Galveston, Texas

24th Jan – 28th Jan 202

Galveston. Civilisation!

I am sure that the majority of Texans would disagree with that statement, but this was the largest place that we had stayed in quite a while and we had some stuff to get done. It had come to our attention that our four rear tyres were looking fairly low on tread. In fact, I am not sure that a Formula 1 pit crew would have selected them in a light drizzle. Another issue was our bikes. They were in serious need of a service and somehow my front forks had broken and needed replacing. Finally, our water pump was non-functioning. Not sure what had happened there but since day 1 of this trip, suspiciously after we had called into the RV service centre to get our small leak fixed right at the beginning of the trip, it had not pumped. For 99% of the time we don’t need it as we plug into mains water in the camps we stay at but it does restrict our ability to free-camp (by choice or due to unforsean circumstances). Another useful time for it to be functioning is when the temperature falls below 0 deg C overnight, potentially freezing the water in our connection pipe. This involves unplugging, emptying the hose and relying on tank water and the pump. We had been making do with jugs and bottles of water. It was time to get it fixed. So Big Dave was booked into Firestone, I arranged to drop the bikes of at a local bike shop on our way into town and we booked a mobile RV mechanic to come and replace the pump. Sorted.

The seeming endlessness of the Texan roads continued as we travelled on from Palacios to Galveston which is also situated at the Eastern end of Galveston Island, another long, thin, flat barrier island which is essentially a sand spit. It is only 45 miles from Houston and the run up to the city itself was past countless, colourful, stilted vacation homes – some tasteful, some where the dominant adjective used to describe them would definately be large rather than classy. This is where the city folk come to the beach. Galveston was another re-visit for us although we opted to stay closer to town than we did last time. During our last visit, in early Nov 2018, we had stayed a few miles down the beach and it had been amazingly hot and sunny. We had had to sleep with the aircon running and two rounds of mini-golf had turned into an exercise in extreme heat survival. It was a little different this time.

We cruised into town and up the aptly named ‘Seawall Boulevard’ until we arrived at the bike shop, dropped off the bikes then found our camp. Unfortunately the weather turned to custard at exactly the moment we started setting up but as now we are super slick at the process we managed to get situated and installed without getting too drenched.

Happily the next day it was dry for our other activities: Steve the RV mechanic arrived at 9am (from his own RV on the same park) to fit the new water pump. In retrospect we probably could have managed it ourselves but sometimes its just worth paying the money for peace of mind and marital harmony. He was very chatty and interesting and admitted that it was a very easy job for him. He had been in IT for 30 years until 2 years ago when he had done a 400 hr/10 week RV mechanics course. Now he only works 10-15 hrs per week which is plenty to live on and he was happy as the proverbial pig.

The next task was to offload Tin Can from Big Dave -the first time we’d done this since leaving Wenatchee-and head to Firestone for the new tyres. Whilst this was being done we walked up to the Seawall Boulevard, looked at the sea, wandered up and down a bit then headed back to the tyre shop via lunch at Whataburger, another burger chain with a cult following here. It had a massive queue for the drive-thru and was busy inside which is always a good sign. Despite that, it was clean and tidy and the food was pretty good too. Big Dave was just getting finished with his new booties by the time we got back and then he was roadworthy again. We headed back to the ranch, Tin Can was reloaded with a bit of kerfuffle and we rested from all the excitement and money spending.

The next day we went to town. An Uber was summoned and we headed to the historic district. In the latter part of the 19th century Galveston had grown quickly and thrived as a busy port town and centre of commerce. There was a lot of money made here and the grand old buildings are testament to that. The day started with a tour of a historic house, The Moody Mansion. Home to three generations of the Moody family it was essentially a nice big town house that saw lots of parties and the amassing of more Moody wealth. It was actually quite modest given their fortune and, built in 1895, 85 years younger than our cottage at home. Nevertheless it is an important building here and on the National Historic Landmark Register. The Moodys bought it for a bargain price after the huge storm that hit Galveston in 1900 despite the fact it was one of the few residences to survive. This hurricaine wreaked massive damage on the city, killing 6000-8000 people and it still holds the dubious record of being the USA’s worst natural disaster. It was the prompt to build the 10 mile long seawall to try and protect the city from future devastation. Galveston never really recovered it’s pre-1900 levels of prosperity. The building of the Houston ship canal brought the port of Houston into direct competition with Galveston’s natural port and the seawall changed the errosion patterns of the sand on the beach, reducing its width by 100 yards, thus removing the large natural playground that was used for motor racing events and other jolly pursuits.

