ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997 TAG: 9704180041
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CORPUS CHRISTI
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY THE ROANOKE TIMES
The fog was so thick one morning that I couldn't see the railing on the balcony of my seventh-floor hotel room unless I stepped outside the sliding glass door. The white soup didn't lift until midday, but it wasn't cold even though it was the end of January.
Typical Texas weather, the locals said.
On all other days of the week I spent in this part of the state, the views from the balcony were breathtaking, seamless from room to forever into the Gulf of Mexico. What a decadent feeling it was to lie in bed and watch the sun rise or set, either way whipping the ripples of the water into sparkles.
There goes a fishing boat. Here comes a sailboat.
And permanently anchored along the two-mile seawall that fronts Corpus Christi Beach is the USS Lexington, the Navy's longest-service ship. Next to it is the Texas State Aquarium.
Stairs lead from the seawall to the water. Literature says the seawall's builder, Gutzon Borglum, who was the sculptor of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, wanted to blend the cityscape into the ocean.
Just a few blocks inland from this city that has a population just above that of the Roanoke Valley, the land gives no evidence that it's near the ocean.
By night, Corpus Christi appears ringed by fire because of the oil
refineries that are laced along the coast. And by day, the drive from the
city to Port Aransas is a wasteland of flat fields broken only by the ubiquitous strip shopping center.
But once across the free ferry - on what seems to be the world's shortest ferry ride - life becomes more leisurely. Fishing and pleasure boats clutter the shoreline as do lively
dock-front eateries and neat cottages.
Port Aransas is between Corpus Christi Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, so visitors can fish either.
The other way to get to Aransas from the city is through the National Seashore and Mustang Island. Yes, along the way there is a stable complete with rental mustangs for beach riding.
On the last day of January, the weather felt like the Outer Banks of North Carolina in May. But residents warned that it had recently been much colder and that Gulf weather can be fickle.
At the Trout Street Bar & Grill, business was brisk at midday with diners enjoying homemade gumbo and a variety of seafood or pulled up to a magnificent Texas-sized wooden bar sipping and watching television.
About two blocks away, the couple who run the Island Pepper Shack were gloved to skin habaneros, this being the home of The Happy Habanero hot pepper jelly.
Port Aransas gently segued into a stretch of beach that more than promised good fishing given the four-wheelers and camping trailers lining the shore. The inhabitants of the vehicles were catching trout, flounder, black drum and redfish on shore and snapper and trigger fish offshore.
It's satisfying enough, though, to just walk the beach, feeling sand that is so powdery it packs like makeup under your feet or the wheels of a vehicle. The Gulf sand is much kinder to walking or driving than the coarser type Atlantic Coast vacationers know best.
I never thought of Texas as a beach state until I visited Houston a few
years ago and took a side trip to Galveston. I had been drawn to that city because of some romance associated with the song, "Galveston," sung by Glen Campbell, and by fascination with the pirate, Jean Lafitte.
Lafitte and his gang ran Galveston when it was Campeachy.
Galveston also has a split personality. It's a beach community with Victorian houses worth touring. It also is the site for outdoor musicals from June through late August.
In the strip of Texas that swings from Galveston to the Mexico line, you can go from ocean to some place like King Ranch's 825,000-acre spread and enjoy both in the same day. That's part of the appeal, especially for a traveler from as far away as Virginia who needs a promise of variety to make the trip worthwhile.
And there's plenty of diversity of things to see and do. You can stay on the gulf and go inland for action.
Inland from Corpus Christi is San Antonio, with its old Alamo and its new Riverwalk shopping mall. It's an easy drive even if it is through miles of often monotonous scenery broken just often enough by sights such as a skyscraper-high horseshoe proclaiming the entrance into a ranch.
To keep you company, you can tune into a radio station that plays Spanish music announced in English. This language duality has resulted from the bilingual, multicultural atmosphere of the area.
San Antonio turned out to be a special treat for a visitor from the Roanoke Valley because it was an opportunity to compare the Menger Hotel to one of its contemporaries, Hotel Roanoke. The Menger brought the same sophistication to a trail town that the now Doubletree Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center brought to a railroad community.
The Menger also has been restored, but its appeal relies more on the way it was than on a new conference-center connection. A picture of baseball great Babe Ruth, taken in 1930, hangs on the wall along with one of sculptor Borglum and his son, Lincoln, reviewing plans for Mount Rushmore in 1928.
Borglum had his studio at the hotel for many years. Southern general Robert E. Lee also had at least one visit to the Menger; a note on display in a lobby populated with antiques points out that he rode his horse into the lobby.
A centerpiece of the hotel is its restaurant that affords courtyard dining in a movie-set-like atmosphere. Cowboy hats meet Spanish tiles.
In addition to a rich past, San Antonio boasts a forward-thinking downtown design, The Riverwalk. This 2.5-mile stretch along a redirected and tamed river has a gigantic shopping center as its nucleus. Tour boats, not buses, are the mode of travel.
Just as San Antonio is the inland focus from Corpus, Houston is the
twin to Galveston Beach. Although Houston is a major seaport, it's 50 miles inland, so it's not a beach place. However, it is home to the NASA Space Center Houston where you can take one of those silly pictures that make it appear you are floating weightless in a space ship.
For more information on the Corpus Christi-Galveston areas, try these
sources: 1-800-792-1112 for fishing notes; 1-800-351-4237 for Galveston Convention and Tourist Bureau; 1-800-678-6232 for Corpus Christi visitors information; and 1-800-572-2626 for San Antonio.
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: SANDRA BROWN KELLY. 1. A fishing boat glides home as theby CNBsun sets over Corpus Christi Bay (left). 2. Sea birds have the beach
to themselves in Mustang Island State Park near Port Aransas
(below). 3. Texas sights: An artsy bus (above, left) parked at the
fishing village of Port Aransas. 4. a memorial (above) to the heroes
of the Alamo in San Antonio. 5. the USS Lexington (left) anchored at
Corpus Christi Beach. color.