Slow Sunday

Sunday, Feb 26…

Actually made it to church this morning – small, bilingual ward in Galveston. Closing speaker was very good. The rest of the day just sort of passed by. Greg finally got the new faucet to stop leaking, I finished up yesterday’s blog post, and we reviewed Victoria for a few hours while doing other mundane things. (Our TV reception has been spotty everywhere, so we’ve never seen any episode w/o numerous – and often lengthy – gaps.) The series is interesting (though I hoped it would cover much more of her actual reign), but royalty is really a rather boring class. Thank heavens for a little intrigue among the servants. Weather was overcast and windy (nothing new there), but I did wander through the campground a couple times, noting RV model names to add to my list (which is currently over 150). Days like this I remind myself that the purpose of this trip is to relax, not pack in every possible tourist attraction.

"Palm at Night"

BlogThoughts… I’m reading a good book – Breakfast at the Exit Café, by Wayne Grady & Merilyn Simonds (“one of Canada’s most engaging literary couples,” according to the book jacket). Each has published numerous books, but they write alternating chapters in this travelogue. The journey begins with a spontaneous decision to take the long way home from Vancouver (BC) to Ontario (city not specified). Like Greg & me, they begin by following the coast into California (but I think their trip takes only a month or so). It’s a delightful read - both entertaining and informative - especially since they’re viewing America as outsiders (and they admit early on that “hating Americans” is a favorite Canadian pastime). They took the trip in 2006, published the book in 2010. 

Galveston Highlights

Saturday, Feb 25…

This is the 2^nd Mardi Gras celebration weekend in Galveston. Three parades scheduled for today, and the city tour that I really wanted to take is cancelled this weekend. Greg worked on a plumbing problem all morning. We drove in to the city early afternoon, paid $20 to park (it’s Mardi Gras), and caught the 1pm showing of The Great Storm, a documentary of the hurricane that took out the city in 1900. I’ve seen a similar show on TV, but it means a lot more when you’re here. Both the devastation and the recovery were remarkable. Six thousand died, but the surviving citizens refused to move the city and decided to build a 17’ reinforced concrete seawall instead (and raise the elevation of the city itself – before the storm, Galveston’s highest point was only 9’ above sea level). The side of the wall facing the gulf is concave, so water hitting it rises and rolls back into the surf. 115 years later that seawall is still doing its job.

Under construction

TODAY (some sections now "enhanced")

Busy Harbor 

Pelicans checking today's menu.

(Greg looks real. 😃 )

After the movie we grabbed brunch (Greg had eggs benedict w/ crabcakes under the hollandaise instead of bacon) at the harborside Olympia Grill, then visited an offshore oil drilling museum.  My overall impression was that there are some VERY SMART people out there. I get the very basics (sort of), but how people understand how to build tools to extract oil 35,000’ below the ocean from a floating platform the size of 3 football fields is beyond me. (Physical science was never my forté.) Then again, we have scientists living in space – also beyond my ken.

Neptune's Consort?

As we left the oil drilling museum, one of the parades was getting started. Probably small potatoes compared to New Orleans (where we’ll be well after Mardi Gras), but still lots of fun. I came home wearing 20 necklaces.

Neptune & Trident

BlogThoughts… We parked very near this building (23 stories, but no longer tallest in the city). I love the simplicity, but I also love the fact that it sits on stilts, just like hundreds of homes along the coast and beyond the seawall. This building is near the back bay, also away from the seawall but still subject to storm surges. (Or maybe the design isn’t for practical purposes at all; maybe it’s just a nod to the traditional Galveston design.)

Regular homes along the beach.

One Moody Plaza

East to Galveston

Friday, Feb 24…

Leaving Corpus Christi - last
of a gazillion bridges

Long travel day. No issues. (Good.) No white flagger pants in Greg's race gear duffel. (Stop at Walmart.) No real lunch. (Apples, cheese, jerky, Tostitos, and a re-warmed McD’s burger consumed as we drove – you decide who ate what.) Diesel gas for $2.15/gallon. (Woohoo!)

