We didn't have internet access yesterday, and today, my camera needs some new batteries, so I've got words, but no pictures :)
We got our first glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico yesterday near Rockport. We were all shocked by how warm the water was. For someone living in a southern location, maybe this isn't big news--but for someone like me, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, the ocean is never warm. It felt like a bath, and now I finally understand all of those characters in books and all those songwriters singing the praises of the therapeutic waters of the Gulf. The beach appeared to be pretty shallow, too, for a long ways out, so we were able to wade for a long time before it occurred to us that maybe we shouldn't get our clothes quite that wet;)
I can't post photos today, but the water itself near Rockport was pretty sandy and muddy. We speculated at first that the color might be due to oil, but there were no other signs of that kind of contamination--no slicks, no sheen, no foam, nothing. The sand itself was incredibly fine, and most of the shells along the beach were broken, which leads me to believe that there's just a lot of "stuff" out there churning around near the shore, which mightaccount for the muddy color. There were signs going down to all the beaches asking people to report sightings of live sea turtles. We actually did see an expired sea turtle, but we didn't get to see any live ones. We've seen several turtles, however, along the highway.
Our hotel stay in Rockport wasn't the greatest, but it was comfortable, and we had a decent night. We all shared a room for the first time on the trip and ended up eating shrimp salads in our room because we were all too tired to go anyplace else. They were perfect. This morning, we got up and walked way out onto a fishing pier. The humidity and heat even at 9 am were already kicked into high gear, so most of our crew was ready to get into the air-conditioned car a short time later.
In picking our route for the last two days, Terry and Lynn managed to get us onto some "named" highways without knowing it. For quite a bit of our trip, we've been following the Texas Tropical Trail. After that, we ended up on the Texas Independence Trail, and today, we made our way up to Galveston on the Coastal Birding Trail.
The Birding Trail has lived up to its name in every way. We saw all kinds of birds today--a number of herons (we don't know what kind except for the Great Blue), possibly a kind of ibis, numerous other shore birds, new kinds of gulls, brown pelicans, turkey vultures and other raptors, and all kinds of songbirds we can't identify. We saw a very red-colored deer. Our hope today was to see an armadillo, but the only ones we saw were those who couldn't escape the constant traffic. Poor guys.
Much of the drive today was through the Gulf Coast Plain, which is flat, very flat. Everywhere along the Texas coastline, apparently, are huge refineries, chemical plants, nuclear plants, and other industrial concerns. It's so different from home in Oregon and Washington where the coastlines are relatively protected from that kind of development. But in between those places along the coastline and on the other side of the highway are houses, small farms, and even in some places, the remnants of the Old South--old plantations, etc, etc. There are evergreen trees here I've never seen before--maybe long leaf pine? And a lot of the trees have moss hanging from them, something I've only seen on TV, in photos, and in paintings. Other than the industrial areas, it's a beautiful place.
We caught our first sight of the beach in the Galveston area today near Surfside City, and from there, we drove northeast along Galveston Island to our hotel. We got out at Surfside and played in the water again. It's much clearer here, and the beaches are much broader, whiter, and. . .more populated. In Texas, people can park their cars all along the public beaches, so it looks like a campground--literally like a parking lot with barbecues, sun shelters, umbrellas, and sunbathers thrown in for good measure. Alexandria actually did some swimming today in water that was probably up to her waist, which was pretty brave. We were all impressed.
After the beach visit, we drove to the business district of Galveston and drove around a bit looking at the town while we waited for our room to be ready. All along the coast, and especially on the Island, the effects of the last hurricane are visible. Most houses look recently built. Those that aren't are definitely either re-painted and re-roofed, or they are looking pretty battleworn. There are several hotels here in town that haven't been restored or refurbished, and you can see the broken windows and missing doors, torn gutters, etc. Out our hotel window, there is a fishing/viewing pier which has its whole mid-section missing, probably 40 feet of it, with the rest of it "islanded" out in the water. Some things like this are being rebuilt, but I wonder if some things will just be reclaimed by the sea. There's another hotel toward town that was built on a pier. It used to have a cruise-ship-type boat anchored next to it that was a casino. That hotel's road access was washed away, so it just sits there on the pier, inaccessible except by water (it's actually closed, of course, but it's evident that the local miscreants find their way out there as evidenced by grafitti, etc.) . Whole walls were ripped off the side of it, and you can see the made and unmade beds still sitting in the rooms, blankets hanging off the side. I remember reading that the ship was completely destroyed. Powerful forces. It's hard to reconcile in my own mind the beautiful, warm, and gentle water we've been strolling in and playing in with the forces that cause that kind of devastation. We live in an amazing world.
We spent the afternoon just relaxing in the pool and in the room. We had a wonderful dinner tonight at a seafood place. I can't remember the name, and Terry and Lynn have gone to bed, so I'll have to add that tomorrow. We all had some form of shrimp or other seafood, and I got to have remoulade on my salad, one of my personal favorites. After dinner, some of us went back to the pool. I had to get caught up on some work, but I could still watch the action. At this point, Alexandria, Devlin, and I have coaxed the hotel desk clerk to let us into the breakfast room so that I can finish some more work, update the blog, and so the kids can wind down with some Family Guy before we go to bed. It's been a good day. Look for more wordiness and photos tomorrow.
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