Corpus Christi By Heart

You found it. Megan's still processing my rent 😂

If you came from my post you know the story. Left Austin three years ago with a U-Haul and a backup plan, everyone acting like I'd announced a move to the moon. Three years later the backup plan is dead, I can see water on my way to work, and my phone is full of notes I was tired of retyping into these groups every week.

This book is those three years, organized properly, whether you're down for a weekend, thinking hard about moving, or you've lived here all your life and want to see your own city the way I got to see it, fresh.

Here's the honest bit. Everyone knows the refineries and everyone's seen the seaweed headlines. Fine. Not the whole story, not even close. This is the version with the free ferry where dolphins ride alongside your car, the seawall designed by Mount Rushmore's sculptor, sixty miles of drivable, undeveloped barrier island that most visitors never take past mile five, and baby sea turtles sprinting for the Gulf at sunrise while a crowd whispers like it's church.

If you're visiting, this pays for itself before your first breakfast taco. Which stretch of beach for which kind of day, and how to check seaweed conditions like a local instead of canceling like a tourist. The turtle release mornings and how to catch one. Driving on the sand without becoming the truck three strangers have to pull out. The wind, explained, respected, and used to your advantage. Where locals actually eat, none of it on the tourist lists.

If you're doing Megan math at midnight, this is the honest version no realtor leads with. The real monthly numbers. Windstorm insurance as its own line item, sized before you fall in love with a house. What hurricane season actually looks like from inside a town that knows how to handle it. North Beach versus the Island versus Flour Bluff versus Portland, and who each one genuinely suits.

And the spot is in here. The one past where everyone turns around, over the dune line, miles of empty sand and nobody. Exact directions, and how to get there safely. I'm still not putting them anywhere public.