Weekend Trip to Corpus Christi

There’s a lot to love about being a Texan. We have big hair, we BBQ on any given day, we own guns and our state is kicking the recession’s ass. But if it’s something that annoys me about our state…it’s how long it takes to get anywhere, especially leaving from McAllen, right on the border. Chris and I were looking to celebrate our one year anniversary this past weekend, since it would be the only “dating” anniversary we’d celebrate (woah, we’ll have a wedding anniversary next year). Yes, we just now celebrated this milestone, seeing as how, if you read our engagement story, I rejected the thought of being someone’s “girlfriend” 4 times.

With that said, knowing we were limited on funds and time we decided a Corpus Christi adventure would be a nice getaway from the norm. So off we went on Saturday morning, our first stop being the USS Lexington. The Lexington is really fun. I’m a history nerd and hadn’t been to the Lexington since I was a kid!

We spent pretty much all day out there, climbing up and down throughout the ship, reading up on the history and basking in the sheer awesomeness of walking the historic grounds on the water.

After all the touristing we really needed a break so we checked in to our hotel by the marina and relaxed before hitting the town, after all, it was St. Patrick’s Day!

Thanks to Yelp I decided sushi would be a refreshing meal. We walked over to Stereo Musicbar & Sushi Bar, just a few blocks from our hotel. Upon walking in I felt really uncool. The Helvetica donned minimalist red and white setup felt like hipster paradise, but the reviews were great and the music sounded good so we stayed.

It was pretty good! By far the best dish we had was the sweet chili sashimi, complete with goat cheese crumbles, an unexpected punch of flavor.

Sorry about the dark photos, it really was trendy dark in there. I had the JPop Roll, a smoky tasting crunchy roll. Chris had the flying sword roll, which ended up being fried, overall the JPop roll was better. We also decided to try the Ninja Noodles by Yelp user suggestions. We didn’t finish it but it was delicious, cool and refreshing. I think we both expected a hot noodle soup style dish but the hip noodles suited the theme of the restaurant.

After that we went in search of St. Patty’s Day fun, skipping the downtown festival (way too many drunk preppy folks) and ended up going to the Executive Surf Club, where the Rankin Twins, natives of the area, were playing a country show. It may have been the bass player’s ukulele bass (yeah no joke) that kept us there or the sweet harmonies from the twins that kept us front and center with our cold beers. The show was great! I was especially happy with their “Rockin’ Robin” cover!

The next morning, knowing we’d have to drive back to McAllen, so we decided to spend the rest of the day at the Texas State Aquarium. Kids running around with McAllen ISD’s iPads seemed not to be using them to study over spring break but rather taking photos of fish, otters and dolphins while taking breaks to play Temple Run and Angry Birds.

In search of an adventure we were probably the only couple there and the only folks not there with kids. Sigh. The depressing life of a couple.

The conclusion of our day was at the Dolphin Show where Chris and I stupidly (deliriously?) volunteered to participate in the show! Little did we know our dolphin sign language would result in us being drenched by a dolphin tale splash. Oh well, it was well worth it!