- April 22, 2020
1989, Padre Island National Seashore, 7 miles beyond the 4-wheel drive only sign: Those of us who are privileged to be old enough to have seen the beach back before the turn of the century, know what it means to have to go, uhm “to the dunes” to take care of personal business, and have to walk the death march through the infernal sands. Texas is a hot place. Water temps enter the high 80s about the end of July and stay there through August. We don’t go to the beach a lot in August. It’s so hot the sea breeze turns into a blast furnace a hundred feet away from the water. The beach was generally about a hundred yards wide back in the day, of hot sand and blast furnace breezes to get to privacy behind the dunes. Barefootedness was not an option. Shoes and flip flops packed with hot sand. You would get to the dunes where the really deep soft sand was and bury your feet six inches deep to get down to the cool sand so that you could bear to take care of business.