The Ray Adventures: Galveston & Houston

It has been quite a busy week. The weather has been just miserable, no sunshine for a week and a half, thunder and lightning, heavy rain and cold wind. Whine whine whine. We enjoyed Galveston Island, we want to come back when the weather is warm.

Saturday, Jan. 10, We took advantage the break from the rain to pick up a couple of geo caches in the park, we had to take short walks on trails through the marsh. We saw several snowy egrets and ducks but no spoonbills. The third was at a crazy house we’d seen from the road. We have no idea what it is or was, check out the picture. Then it started to rain. We headed back down to the historic district to see an attraction Pirates, Legends of the Gulf Coast. If you ever go to Galveston-don’t go to Pirates. Just down the street was the Railroad Museum at the former Santa Fe Union Station. Inside you see artifacts from trains such as china and silver. Hmm, last time I was on a train it was paper and plastic. In the depot there were ghosts of travelers past while they wait for the train. Outside Gary took a self-guided tour of trains and engines. Some of the cars were real fancy private cars, mail cars and the caboose. It was just too cold, wet and windy for me I stayed inside and “talked” with the ghosts. Hurricane Ike did a number on the museum. Many artifacts were removed but the “ghosts” had muck all over them, the water level in some places in the city were too far for me to reach. Volunteers spent many hours removing the gunk from the building and “ghosts”. Thoroughly cold, we went to Tony Nonno’s, an Italian restaurant on Pier 21, for an early dinner. Yum. I drank several cups of hot water and finally got warm. We watched the Seahawks beat the Panthers handily to advance to the NFC Championship; they play Green Bay for the right to play in the Super Bowl. Last September before we left Salem we went to the first Seahawk game of the year, Seattle/Green Bay. Seattle won. Let’s hope for a repete. (Pete Carroll)

Sunday, Jan. 11, We woke up to a thunder and lightning storm with heavy rain. I have never heard thunder roll on and on and on before. Gary wanted to go to Seawolf Park and Lone Star Flight Museum, another cold Saturday, Jan. 10, We woke up to 38 degree weather. Brrr. It wasn’t raining so we took the opportunity to pick up some geo caches. Two were and windy day so I opted out to stay and watch football. Seawolf Park is home to the USS Cavalla and USS Stewart, it’s located on Pelican Island right on Galveston Bay. The USS Stewart is a Destroyer Escort and is a National Historic Landmark. Built in Houston, her most famous mission was to escort President Roosevelt’s presidential yacht down the Potomac River to rendezvous with USS Iowa in the Chesapeake Bay for his mission to Casablanca and Tehran. During WWII she made 30 North Atlantic convoy missions, sometimes encountering enemy submarine fire. The USS Cavalla is berthed as a memorial for the 52 submarines lost in WWII. Her claim to fame is she sank the 30,000 ton aircraft carrier Shokaku, a veteran of Pearl Harbor and battle of the Coral Sea. He picked up 3 geo caches on the way home.

Monday, Jan. 12, Galveston has many, many historic homes which are on the National Landmark Registry, two are the Bishop’s Palace and Moody Mansion, we’d tried to see them last week but were closed until today. The Bishops Palace was designed and built for a local attorney, Walter Gresham, in 1887, it took 7 years to build. The exterior is sandstone, limestone and rough granite, designed to be hurricane proof. After the horrendous hurricane of 1900 many homeless were invited to stay with them. The inside is furnished in period, features a hand-carved staircase and jeweled glass windows. One of the many fireplaces is lined with silver. It cost $250,000 to build and is now worth over 5 million dollars. He lived there with his wife and 9 kids until 1923 when he sold it to the Catholic Diocese. It is located across the street from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, another beautiful historic building. We took a self-guided audio tour of the first floor but on the second floor they were refurbishing the floors so we had to walk on paper paths to peek into the rooms. Above the landing of the staircase was a beautiful stained glass window. When the diocese moved to Houston the diocese opened the house to the public in 1963. Just a few blocks from the Palace is the Moody Mansion, a 32 room home build in 1892 by Narcissa Wells, who was in her 80’s. She was married to a tightwad husband who wanted to keep his assets liquid. As soon as he died she started building the mansion, to the dismay of her 10 children. The house had to be bigger and better than any place in Galveston. Can you imagine $100,000 in the late 1800’s to build a home? Narcissa only lived in the house 2 years before her death. Her daughter put the house up for bid just before the 1900 hurricane. William Moody had placed a bid of only $20,000 just before the hurricane, all the other bids were withdrawn so he got the house for a pittance of it’s worth. The Moody family lived there until 1986 when they gave the mansion and all the furnishings to the Historical Society in 1986. The interior features stained glass, carved wood, tile work, fancy plaster work and stenciling. Way ahead of its time, it had electricity, central heat, elevator, a ballroom, library, dining table that was 20 feet long, servants quarters and beautiful furnishings. We came home to watch our Ducks lose to Ohio State. Bummer.

