We are back from a quick, one-night trip to the coast with Irie and Tiki! We usually go to the beach for several days but this was an unusual circumstance. We needed to visit a nursing home about an hour’s drive from the coast. John is the guardian to his aunt and three elderly cousins in the home, so we went to visit–and the nursing home was gracious enough to allow Irie and Tiki to join in the visit as well. I think they really brightened several people’s day, and both loved the attention as well.
From the nursing home, it’s just an hour’s drive to Port Lavaca, a small town that’s on Lavaca Bay.
Port Lavaca is not a super popular vacation destination like Port Aransas, where we usually visit, but that meant that rates–even in the peak summer season–were much lower and the crowds were light, too. We checked in at La Quinta...
The hotel made a great home base for our mini-trip.
As soon as we were unpacked, we headed to Magnolia Beach, which is the only natural shell beach in Texas:
As you can see from the top photo, we had the beach all to ourselves!
From Magnolia Beach, we headed out to Indianola, known as a ghost town (although there are quite a few homes and summer cottages here). Twice destroyed by hurricanes, the community was once a major port city, the place where the German immigrants who settled popular destinations like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels first made landfall. It’s also where the camels who were brought in for Camp Verde’s “Camel Corps,” a military effort to use camels as pack animals, landed in 1856.
The camels weren’t the most famous arrivals on this beach, though; that honor goes to La Salle — René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle — who landed here on February 20, 1685, believing he was close to the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Not far from the statue, we soon arrived at the Indianola Fishing Marina, a dog-friendly, super casual outdoor restaurant and fishing pier:
Irie and Tiki enjoyed watching all the action from the anglers and the nearby boats while we enjoyed a shrimp dinner:
The next morning, we headed out beyond Indianola to the town of Port O’Connor, our first time to visit the community at the edge of Matagorda Bay:
They loved King Fisher Beach’s shallow water (although it did get deeper not too far from shore where we saw a dolphin!)
From Port O’Connor, we headed to the even smaller community of Seadrift:
The city was a great place to stop before the three-hour drive home:
In all, we were gone less than 36 hours, but we packed a lot into our little getaway!
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