Yup. Same here. We spent summers at Gulf Shores, Alabama. I was never more disappointed when I moved to Houston and finally went to Galveston.
We actuallly were not planning on swimming in the Gulf at Galveston, just parked on the beach and watched the freighters and tankers passing by.
The people in East Texas were great but the land was awful. Once we were going parking and I started to pull off the highway onto a dirt road. It was wet and she immediately sain, no! Too late, my wheels sunk down in black mud so sticky and glue like that it took weeks to get it off my shoes. As luck would have it, we had only been parked a few seconds when a pickup truck with three teenage boys came by. They slammed on brakes and hooked a chain to the car and pulled us out. Always liked Texans and even better after that.