Tuesday, Jan. 13^th, The weather is still lousy. We decided to drive around the island to see the sights. We drove as far north as possible, the mouth of Galveston Bay, it’s a very busy port, tugs pushing ships coming and going. From there we drove down to the beach then on the way back hiked to a bird observation tower to pick up a geo cache, got wet feet along the way. What a great spot for Luci to run since there weren’t any birds in the area. I was curious about the ferry to Port Bolivar, it crosses the Houston ship channel. I’d heard the ferry was able to carry motorhomes, I don’t think we’d want to try it but did see a smaller motorhome in line. Gary and Luci took a birding trail to pick up a couple of geo caches in the area, I whimped out, the sign said “caution snakes”. When Hurricane Ike hit in 2008 most of Galveston Island was covered by a tidal surge, between the wind and waves thousands of trees were destroyed. Various area artists carved tree sculptures from the fallen trees to replace the beautiful oaks. The Tree Sculpture Tour, a self-guided tour, you can walk, drive or take a commercial tour past the 20 residences that have the sculptures in their yard. The sculptures were placed in the beautiful historic homes district but sculptures have been placed in other parts of town. The Galveston Island Tree Conservatory has been instrumental in re-greening the island with the planting more than 8,000 trees since the hurricane. The Tree Conservatory and 100’s of volunteers are working to ensure 100% of the “Ike” trees are recycled, not wanting any trees to end up in the landfill.

Wed. January 14, Weather is still cruddy, besides the wind we had a little rain, just enough to get the vehicles filthy. Moving day, we left for Houston about 10am for the 67 mile trip to Stafford, south east of the city. We are staying at an Elks Club, Gary joined the Elks last summer to give us another option for low cost parking. I was a little disappointed, the Elks RV Camping book said the nightly rate was $15, only to find out it was $25.00, not such a good deal. Good news, all you have to do is walk across parking lot for a little “drinkie”. The only way to get here (that we knew about) was a toll road, twice we had to pay $5.75 along the way, we were getting worried, how much was this going to cost. Houston, which was founded in 1836 is the 4^th largest city in the US. Houston was the first and last word spoken from the moon and the first to have a domed stadium.

Thursday, Jan. 15, We headed into downtown Houston, about a 15 minute drive, to the Visitor Center at the Historic City Hall. We parked in the garage below, only to get temporarily displaced (lost) both coming and going. The gal was very helpful, spending a lot of time with us. We walked across the street to Tranquility Park commemorating the Apollo 11 1969 moon landing. At one time it was a nice park but now it’s a little long in the tooth with dry water features. We walked several blocks to the Energy Center building to take elevator up to the 60^th floor observatory. The gal at the visitor center told us about the tunnels throughout the downtown area. My first thought was “icky” imagining homeless and all that go with them. They are so cool, we were able to walk back to City Hall underground keeping warm and dry, passing stores, restaurants and businesses along the way.

Friday, Jan. 16, We dropped Luci off at PetSmart Doggie Day Care on our way to Johnson Space Center southeast of Houston about 30 miles. We had to get back on the toll road but this time it was only $1.75 each time. We waited for a relatively decent day, the sun is out for the first time in 10 days, still breezy and cool though. They just got the Independence, a retired space shuttle, it is out front on top of a 747. Wow! The museum tells the story about manned space flights through artifacts, interactive exhibits and a tram tour through NASA. The tram is open air, I can’t imagine how cold it would have been the days before. The first stop was Christopher Kraft building, he was the first Flight Operations Director. We had to climb 87 steps up to Mission Control (not me, I took the elevator) It is the room you saw on TV during all of the Apollo flights. Our tour guide was very informative. A red telephone was on one of the control stations, it was used to call the Dept. of Defense to give the coordinates to the Navy so they could pick up the astronauts in the middle of the ocean. The main frame was in another room, it filled the entire area but still only had 2 megabytes that ran the whole operation. In the 60’s 10% of the nations’ budget went to NASA. It just gave me the chills to look at the room I’d seen so many times on TV. The next building was the Space Vehicle Mock Up, used for training the astronauts and also to develop new equipment including the Space Station and the newest project Orion which will take astronauts to Mars. The last building was the Saturn V, you could see all stages of the rocket. The first falls into the ocean when out of fuel, the second burns completely up. Back inside the museum I got to touch a moon rock, it was very smooth, I wonder if that is because so many people have touched it. There are several videos you can watch and even an I-Max theater. We picked up a tired Luci and headed back to the Elks. I told Gary he could buy me a drink, I stretched that to a chicken dinner too. Not as good as Chef Betty but I didn’t have to cook. Always a good thing.

Saturday, Jan. 17. We took Luci and headed out to see the USS Texas and San Jacinto Battlefield on the shipping channel and Houston Bay. The USS Texas, a battleship, was built in Houston, commissioned in 1914. It is the only ship to participate in two wars, WW1 and WW11, it was retired to Houston in 1948. I didn’t go aboard because of Luci but Gary said that being a Navy guy it was enlightening to see how the sailors from 1914 lived in such Spartan accommodations. We had a Subway picnic then went to the San Jacinto Battlefield & Monument. The bottom floor of the monument houses a museum with artifacts from the Texas battle for independence from Mexico. The park is 1,200 acres which includes the monument, USS Texas and hiking paths through the bayou. We took the elevator up 489 feet to the observation floor, you got quite a view of the shipping channel, Galveston Bay, the bayous and the ship. The weather is getting better every day.

Sunday, Jan. 18. Whew, almost done. A beautiful day with temps in the mid 70’s. I tackled my car, cleaning it inside and out. At 2:00 we turned on the Seahawks/Packers game. It looked very bleak for Seattle, so Gary and I did our part, we took a long walk. They were still behind when we got back we tried not to watch. Gary took Luci out to the field to let her play with another lab when things turned around. When he came in I told him the game was going into overtime. Holy smokes!!! The Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl. Wah hooI

I had to wade through several hundred pictures, I hope you enjoy.

TTFN,

Gary and Pam