Our first trip to a Texas beach was south to see rocket ships at SpaceX in 2020 during the pandemic.  It was a nice drive and being a from Hawaii missed seeing the sunset into the horizon and walking on the beach.  The beaches are different in that people can walk far off the shore to fish, but the sunsets are just as beautiful.

We saw Starship SN8 being worked on from the street and watched launch on TV where it did the flip maneuver landing in December.

We stayed at South Padre Island and drove about 40 minutes to Brownsville to look for rockets.  Was surprised how close we got and how massive the rockets are.  SpaceX - Cameron County (cameroncountytx.gov) is a good site to check for road closures during rocket launches.

A lot of launches have happened since our last visit and need to plan another one soon.