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