Day 27 - Saturday, Sept 29 - South Padre, TX to Galveston, TX
Starting mileage: 6392 Starting time: 9:30 am
Ending mileage: 6799 Ending time: 5:00 pm
Travel mileage: 379 Travel time: 7:30 hours
It is pitch dark when I got up at 6am. Hot and sticky already.
I went swimming just as a storm was coming in, bobbing in the crashing waves. There were black clouds to the south-east that soon came in blocking the sun.
Fortunately, we were able to get the car loaded just before it started to rain seriously. It rained fairly hard for about half an hour which was good as it cleaned all the butterfly remains off our windshield and the front of the car.
It is absolutely flat here, similar to south Florida. The vegetation is mostly mesquite, grassland and prickly pear cactus. There appear to be huge cattle ranches - we see the entrance to the ranch and a driveway that disappears into the distance. We saw hundreds of snowy egrets, often among or on the cattle. There are large cotton fields and huge bales of white cotton sitting in the fields. It appears to have rained heavily lately. There are also large rice fields and one of the towns we went through had a banner announcing the rice festival.
We don't usually eat at fast food restaurants but decided we should try Whataburger. This is a regional chain that was started in Corpus Cristi in the 1950s and features A-frame buildings as their signature. The burgers that we had were good and I had a delicious salted caramel shake.
We could see signs of last year's hurricane with blue tarps still covering the roofs of some houses and new roofs on others.
We decided to take the more scenic route to Galveston that goes up the length of Galveston island. It is very low and all of the houses and buildings are on stilts that raise them 8-10' off the ground - it looks very strange. There were many signs advertising lots for sale so it must still be a popular place to build despite the storm threat. The new houses under construction had lots of metal strapping to hold the house down to the supports.
When we came through, there were numerous signs of "water on roadway". There were several places where the water splashed so high on the windshield, we couldn't see anything. If we had been there a few hours earlier when it was raining, the road may have been impassable. As it was, I was concerned that the car might stall out. The water wasn't moving so there was no danger of being swept away.
The worst hurricane in US history hit Galveston in 1900 without warning and 6 to 10 thousand people died. After that, a 13' high seawall was built to protect much of the island. Our hotel is on top of the seawall, overlooking the gulf. This part of Galveston is similar to South Padre Island, mostly hotels, restaurants and entertainment along the beach.
While we were having a delicious dinner at Landry's Seafood Restaurant, it was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds", with large flocks of black birds careening just outside the patio where we were eating. They were also very noisy.
Ending mileage: 6799 Ending time: 5:00 pm
Travel mileage: 379 Travel time: 7:30 hours
It is pitch dark when I got up at 6am. Hot and sticky already.
I went swimming just as a storm was coming in, bobbing in the crashing waves. There were black clouds to the south-east that soon came in blocking the sun.
Fortunately, we were able to get the car loaded just before it started to rain seriously. It rained fairly hard for about half an hour which was good as it cleaned all the butterfly remains off our windshield and the front of the car.
It is absolutely flat here, similar to south Florida. The vegetation is mostly mesquite, grassland and prickly pear cactus. There appear to be huge cattle ranches - we see the entrance to the ranch and a driveway that disappears into the distance. We saw hundreds of snowy egrets, often among or on the cattle. There are large cotton fields and huge bales of white cotton sitting in the fields. It appears to have rained heavily lately. There are also large rice fields and one of the towns we went through had a banner announcing the rice festival.
We don't usually eat at fast food restaurants but decided we should try Whataburger. This is a regional chain that was started in Corpus Cristi in the 1950s and features A-frame buildings as their signature. The burgers that we had were good and I had a delicious salted caramel shake.
We could see signs of last year's hurricane with blue tarps still covering the roofs of some houses and new roofs on others.
We decided to take the more scenic route to Galveston that goes up the length of Galveston island. It is very low and all of the houses and buildings are on stilts that raise them 8-10' off the ground - it looks very strange. There were many signs advertising lots for sale so it must still be a popular place to build despite the storm threat. The new houses under construction had lots of metal strapping to hold the house down to the supports.
When we came through, there were numerous signs of "water on roadway". There were several places where the water splashed so high on the windshield, we couldn't see anything. If we had been there a few hours earlier when it was raining, the road may have been impassable. As it was, I was concerned that the car might stall out. The water wasn't moving so there was no danger of being swept away.
The worst hurricane in US history hit Galveston in 1900 without warning and 6 to 10 thousand people died. After that, a 13' high seawall was built to protect much of the island. Our hotel is on top of the seawall, overlooking the gulf. This part of Galveston is similar to South Padre Island, mostly hotels, restaurants and entertainment along the beach.
While we were having a delicious dinner at Landry's Seafood Restaurant, it was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds", with large flocks of black birds careening just outside the patio where we were eating. They were also very noisy.
 |
| Day 27 map |
 |
| Storm coming in on South Padre Island |
 |
| Whataburger |
 |
| Cotton bales in cotton field |
 |
| Typical house on Galveston island |
Comments
Post a Comment