Our home for the next 2 months is Mustang Island in Port Aransas, TX. Mustang Island is a barrier island on the gulf coast of Texas close to the more well known Padre Island. This is a really beautiful area. We are staying in a campground that just over the dunes from the beach. A short walk on a boardwalk gets us to the water.
The view from our camper window. Sunrise over the dunes.
Padre National Seashore
Padre National Seashore is nearby. We took the jeep there today. The park has 62 miles of beach only accessible via 4-wheel drive vehicles. We went 30 miles!
When we first started planning this trip we spent some time deciding where to spend Christmas. Our first thought was Disney World but even though it was almost a year ago we could not get reservations at Disney’s campground, Fort Wilderness. The alternate plan was to celebrate Christmas in Myrtle Beach. A week before Christmas, Bill had the idea to try once more to get reservations at Disney. By some miracle they had an open site and we changed our plans. We celebrated Christmas with Mickey and the gang.
Our first stop was in Myrtle Beach for the month of December. We have been to Myrtle Beach many times now and always enjoy it.
Brookgreen Gardens
One of our favorite attractions near Myrtle Beach is Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet. It is an sculpture garden and zoo on beautiful property in the South Carolina lowlands that once was several rice plantations. The sculpture gardens are over 500 acres. It is open to the public all year but during the Christmas season they string lights on all the trees for a beautiful display.
The Beach
We stayed at Myrtle Beach Travel Park (a campground we have enjoyed on previous trips). It’s right on the beach. Several months ago Hurricane Matthew washed over and damaged many of the dunes on the South Carolina coast.
Newly built steps over restored dunes leading from beach to our campground.
Looking South toward Apache Pier
Sunrise
Enjoying 🙂
Our campsite decorated for Christmas
We found this guy on the beach. You can have a snowman even if there is no snow.
Ripley’s Aquarium
On a day when the weather kept us away from the beach we went to the Ripley’s Aquarium. It’s small but interesting. This year they displayed Christmas trees all around the building, one for each state.
