Father's Day in South Texas

Father's day was wonderful. We invited the new Marino's, My son Lenny and his family, to dine with us at Ruth Chris steakhouse. The food was great and gifts were exchanged. I got a years membership in a Gym from My son and his wife, Brandi AND a really classy barbeque utensil set, complete with a giant cooking mitt, suitable for handling molten lava without burning yourself.

While Ruth Chris is a pricey place to have a steak, particularly with five people, a wonderful thing happened the next day. I got a call on my cell phone and had won their "gift basket". They had signs up around the restaurant that they were giving everyone who ate there on father's day, a chance at winning a raffle style gift basket as a special promotion for father's day. I thought it was a sales call when it came and almost hung up on the girl. I didn't even notice or know about the raffle.

The value of goodies was over $800 and included two bottles of expensive wine, a gift certificate for dinner at the restaurant up to $150, an expensive pen set, a ton of golf stuff, two wine glasses, a container of breath mints (was that a hint), and a wine cork remover. All in all a pretty lucky day.

We decided to also take a beach trip to South Padre Island, we've never been there before. We booked a two bedroom suite at the Radisson Beach Resort. The room was nice and the view was excellent. We decided to take this trip despite the fact that it had been pouring down rain for several days (that and the fact that the resort required a non refundable pre-payment) convinced me to go even though we were worried about a "cloud burn".
Lenny, brandi and little lenny were all tricked out with new gadgets - they'd recently been rewarded with some extra cash and, like myself, love electronics and gadgets They had an incredible new GPS navigation system mounted on their Jeep dashboard. Here it is arrriving in IFR (instrument flight rules) conditions in the rain at the Raddisson.
The balcony was two floors above the roof and provided a very nice view of the pools and beach in the distance. Lenny and Brandi are fairly expert in the beaches of texas and volunteered that there are only a FEW sharks in this area. Jellyfish were what to look out for. There was an aquarium that has a nature walk allowing you to visit the alligators roaming free near the power plant. Everyone was driving on the beach (further down on the undeveloped part of the island. Most people are unaware of the serious damage salt water can do if you drive in it - but then they'll find out soon enough. We opted NOT to drive on the beach, personally, but were treated to some great views of the Sand Dunes.I'm taking a photo of my grandson taking a photo of me.

South Padre island is an interesting anomaly. It has a beautiful beach, but the commercial build up is unlike what I'm accustomed to, having grown up in Miami and lived in Hawaii. It is kind of developed like you would find in a small town. Lots of inexpensive stores and restaurants catering to the unwashed masses. We decided to leave after the first night and the Marino's stayed on for another night and day. We had a large quantity of unfinished business in preparation for Rita's visit and our pool repair, so we needed to be here in time to get ready for that. Lenny called us the day after we left to announce that the sun was out and all was well - it happened ONLY after we'd left.

As we were leaving South Padre Island we came across a dramatic statue by the side of the road hyping some sort of commercial business. It was visually quite a site and appeared to be doing it's job. Everyone was stopping to look at it.