After our house tour we walked up to the historic downtown district and braced ourselves for the hustle and bustle of the ‘civilisation’ that we had been missing for a while. There was no sign of it. There were certainly lots of lovely old buildings, restaurants, bars and a few tourist tat shops, but a complete lack of people. There was even a cruise ship at the terminal. Where was everyone? Never did find them. It was a lovely afternoon so we found a sunny spot on the deck at a waterfront restaurant and had an ‘afternoon tea’ of a couple of beers and a plate of ‘shrimp kisses’ to share. (A shrimp kiss: a large, butterflied shrimp stuffed with jalepeño cheese, wrapped in bacon and deep fried in a light batter… We like shrimp kisses….) The deck had a great view of Galveston harbour with boats, tugs and a couple of oil rigs under construction. The plan was to stay in town for dinner so seeing as it was only 3.30pm, we had some time to kill. We found an oil rig museum which was located in a small decommissioned oil rig on the harbour-side. We arrived at 4.02pm but it had stopped admissions at 4.00pm. The girl on the desk was immune to Nick’s British charm (usually a force to which American ladies are powerless to resist*) and she wouldn’t let us in. Our promise to do the tour at slow jog to finish well within the hour before closing at 5.00pm also fell on deaf ears. We managed to while away another half hour by walking up to the cruise ship terminal to get a look at the boat close up. It was just loaded up and ready to depart. We looked up at the happy passengers stood on the balconies and decks, waving at invisible people on the shore as the ship left the dock (backwards-rather impressively) and set off. We both agreed that we had no desire to take a cruise any time soon and that in Covid-times, it was utter madness. Good luck to you all smooshed into your expensive, floating, petri dish, quarantine detension camp…..

So we started our evening at 4.30pm with a couple of beers outside a brewhouse in town, and in true American-style, were having dinner by 5.30pm back at the waterfront restaurant that we had started at and then we got another Uber home.

(* Earlier in the day we had found a small jewelry shop and called in to see if I could get a new battery in my watch. The nice lady fitted it for free. Case in point. Powerless…..)

Our last day here was a big one. We had mini-golf on our minds, time to kill, another beautiful sunny day and we/I (!) felt like a good walk. It was three and a half miles down the seafront to the course and we headed there on foot for the latest Hampson vs Hampson: Battle of the Balls, Clash of the Clubs, Pugilism of the Putters, etc, etc. To say that there is a competitive edge to our mini-golf endeavours would be a slight understatement. There are two 18-hole courses at this facility, so it was inevitable that we would be playing 36 holes. It was very nice to be able to enjoy the experience without the serious risk of developing heat stroke which had been a very real possibility on our last visit in 2018. I won the first 18 holes by 5 strokes, Nick won the second 18 holes by…5 strokes. It was neck and neck….The owner of the facility could sense the tension and the enormity of the occasion….and gave us a free third round to settle the contest. So after 56 holes of mini-golf, two holes-in-one for me and only one for Nick, much fun and frivolity and a seven mile round trip walk to achieve it, Nick won the third round by 5 strokes. We had a sandwich on the beach on the way home and agreed that we were both winners…no wait…that was just me…Nick was vehemently certain that he was the only winner. Paff.

We headed out the next day via brunch at a popular neighbourhood eatery called Mosquito Cafe. The food was great, albeit a bit lukewarm, and they had a ‘flood-water-level-mark’ on the wall at about the 6ft mark which was the result of 2008’s hurricaine Ike – To live here you have to make your peace with the possibility of your life/livelihood being destroyed by weather – We remembered to collect the bikes which were now all fixed and clean and then jumped on another free ferry out of Galveston to continue our journey.