I just realized that that stinkin' red tide ruined my Indian summer. Technically Indian summer comes after the first frost on a warm weekend, but down here on SPI it generally means the slow fall season before the water gets too darn cold. That's generally the last week in October or the first week of November.
Oh, and wouldn't it be cool to ride an Indian "Chief" motorbike down the beach for a ways, like the dude in the picture? I don't even ride motor-scooters but that sure looked like fun, slow and easy.
And for Canada, that picture sure looks like SPI beaches, nice and flat and wide. Hey, is that a lifeguard station too? My, I think I have lifeguard station envy now!
But yeah, by the time the water dropped from 81 to 58 degrees in the fall, the beaches and a bunch of the lower bay was fouled with noxious red tide fumes, almost metallic tasting in your mouth. Remember? A bunch of dogs and a few people got ill from it. Thank God it is gone now, and hopefully we're good for another 4 years until Nature rebels against us again in such a gross and unpleasant manner.
Now today, we await for the much-ballyhooed Arctic Blast that the media has pimped so much. It ain't fair, but I moved by the sea and I knew about hurricanes and even red tide, spring breakers, and oil spills. From what I've read, "killer freezes" are not all that uncommon here on SPI or in the Valley, with a bad one in 1989 that resulted in a major fish kill in the lower Laguna Madre. The bad one before that was in 1983.
So on such a prospect, yeah, I am daydreaming about riding my Indian on my beach, like Lyle Lovett riding his pony on his boat.
If I had a boat (click for U-Tube)
6 comments:
Jeez, do I have to delete a perfectly fine blog posting because of an asshole like Kenneth? WTF?
Sammy, it snowed like Maine there around Xmas '04...And, what is that guy's problem? Perhaps communication?
I remember those two freezes in the 80's, Sam. I hope there will not be a reoccurrence because it was murder on the Valley's beautiful tropical vegetation, citrus and palms. The most devestating part was the death of so many mature palms. Because the area is so flat, the palms really define the landscape. The thing to watch for is the number of hours of subfreezing conditions. Notably, native Texas Sabal Palms were unaffected by those long hard freezes of the 80's.
AS of New Years there were still red tide sitings being reported up by Corpus. I sure hope this cold front knocks out the zombie red tide from hell of 2009.
I don't know much about red tide in Mexico, but I get the feeling like we always here reports of red tide starting near Corpus Christi and then ending there too. Coincidence?
It's kind of like you want to shout "STFU and die Mister Red Tide," so it won't come right back alive again to SPI.
I am very sure that's an ancient curse of some kind.
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