Wayside_Wisdom Heard Along the Way
In January, 2005, we spent a week at Malaquite Beach Campground located on the Padre Island National Seashore. The park owned by the United States Department of the Interior is located south of Corpus Christi, Texas, and is not connected to the more famous and highly commercialized South Padre Island. Padre Island National Seashore has a seventy-mile long undeveloped beach -- the longest undeveloped beach in the continental United States. While it is possible to camp on the sandy beach, the Malaquite Beach Campground is a blacktopped area which provides about 50 sites (no hookups) adjacent to a comfort station and unheated showers. Our time at Malaquite Beach Campground and the many hours spent walking on the beach provided the inspiration for a poem by Mary Sue entitled "The Open Road." At the time we were at Padre Island National Seashore in January, 2005, we were traveling in a 1991 Southwind motor home towing a Ford Escort.