La Porte, TX

I want to thank Vancouver friend, Dane, for suggesting I make sure to stop at the San Jacinto Battlefield Monument. I would possibly have missed it if he hadn’t dropped the tip.

”Everything is bigger in Texas” is what you’ve heard about this state, and the monument to the San Jacinto Battlefield in La Porte, TX where the independence of Texas was finally won, confirms that impression and demonstrates their fierce belief in independence. The whole monument is super size. The doorway to the building at the bottom of the monument is huge but is dwarfed by the building itself and the building is dwarfed by the monument’s height. It was built between 1936 and 1939 and is the world’s tallest masonry column.

You’ll recall from my San Antonio blog post that the Mexican General Santa Anna defeated the stand by William Travis, Crockett and Bowie at the Alamo. Santa Anna (who reportedly had a rather big ego, called himself “The Napoleon of the West”) then went on to attempt to stamp out the rebellion and defeated the rebels at Goliad as well. The courageous stand at the Alamo helped to motivate the troops under Sam Houston who finally defeat Santa Anna here at San Jacinto. Houston tried the patience of his troops because of his repeated withdrawals but he was looking for the best advantage against the Mexican army which outnumbered his men two to one, and this was finally the opportunity. Houston mounted a surprise attack, taking advantage of a bad positioning decision made by Santa Anna. A small rise in the land where the monument stands and an oak forest helped hide the rebel forces. The battle lasted only 20 minutes and Houston forced Santa Anna’s surrender and secured the safety of the colonists and rebels throughout Texas.

There is a great movie in the museum at the base of the monument that explains the battle itself and puts it all into context. With that base of information, I headed to the observation deck at the top of the monument, right under the Texas star. The observation deck is 486 feet high and I got a great view of the battlefield but also the whole Houston harbour area. (I didn’t realize the Houston harbour is the busiest in the country).

Then I headed over to see the USS Texas, the last steam powered battleship, which is on display nearby. It was a much smaller ship than the one I’d visited in Corpus Christi, but equally interesting. One of the things I noted was how they used every square inch of space on the ship and bunks were stuffed into every possible spot.

I hadn’t really spent any time on the beach since arriving in this beach community!, so I headed back to have some lunch and wander the beach for a bit. It was overcast and humid day, about 22 degrees, not too much wind. Couldn’t have been more perfect. I lunched at a Galveston institution called The Spot. Great burger, chaos for service. Then wandered the beach and told some pictures.

I have also included some pictures of oil/gas installations and some random pictures of the beach houses just to give you a sense of what it looks like.

I’ll be pulling up pegs tomorrow morning and heading north and east and on to a new state for both my trailer and myself.

Galveston, TX

So, unknown to me, there are Mardi Gras celebrations in Galveston this weekend and next. It’s the largest celebrations in Texas according to the Galveston Chamber of Commerce. So I decded to get warmed up for next weekend in New Orleans in a more “gentle” environment.

There were mulitple parades all weekend, and the biggest of the parades was at noon today and I was there for it. Along with thousands of my closest friends. I can’t believe how much effort people went to in order to party hardy. RVs and trucks with trailers have parked on the Parade route for the past 2 – 3 days staking out their spots. People brought huge bbqs, and folding tables laden with food, and drink… Lots of drink. They look like they’re planning on staying a month, not just for the weekend.

I paid a donation to a local charity to get a great parking spot nearby and felt good about it too. I plunked down my folding chair in an empty spot near some other folks and in no time I was surrounded and talking to locals and visitors alike. They explained all the techniques involved in getting beads. Thankfully, none of them involved taking off my shirt. Some of the folks were pretty aggressive about it. You’ll see Johnny in many of my pics, the guy in the cowboy hat. His wife was practically falling over with the weight of the beads around her neck. One of the other ladies standing with us was joking around with him trying to get around him to get the beads instead of him. She managed to score a fun hat that lit up with LEDs. In the end, I had about 5 people all grabbing beads to give to me since I was a Mardi Gras virgin.

The parade was great. Lots of floats and a dozen or more high school marching bands, flag spinners, and dance troops. And all of them had something to throw to the crowd. Mostly beads, some small and cheap, others larger and more intricate, but still cheap. Some had frisbees, others plastic footballs, and the odd one threw out an odd Mardi Gras hat! The High School bands from throughout the area were fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed the music.

And as usual, it was the people that made it interesting and fun.

Johnson Space Center, International

Yup, you guessed it. I was at Space Centre Houston, the official Visitor Center of NASA Johnson Space Center today. And yes the above is actually the correct line used by the Apollo 13 crew rather than “Houston, we have a problem” which became popular folklore after a couple of incorrect lines in movies.

The visitor centre is set up just outside the perimeter of the Johnson NASA Space Centre. It has all sorts of static and interactive displays, theatres, movies, and live presentations.

It was Astronaut Friday which meant that there was an Astronaut speaking about his experience in one of the theatres. Today it was Michael Foreman, who was on two shuttle missions, in 2008 and 2009. He did so well at the spacewalk portion of his tasking on the 2008 mission that they sent him back in 2009 with two rookies to teach. He had been a Naval aviator and trainer before becoming an astronaut after applying 18 times. His message to young folks in the audience who wanted to be an astronaut was not to give up trying.

One of the two most popular of the exhibits at the Center is the Tram ride which takes visitors on to the Johnson Space Centre property for 3 stops. I had booked a “timed ticket” for this attraction which saved a lot of time spent standing in line.

