To The Sea

For work Summer went to NASA for a 2 day workshop/meeting last Thursday and Friday. Friday afternoon, while she was daydreaming of it being space camp instead, I can only assume, I drove down to meet up with her afterwards and see what the sea/ocean/gulf a four hour drive from Austin looks like. Here's a map for you visual folks.

Our travels began in NASA town, right off Houston. We stopped at a Boardwalk, as I was a bit tired of being in a car after a four hour straight drive. Summer thought this would be an interesting photo op. The shark was happy because it was ShinerBock in the container instead of water. (My first of the vacation, no I didn't drink beer on my drive down. ha) I reckon this boardwalk was destroyed by the hurricane a few years back and semi recently rebuilt, but I don't know the details on that situation.

Evening one, we walked along the gulf to a restaurant down the street for some seafood. I had some sea bass which was tasty. The night ended with some souvenir store browsing and drinks near the pool. Going to bed at a decent hour meant awaking at an indecent hour but the sunrise was worth it.

oooooo scary haunted hotel in the wee hours of the morning. haha......

took 8 hours of sleep to rock this hair style.

Old man fishing and the sunrise sea

After that we had a mediocre breakfast, and then I went back to bed, Summer went to the pool.

Later we drove the town. Starting with the end of the island.

End of the Island on one side...

Tres ships

A pic of the palm tree lined streets for my palm tree obsessed fam, they actually were abundant down there...

old house

another old house

one last old tropical mansion

the "downtown" area

It may look like Bingo in the streets, but we stumbled upon a Oktoberfest fundraiser.

Since proceeds were going to the Church's hurt from the hurricane and we wouldn't be making a mass the next morning, we decided to purchase one of their large, collectible mugs filled with beer and be altruistic.

Mr. Nerd.

Ms. Nerd

Next was Mini-Golfing, nothing like a huge seashell in front of the sea for a hole. The front of this hole/seashell is just asking for dirty references and Austin, Taragos is a family blog so sorry folks.

Summer kicked some sand the first half...

However, at this mini-golf staple setup, I got a hole-in-one and then continued to take the lead, but its all in fun, who cares if I won ;)

 

Later that evening we continued the seafood by the seaside theme and had some delicious mahi mahi and relaxed the rest of the night. The next morning, we slept through the sunrise, but did a closing walk on the beach before breakfast and our departure.

This hotel looks pretty cool but still needs to be fixed from the hurricane damage, you may not be able to see it but some chunks of the walls were missing. Oh how cool it would have been to tour it. That be one way to raise money. I'd pay like 10 bucks to safely walk around in it.

Ending the Trip with breakfast at a sea-side Sonic.

Houston Skyline.

Conclusion: Our trip to Galveston was quite enjoyable. It's nice to know that the gulf of mexico is only a four hour drive away. I tried to keep this like a blog instead of a photo album so I didn't post tons of photos of the beaches, but I did see some people hop in the waves. As you may or may not know, wave jumping is a huge past-time of mine. However, the water was a bit dirty, there was that oil spill and it was October, so I didn't hop any waves this trip. I believe I could of, but it just didn't happen. My take is that the gulf at Galveston is more to look at and enjoy visually, instead of jumping in. However, I look forward to driving a few hours longer next trip to re-unite with my college spring break destination of South Padre Island (see map at top), where at least 5-some years ago the water was pretty clean and I splashed away. Galveston is a perfect destination for a weekend trip, its not too far away and its a nice sea-side island. On the way back you can always hit up Houston's Ikea or the Outlet mall as well. That's all for now folks.