Erica Irlbeck, Ed.D.: Corpus Christi

Downtown beach in
Corpus Christi

I love water. I’m sort of obsessed with it. I love oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, heck, I’ll even stare at a mud puddle for a good 10 minutes. I don’t know why I’m so captivated by water. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a land-locked state, and the only water I regularly saw was Eagle Chief Creek, the Great Salt Plains Lake, and yes, the occasional mud puddle.

So when I learned that the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists research conference was in Corpus Christi, I was excited to see the sea. Corpus Christi, in my opinion, is not a very pretty city. It has some nice things to do, and the Omni Hotel where we stayed was very nice. And we had a balcony that allowed me to see Corpus Christi Bay.

Yes, I am wearing a pink t-shirt,
a red sweatshirt, and black running
shorts with white legs. Don't judge

It was so nice to take a walk on the sea wall and look at the water and all the boats. So you can imagine my giddiness when I learned that part of our program included a three hour tour (a three hour tour) aboard the Texas Floating Classroom (it wasn’t really a three hour tour, but I couldn’t resist the Gilligan reference).

Usually, the boat hosts school-age kids, but on this day, it was a pack of professors. We got to see the microscopic creatures floating around in the seawater, and even got to hold a baby jelly fish.

We got to see a shrimp net in action. It caught all sorts of sea creatures—stingrays, squid, shrimp, puffer fish, and several other little fishies. We got to play with all of them. I had so much fun and learned so much on that little cruise.