The first stop on the tram line is Building 30, the Houston Mission Control Centre, which is now designated as a National Historic Site. Seems like just yesterday, not historic! This is where all the Gemini and Apollo missions, (incl. full mission control from liftoff to splashdown of the moon mission Apollo 11). There were literally rotary dials on the consuls and the buttons and switches seemed so ancient. They said there is more technology in one of the new watches than was in the whole room in 1969, and they sent man to the moon. Pretty amazing, really. The Mission Control currently being used for International Space Station monitoring is on the second floor of Building 30 directly below where we saw the historic one.

An interesting piece of trivia is that after the Apollo 13 mission, the mission astronauts were so thankful to the folks at mission control that saved their lives, that they awarded them with something special. It’s a plaque mounted above the water fountain with a mirror in it. The inscription said something about indebtedness they felt to each and every one whose face appeared in the mirror as the mission control staff took a drink.

The second stop was at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which is a training facility for astronauts. I found it fascinating. There are bits and pieces of various components of the shuttle, international space station, and new Orion, as well as the Canadarm, rovers, and space suits that the astronauts use to learn and practise using in this facility. It’s also the place were if something comes up on the mission that needs to be worked out, they can use the facility here to try things out.

Orion is the next big thing, with its first planned 2 year trip to Mars, anticipated to be in 2030 or 2035 latest. Pretty small capsule for 4 – 6 astronauts. Orion had its first test flight on Dec 5, 2014 and it was blasted into space from Florida for 2 orbits, only 4 hours, to test the first set of critical parameters.

The third stop was to see one of the historic rockets, which I didn’t stop at in order to get back to the Space Centre as I had timed tickets to the second most popular exhibit which has only been open for a week. It was really interesting to see the exhibits inside the shuttle and 747 in Independence Plaza but I was starting to get information overload. I wandered through some more of the static displays and one presentation of what life was like on the shuttle and is like on the International Space Station.

On my way back from south Houston, where the Space Centre is located, I stopped at a Boardwalk and Marina in the town of Kemah on my way back to Galveston. I succumbed to the Bubba Gump chain of restaurants for lunch and had my first Po’ boy of this trip – a battered, deep fried shrimp one. I should have taken a pass. Well, that’s checked off my list and don’t need to do that again. But it was a beautiful day and I got to watch the boats come and go from my window seat overlooking the channel from the Gulf into the marina.

Galveston Island, TX

Yes, I was humming the famous Glen Campbell song (apologies to those of you too young or too old to remember Glen) driving up Galveston island.

It was an interesting day of driving yesterday because as you can see from the map, I took primarily secondary roads travelling close to the Gulf the whole way. I got to see some of the countryside and I went through some small towns along the way and it really drove home that Texas is a resource state. All along the way, I saw refineries or shipping/loading facilities either in use or under construction. And from the look of all the construction, things are booming here at the moment. Projects underway before the cost of a barrel went south, no doubt.

I arrived onto Galveston Island from the south over the toll bridge along the Blue Water Parkway. Once I’d hit the coast just before heading on to the island, the method of design of the homes instantly made you realize you were in hurricane territory. Everything is built on stilts or on berms or hills. It was a beautiful drive along the beach all the way up to my RV Park near the south end of the island.

Galveston Island RV Park is one of the newest and nicest Park’s I’ve been in, more than making up for the previous night. The shower/washrooms were some of the best I’ve experienced and the cement pads were ample for the hugest rigs making my little house look even more dwarfed than usual.

After I set up, I headed along the seawall drive for my orientation cruise, and to get something to eat, a late lunch once again. Had a great steak at one of the many restaurants along the beach. As I was heading home and after an overcast and windy day, the sun came through the clouds just as the sun was setting producing a glorious sunset.

Today, I spent the morning doing some trip planning at my friendly neighbourhood Starbucks, without which I wouldn’t have been able to survive this trip, BTW. Then I was off to explore a couple of the historic homes here in Galveston. These two both survived the 1900 Hurricane which levelled much of Galveston and killed over 6000 people. They also survived Hurricane Ike, in 2008.

The first is the Moody Mansion, built in 1895 for Mrs Narcissa Willis, was interior designed by Pottier & Stymus who had just completed the White House. Colonel W. J. Moody who grew his financial empire originally from cotton, and eventually expanding into financial and land development, bought it for his wife, Libby when it came on the market. The docent told us that Col Moody didn’t really want to buy the house, but his wife wanted it so he put in a really low bid. After the bid had been submitted, the hurricane struck and the home was left in a sea of devastation around it. Now the amount he bid, $20,000, was a terrific bid, and he went ahead and bought it anyway because there was little damage to the structure or upper floors. We couldn’t take pictures inside, so I can’t show you, but Colonel Moody’s daughter Mary Moody Northern had the home restored to it’s former glory and the family allows the building to be shown to the public.

The second home I saw was Bishop’s Palace. I have to admit to not really paying attention to the history too well, but it started as a private home, to someone named Walter Grisham (I didn’t think to ask if he was any relation to John!), and then was sold to a church Bishop and so it gained the nickname Bishop’s Palace.

Then it was off for an early dinner on the pier in the old historic town. Beautiful shrimp in light parmesan batter with a light tomato sauce and angle hair pasta. Yum.

Surfside Beach, TX

Freeport, TX

West Columbia, TX

Bay City, TX

Blessing, TX

Palacios, TX