Our greatest vacations when my kids were little were at South Padre Island, which we visited twice.
The last time we visited South Padre I decided to write a unit study for our homeschool.
How about introducing a museum experience with a hands-on experience?
South Padre our First Stop
Our new experience began with a few sunny days beachside at South Padre Island.
Corpus Christi our Second Stop
Heading back to San Antonio through the King Ranch, we detoured to the Corpus Christi Bay.
Abounding with jetties for walking into the bay and boats docked at the T-Head and L-Head that jut out into the bay, the bay provided new adventures.
USS Lexington
For our first stop we walked up to the USS Lexington. Although my son had fallen asleep in the car en route to Corpus, he soon awoke. Time was short that day, so we didn’t tour the Lexington, yet. However we definitely took in the massive size of the aircraft carrier that fought in WWII.
Originally named USS Cabot, the aircraft carrier underwent construction in Massachusetts to aid America’s efforts to secure freedom in WWII.
As building of the Cabot reached completion, news arrived that the USS Lexington had sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942.
Renamed the USS Lexington, the carrier participated in nearly every battle in the Atlantic during WWII:
“Her planes destroyed 372 enemy aircraft in the air, and 475 more on the ground. She sank or destroyed 300,000 tons of enemy cargo and damaged an additional 600,000 tons. The ship’s guns shot down 15 planes and assisted in downing five more.” –site to tour the USS Lexington
Although the Japanese claimed to have sunk the Lexington, she returned. After this happened four different times, Tokyo Rose dubbed the ship: the Blue Ghost.
My old childhood memory of exploring beach shops with perfectly formed sea shell varieties proved fascinating to the kids.
Columbus Ships
After a picnic lunch by the bay, we visited the local museum where my kids got to interact with the dry-docked Columbus ships: the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Originally built by Spain for the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ 1492 voyage to the New World, the famous ships toured Atlantic ports in the Mediterranean, Europe, and America in the early 1990s before arriving in their new home of Corpus Christi, Texas.
Whataburger Flagship Store on the Bay for Lunch
That evening we enjoyed a traditional Texan Whataburger meal on top of the flagship store on Shoreline Drive, which offers an incredible view of the marina.
I was raised on Whataburger, a chain with the largest burgers around, which was founded in 1950 in Corpus Christi. The headquarters have since moved to San Antonio.
Dubbed Whataburger by the Bay, it’s the largest of all their stores, at 6000 sq. feet. Interior windows take up entire walls from floor to ceiling presenting bay views. There is even outdoor seating on top of the restaurant, which is where we ate on the gorgeously sunny day!
Whataburger History
Inside the restaurant there is also a statue of the founder, Harmon Dobson, who with Paul Burton, “were looking to open a hamburger restaurant. Dobson’s goal was to: make a better burger that took two hands to hold and tasted so good that when you took a bite you would say ‘What a burger!’“
Back then burgers sold for only 25 cents!
One of the few places open late when I was growing up, Whataburger was much appreciated when I was in high school.
After we played an evening basketball game in Corpus Christi btw, our bus pulled into a Whataburger (not the flagship store) late that night.
Piling in to the wonderful aroma of the store, we each quickly obtained our bags of burgers and fries to eat on the bus on the way home to San Antonio.
Great View of the Bay and Boats
This is the prettiest fast food place I’ve ever eaten at!
From where we sat we saw the Nina docked in the bay, bobbing in the wake from boats coming and going from the T-Heads. It had been a stunning day with the water sparkling like diamonds, like it had been all week.
Although we had tickets to visit the Nina, we had run out of time that day, so that was first on our list the next morning.
We checked into our bayside hotel, which was pretty cool, because we could still see the aircraft carrier from the hotel.
Hurricane Bret en route
But that night when we watched the news at the hotel, we learned that Hurricane Bret, a category 4 hurricane, was bearing down on Corpus Christi.
The next morning we canceled our tour of the Nina to drove straight for my parents’ house in San Antonio. We wanted to beat the evacuation traffic, which we accomplished.
That night Hurricane Bret landed on the Texas shore between Corpus and South Padre Island, pretty much where the massive King Ranch is located.
My kids commented more on that hurricane in future years than anything else on that trip!
