"How I Love The Mingling Charm of the... " a South Padre Island Travel Page by nomorewars

Minuscule grains of sand swirl in the air as we complete our tremulous cross over the Queen Isabella Causeway – the longest bridge in Texas – which stretches for almost 3 miles across the Laguna Madre. My eyes squint to examine the beach, peering with attention, evaluating. I touch my head, sifting the tip of my right index finger through the bulky strains of grey and black hair – which clings to my scalp in an intertwined web of deception – highlighted the need for a trim.

Driving past the first of many mocha–colored sand dunes, which stand guard like some sort of imperial guard of the Hapsburg Empire, I detect the thick, scalding aroma of freshly brewed coffee as it caresses – nay – massages the external channels of my nostrils, the passageway of one’s soul, causing them to become engorged, swollen, with a tickling sensation to the tip of my nose. In this moment, confined behind the steering wheel of my Honda Pilot, I am overwhelmed by bright visualizations of my mamma mia gelato-saturated past: my childhood was full of daytime excursions to Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts.

Wiping away a trickle of sweat, a bead of menacing grit, I’m fleetingly blinded by flickers of sunlight which declare, as masters of mayhem often do, a territorial conquest, a decree of vengeance, suitable to all who brazenly enter its domain. And just like the heavenly grey elephant of Africa’s dormant Maasailand, who thrashes his enormous trunk, back and forth, in a show of violent protest, I fling my right hand over my forehead, just slightly above the tip of my flat, frustrated eyebrows, and swat my perspiration away.

Searching for a source of motivation, some sort of thunderously fear – provoking theme song of terror, I am intercepted by the blaring decibels of a distorted Buell air horn – from which deployed the hideous sight of an enemy soldier. “License, registration, and proof of insurance – please.” He spoke, rather demandingly, completely minus a grin; devoid of compassion, it was clear to me he was a man with a purpose, a clear-cut objective. Ah! you rider of a storm: how deceitful you truly are! Masking your commands in the threads of a request! Huh!

“Do you know how fast – the speed, sir – you were traveling…” the demon attempted proclaim while adjusting his medallion of scorn, placed so cleverly upon the pocket of his left breast. “I see you’re traveling with – is this your family?” Oh! how clever you truly are –you harbinger of my bad moon rising.

After spending several minutes prodding into the deepest, darkest elements of my subtle plot, he crawled back towards his transporter of doom, edging awkwardly like a back-alley drunkard thrown from his mother’s grip, swinging his arms as though bumping to the rattle of some top-forty tune.

Upon his return, he issued me a warning: either slow down or face a consequence. He returned all the aforementioned documentation to me and then, in a sudden spurt of vigor, he departed from the scene.

Gripping the fabric of my seatbelt, recently stained by the filthy drool which descended from the lower corners of my tormentor’s mouth, I secured it across the ridges of my upper torso, like some sort of coat of armor, and proceeded on to contest my foe, knowing very well that I had just won the first battle of this war.