventually made it back onto blacktop - quite a few resacas in this area...

What's a resaca?  Thanks for asking... the resacas constitute former channels of the Rio Grande and are naturally cut off from the river, having no inlet or outlet.  In other words: they used to be a backwater of the Rio Grande; now they are more like what folks up north would call a stock dam.  Some of the resacas have pumps to keep water moving, so they don't get stagnant and are less likely to be mosquito breeding areas.  In this semi-arid area, it also makes for "waterfront property" on homes that aren't on the coast.  

Orange and grapefruit groves...

And quite a variety of homes, from upscale to... not so much.  We eventually made our way back to a highway and...

A curve!  Not enough of a curve to actually lean into it, though.

Back to the coast and across the causeway...

No clouds looking east (towards the Gulf), clouds looking west (over the mainland).  Photos below: heading towards SPI.

After the wind of the past couple days, the water is looking great.  We stopped for lunch at Padre Island Brewing, then road up the island, and back down, heading for home.  We got stopped at our bridge, open to let a boat pass through...

As part of Joan's valet service, I washed down the wheels on both scoots - they had a coating of dust from the gravel road.  Joan's first time on gravel with the Xmax; she said it handled it fine, but neither of us particularly enjoy riding on that stuff.

A lovely day to be out on the scoots in the Tropical Tip.  And, currently: the view from our deck...

Nice finish to the day.