South Padre Island, Texas

We arrived at our southern most destination in Texas to view the launch of SpaceX Starship 31 and Booster 13 at the Boca Chica flight facilities. Our home for the next three days is Isla Blanca Park located at 33174 State Park Road 100, South Padre Island, TX. If you ever want to see a live Starship launch this is the place to do it. We are only 5 miles north of the launch pad across the Port of Brownville's main shipping channel. From the shipping channel we have an unobstructed view of the massive rocket that is stacked on the launchpad and scheduled to liftoff at around 4 PM on Tuesday afternoon, November 19.

The park is managed by Cameron County and is very well maintained; all the services work well, the landscaping is kept up; there are a wide verity of sites - full pads to all grass sites; direct beach access; and security is very present. Our site was booked online before we arrived for the first time, so we didn't have the advantage of knowing what sites to request. We're on a large concrete pad (parking lot style) for the next three days.

When we arrived on Sunday afternoon around 2 PM the wind was blowing in the neighborhood of 20-25 mph. We set up and walked around the 600+ site park. This place is huge and a definite do over. Next time we come here we'll get one of the larger grass site closer to the water by the shipping channel.

There are several good places recommended to get fresh seafood. Some less formal than full service restaurants which are overpriced. We selected Los Tortugos in Port Isabel just over the bridge for dinner on Sunday night and weren't disappointed. It was an amazing meal that included a Ceviche appetizer. Ceviche is generally made from raw fresh fish or shrimp, that’s marinated in lemon and/or lime citrus juices. The acidity in the citrus cures the fish causing it to denature the proteins and become firm and opaque while absorbing flavor. We ordered two Sangria drinks and began our culinary experience. We shared an entree that included a small serving of fish broth. The main course was five jumbo shrimp cooked in butter with garlic, onions and green peppers along with fresh caught fried Gulf Calamari hoods! We had two sides of house salad and coleslaw and finished with an enormous slice of flan chocolate cake. The bill came to $45 for everything...amazing food and service at a incredible price.

The wind blew all night long but the air conditioners created white noise to help us sleep. Some wind gusts actually woke us up when the RV rocked sideways. Monday's winds are predicted to calm down by the later afternoon and, Tuesday, launch day should be even better. This "steely eyed missle man" is getting excited for Tuesday afternoon and I can't wait to see the "largest ever" rocket take off in about 26 hours from now!