Images: endless farm fields, lots of water (reminds me of South Carolina’s low country or Maryland’s Eastern Shore), lots of bridges, grass (no cactus), huge high schools in small towns, lots of small towns.

Funny stuff: a county fair poster promoting BELT SANDER RACES; the Salty Frog Café; Little Chocolate Bayou, Big Chocolate Bayou, & Chocolate Bayou (chocolate marshes?); Sand Crab Boulevard.

Lots of refineries - one complex we
passed stretched more than a mile.

Reminds me of the 520 bridge - drive
on one side while the other's being built.

92.5 HAPPY radio in Bay City

These HUGE (like football field), brightly colored
fabric buildings baffled me. Research indicates
 they might be a Legacy Bldg Solutions facility.

Clubhouse at sunset.

←First impression of Galveston: Loved it!  (I think it’s the first city we’ve entered without driving past miles of strip malls first.) We're also at a new (2 yrs) RV place - a bit pricey but very nice. Pool, hot tub, great pizza on Friday nights. Only downside: we're about 15 miles beyond the actual city.

  

City and Sand

Thursday, Feb 22…

Surf's up! (somewhere)

Short trip into town this morning. Visited the Texas Surf Museum. (Yeah, we know…. surf museum? Texas? Yup.) Funky little place. Most interesting thing I saw was a board that started out as several 2x4’s glued together. Weighs about 90 pounds – not too easy to maneuver, but apparently gave a good ride. A few blocks away we stopped at Centennial House – “built on a bluff* overlooking Corpus Christi Bay not quite 13 years after the fall of the Alamo, the two-story house has proven almost as enduring. It also is on the books as the first two-story structure in Corpus Christi and possibly the first house with a basement (and, excluding commercial structures, still one of only a few).” As I noted in one of yesterday’s picture captions, altitude here (Mustang Island) is pretty much sea level. Flooding must be commonplace.

*Can’t find a definitive elevation, but Greg guesses maybe 200’. Most of the city is pretty flat.

Centennial House
(open 4 hrs/week, but not today)

Downtown Corpus Christi,
viewed from Centennial House

BlogThoughts… 1. Perhaps my favorite moment of the day occurred while we were waiting for the Surf Museum to open. There are a couple restaurants near the museum, and 2 guys in work clothes walked briskly past us with net bags filled with oysters. Doesn’t get much fresher than that!   

2. Wind. Apparently it’s pretty much always windy here. Before supper I took a long walk on the beach with an ocean “breeze” of about 15-20mph. Slightly at my back on the way out, definitely in my face as I headed back. When I turned onto the paved road to camp, a carpet of rippling sand blew directly ahead of me until I was past the dunes.

Wind: flag fully furled, 2nd table to shelter grill

While I walked, Greg
rejuvenated the wheels.

To the Gulf

(Much better than all those deserts.)

Wednesday, Feb 22…

Wow… driving south today it was like our rig was a bride walking down the aisle between garlanded pews - beautiful spring green bursting out on both sides of the highway, and an occasional Texas Redbud adding a touch of bright color. Lovely.

Entering Corpus Christi - refineries and storage tanks.

Camping tonight on Mustang Island. After supper I wandered down to the beach and stepped into the Gulf of Mexico. Creek, river, ocean… I love the water.

Elevation... sea level.

Lazy Day

Tuesday, Feb 21…

Not the travel day we expected. Greg spent the entire morning securing sites for the next two weeks. (We’re in the south – New Orleans isn’t the only place they celebrate Mardi Gras!) Later he replaced some plumbing in our host’s MH, and that task bled into the time we had intended to see La La Land. I got some laundry done and (now) will get the blog caught up. All good. Tomorrow we head south to Corpus Christi and the Gulf Coast.

Texas Redbud

BlogThoughts... For the last week or so folks have been telling us that it's unofficially spring in the South. Here in San Antonio we've seen the first literal buds of spring. Our trolley driver pointed out some Texas Redbud, which is apparently the first bit of color to appear. I've also seen several trees covered in green buds. Soon there won't be any black tree "silhouettes" for me to photograph. 

Despite the cheap rate ($35), no one has slept at the
El Tejas for a long time. What we chuckled over
was the REFRIGERATED AIR amenity.