It had been threatening to rain at Galveston Island State Park ever since we got there. It had sprinkled a few times the evening before, but it wasn't until midnight that the rain finally came. It rained the rest of the night. Even though it was raining the air wasn't that cold. Occasionally I'd stretch out my legs from under the covers. I'd think, "oh it's kind of chilly, I guess I should cover myself up better." Really, the night was warmer than any night I spent camping in Utah's Uinta mountains.
The kids all climbed in bed with us again. Later we discovered that their side of the tent had been leaking and so we couldn't get to made at them for wanted to join our side of the tent. Veronica woke up for the morning even earlier than usual. Gradually we realized that we should just get up and going for the day.
We'd assumed that our campsite would be too windy for a decent breakfast so Brandon had boiled some eggs the day before in preparation for this morning's breakfast. I'm so glad we'd had that forethought. Everything was too soggy outside the tent so we just spread the picnic blanket out on the tent floor and ate the eggs in there. Then we hurried to get everything packed up. Most of the kids wanted to go to the car, but Veronica liked sitting in her stroller outside.
Later she joined in with the other kids for the party in the car.
Derrick had his Halloween Train and liked playing with that on the trip.
It was no party for Brandon and I as we cleaned up soggy blankets, damp clothes, and a soaking wet tent. I was glad that it wasn't that cold or raining very hard. I was also glad that we were going to stay in a hotel that night.
We'd attempted to dry our laundry that hadn't dried the day before, but it ended up getting wetter from the rain. So the first thing we did was find a laundry mat. We pulled up to one right when it opened at 8:00. The kids thought the laundry mat was so interesting. They liked that they could watch the clothes spin around in the dryer.
After our clothes were dry we decided to go for a drive around the island. Galveston has a road that boarders the beaches. We had a great view of the ocean.
We drove past the historic Pleasure Pier which has all been rebuilt since the 2008 Hurricane.
On the Eastern end of the island we got a good view of the barges coming into the harbor, or heading on to the Houston Port. We also had a lot of fun driving through giant puddles on a deserted road.
We drove around some more and took in the pretty buildings. I would love to come back to Galveston and take a tour of the city's historic buildings.
Finally it was 10:00 which was when our destination for the day would open. There were two things I had on my list of Galveston. One was the OceanStar Off Shore Drilling Museum. Tickets to that were $8 for adults. The other was a tour of the tall ship Elissa. Tickets for that were $12 for an adult. Brandon said he wouldn't mind seeing both those things, but I was feeling cheap and though that maybe we should only try to see the less expensive Drilling Museum (plus it sounded cool). We found the museum just fine, but finding a parking place was a problem. There was a motorcycle rally starting that day and all of downtown Galveston was full of vendors getting ready. Most of the museum parking spaces were taken up by a semi truck. We finally found a parking lot about a block away. We paid for our space and then walked down to the museum - only to find out it was closed for the weekend!
Since we'd gone to all the trouble to get there and already paid for our parking spot we didn't want to just leave. So we went for a little walk to check out the harbor and the pier.
We had only walked a little ways when we saw the masts for the Elissa poking up from behind a building. I got really excited. I'd known the two museums were close to each other, but I didn't realize they were that close.
So we hurried over there. The Elissa is part of the Texas Seaport Museum which was open. When I went to pay for our tickets I noticed that for $8 more we could also go on a harbor tour which was normally $10. Kids 5 and under were free. That sounded like fun so I bought the combined ticket.
Ships are right up there along with trains and bridges on my list of favorite things so I was super excited that we were going to see the Elissa. She is one of the three oldest sailing vessels left in the world. She was made in 1877.
First we checked out the museum that was inside the building. If you read my travel blog you know how I feel about museums. (I think they are boring.)
But then we got to go on the ship. I love visiting places where things actually happened. It was so cool to walk somewhere that generations of sailors have also walked.
The ship was set up as a self guided tour and we could explore it at our leisure.
There was a display about how cotton was shipped out of the Galveston Port.
There was a teeny tiny staircase that lead through the engine room to the officers quarters. (The engine was added to the ship later in it's life.)
The officers quarters were pretty tiny, but the captain did have a nice looking office area.
A tight staircase led back up to the main deck.
The rigging looked so cool. Brandon wanted to climb it, but that wasn't allowed.
Charlotte liked the "big wheel."
The kids had fun going from the deck to the hull to the officers quarters and back several times.
Then we went to the front of the ship and found area where the crew slept. I can't imagine spending months in a place like this.
After we were done with the Elissa we went over to a different part of the dock and waited for our harbor tour.
There were two other people on the tour, but other than them it was just us and the two man crew.
