January 18, 2012

A couple of days ago we took the ferry to Galveston.  The ferry was quick, efficient, and free - what a deal!  In Galveston we went to the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum.  Ocean Star offshore rig is now the centerpiece of the museum, and the museum is really interesting.  It had examples of crew quarters, a ton of info about drilling, and samples of drill bits that chew through seabed rocks.

And I learned about directional drilling, something I didn't know was possible.  Apparently it's common practice now, and works something like this:  

Afterwards we asked the staff where to have lunch and they recommended Shrimp and Stuff, which is not on the tourist area and is pretty good.  Besides the museum, I was sort of disappointed in Galveston.  The beach was being pounded by waves and I didn’t find anything I wanted do to there.  Some days just don’t seem to work, and this was one of them.

The past few days we have been walking along the beach, picking up shells; by now we’re pretty good at that.  The weather has been cooler, but in southern Texas that means in the 60s, which means we just throw on a jacket.  Yesterday a very heavy fog rolled in and the waves were fierce, but most of the time it’s clear. 

Around Gilchrist are a some reminders of Hurricane Ivan.  For some reason when they cleaned up all the cars, houses and debris, they left one van.  It sits out in the middle of a field and eventually will probably just rust away.  Things rust pretty quick out here from the humidity and sea salt. 

As the area recovers, a few compromises have been made.   It’s common for beach houses anywhere to be built up on stilts, but here they are three stories up!  These are the highest houses we’ve seen, on any beach.  I'm not sure how effective this is . . . it’s a good idea to be above the waves, but waves this high are going to do damage no matter what.  

Even the temporary laundromat is in a trailer WAY up on stilts.  It must be pretty hard to haul bags of laundry up and down all those steps! 

For groceries we drive to the little town of Winnie.  One of the things that says we are in the South are piloncillo, which are hard cones of brown sugar; you don’t see these in Dierbergs.

And today I saw real cowboys for the first time.  Near the highway we saw some horseback riders, and I assumed they just were out for fun.  But right behind them was a small herd of cows and we realized the rest of the herd was already across the road.  We often see the tracks of cows along the beach road; I didn't realize this was a cattle region, but perhaps everywhere in Texas is cattle region.