Padre Island, the longest barrier island in the world, embodies some of the state’s most pleasurable assets, entertaining Texans with miles of warm Gulf waves and sun-drenched, cinnamon shores. Whether your travel time to Padre is 10 minutes or 12 hours, most Texans have made the pilgrimage at least once, if not annually, negotiating the state’s highways for the quickest route to the island’s sand and surf. Here, along a seemingly infinite stretch of coastal environs from Corpus Christi to Port Isabel, worries drift away like flotsam before vanishing completely beyond the Gulf’s blue horizon.
But our coastline is also a paradox, the final destination for centuries of travelers who, due to storms or just p lain b ad luck, ended up washed ashore, their own precious assets lost beneath…