Derrick was kind of nervous about the whole thing so he and I sat a little farther back.
The tour was really fun. The crew talked over the loud speaker and told us funny jokes. At first they took us around the harbor. They showed us Katie's fish market which catches and supplies all the fish for the HEB stores. One of the workers came out and showed us the freshest catch of the day - a red snapper.
Then we headed out in to more open waters. There was a breeze blowing and the day was the coolest one of our vacation, but it wasn't that cold - at least not to us. The boats captain thought we were crazy to be out there in T-shirts. "Where are you people from?" He asked. When I told him we were originally from Utah he said, "I can spot you guys a mile away. You are crazy to be out here dressed like that in this weather." He was wearing a big jacket and he kept mentioning that he was freezing. I didn't even have goosebumps.
Charlotte and Lydia thought the boat ride was great.
Once we made it out of the channel we were able to stop and watch some dolphins that were playing in the water.
You can kind of see the dolphins in this picture. By this point I was holding Derrick and Veronica so I wasn't able to do much with the camera. You can also hear Brandon give the correct answer to the captain's question of "What is the largest dolphin?" I was surprised Brandon knew that, but he actually cares about animals so I shouldn't have been too surprised.
The tour included sailing by a boat known as the Selma. It was made out of cement, which was a great idea until the builders figured out that repairing holes in cement doesn't really work to well.
So it was run aground out here where it has stayed ever since.
We also sailed past the Seawolf Park where there is a submarine and another ship available for viewing.
The crew of our boat promised that Veronica would be asleep by the end of the tour. She took about 10 minutes longer than they expected, but she eventually succumbed to the rocking of the boat. Derrick was almost asleep by the time we got done.
The Harbor Tour was one of our favorite parts of the vacation and totally worth the money. We got off the boat and hurried back to our warm car. (I still didn't have goose-bumps but that didn't mean I wasn't getting chilly.)
We took a minute to get the kids situated and then we said goodbye to Galveston. We planned to take the ferry from the island to the Bolivar Peninsula. Then we'd drive along the peninsula before turning north and getting onto the I-10 to go to our hotel in Baytown.
As with our earlier ferry ride, it felt very exotic to drive our car onto a boat.
If we hadn't gone on the harbor tour the ferry ride would have been awesome. The ferry ride is about 15 minutes long. I had planned to let the kids out of the car and check out the view from the side of the ferry. It would have been a great place to see dolphins. But since we'd already spent 45 minutes in the same water we didn't really care to get out of the car (Plus Charlotte had decided she was done wearing pants for the day). So Brandon went to take pictures while the kids and I stayed in the warm car.
He was able to go up a staircase and look out over the whole ferry. He thought these seagulls were funny the way they were all facing the same direction.
He also liked the way the wake of the ship looked.
Back in the car, all the kids were having fun. we had some candy and I'd throw the candy to the kids. Derrick laughed every time.
Once we were off the boat we went to check out the Bolivar Lighthouse.
It's not open to the public, but it's cool to see.
Then we checked out the remains of Fort Travis at the Fort Travis Seashore park. Some of the old concrete bunkers are still there.
The gun battlements are there too. I would have liked to explore the park, but I wasn't in the mood to get out of the car.
If the weather had been nicer we would have gone to the beach in Crystal Beach on the peninsula. Instead we just let the kids sleep while we drove and checked out the beach homes. Every house was built on stilts.
There were parts of the peninsula that were only about 200 feet wide.
Most of the drive was pretty uneventful. We were all really happy when we pulled up to our hotel. I'd booked it using Hotwire and I didn't know the name of the place we were staying until I'd paid for it. I was kind of annoyed when I saw that it was a Motel 6. I told Brandon, "Since when was Motel 6 a two and a half start hotel." But I figured that after 5 days of camping ANYTHING would seem like a palace. I was right. That room seemed so luxurious.
We got there around 3:00. Aside from Brandon going on a fast food run we didn't leave the room the rest of the day. I think we were all very appreciative of having walls and a roof.
I gave all the kids baths. Derrick fell asleep as soon as he was in his pajamas. The girls stayed up. After scrolling through the cable channels about 5 times we finally found something worth watching. We watched Hook and girls really liked it - even if Julia Roberts made a terrible Tinkerbell. When the movie was over we put the girls in bed with Derrick. Veronica slept in her pack-n-play. Brandon and I shared the other bed.
By this point we'd decided that somehow we'd managed to top our vacation to Southern Utah. We couldn't believe how well this trip had gone. The kids were having a great time, we were having a great time, and everything was just wonderful. I couldn't believe that we still had one more day of fun lined up.
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