23 Galveston

Dec 21,  45 degrees
    As we were packing up to leave Louisiana and head to Galveston,  we over heard a power line disaster crew comparing notes in the lobby.  Evidently the storm that blew in while we were in Nacogdoches was worse than we thought.  It was fortunate we hadn’t spent the night in our canvas shelter.   Later that day we met a army of power company trucks on their way to reset poles.  It was the largest assembly of line-workers I had ever seen.           

     ( copied from Ruthie’s notes) Vern sent me down a logging road!  Let’s talk about this a little, first of all she was in the drivers seat.  Second, I don’t think anybody makes Ruthie do anything.  My side of the story.  We were heading back on the same road and that didn’t seem productive to me. 

 I started watching the road signs to try and judge the quality of the side roads by the type of sign.  When I thought I had it figured out I asked her to take a left on a side road, then we would let the GPS redirect us along the shortest path. Perfect, we would see a new road and still get to our destination.  The following pictures depict the deterioration of road surface.                                                                                                            

 As the road worsened the commentary from the front seat also degraded.  We seen some interesting sites and scenery but the one that will stick in both our minds.  We met a truck coming toward us.  We still can see the look on the man’s face his hand was up to wave and his mouth never closed?  I’m sure he is still trying to figure out what we were doing on that logging road.   A few miles down the road we met a logging truck and Ruthie said he was trying to find our road,  She doesn’t forget easily.
     We were hungry and kept looking for a place to pull over.  We finally pulled over in a parking lot and had a bite to eat on the top of the camper.  A few minutes later we crossed into Texas and sure enough we seen a picnic table.  We took the ferry across to Galveston.  It had climbed up to 64 degrees.  Besides being surrounded by water the first thing we noticed were the houses.

    This one the salesman said it is a beautifull single level home with a private view of the gulf.

     That is once you climb a few steps.  May be a little tough bringing home groceries.

      But we can't see the gulf from the porch??

  There you go!  Your own private view.
      We had our first run in with RV park snobbishness,  we don’t allow popups. So it was a motel for us this evening.

          Galveston home owners will do any thing to see the gulf, stilts, porches on top of the house, then the neighbor builds in front of them. 

     M-daughter had been in Galveston at a motorcycle selling her bandana's and suggested we try the Doughnut Palace and have one of their Kalache’s, of course Ruthie first asked if they were spicy?  They assured us that the one’s with the little sausages weren’t.  Evidently there had been a problem with the staff that morning and they all had jalapeno’s in them.  Ruthie had been outside talking with some men about our trike so I was able to intercept before she ate her’s.  To apologize for the mix-up they gave us two sandwiches,   .

     The next morning was 77 and sunny.  It was nice riding without all the warm weather gear.  We drove the length of the island.  Met a couple of trikers on the road. 

     We had a meal at the Fisherman's Wharf,  the setting was very nice however the meal was nothing special. 
     We started loading up in the morning to head for Houston to spend Christmas with relatives.  However when I carried my load down Ruthie was deep in conversation ( I know, turn your shoulder and avoid eye contact.  Evidently they hadn't heard.)  It turns out one of them had been raised very close to the Mexioco bordr and his mother had raised them bilingual.  So it wasn't until he moved into the Houston school system that he found out he was black and not Mexican.  We had just seen the movie Lincoln, so we were discussing it.  This was the first time we had heard about Juneteenth.  It was on June 19th 1865 that union solders landed at Galveston with the news that the war had ended and the slaves were free.  The irony of the date is that it was two and 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was actually signed ending slavery.   I'm glad we aren't on a time schedule, this is an education indeed.  We wished them well and headed to Houston.  The Vikings were playing Houston and they were leading, the sun was shining.  Christmas with relatives.  A few days to rest up.  It is all good.