Touring Galveston March 5

Another high wind advisory was all over the news for today, but after a blustery overnight, (when we decided to put the slides in on the RV in to protect them), things calmed down, and the day turned out pretty nice. We Jeeped our way back to Galveston, and spent the day, investigating what it had to offer. We spent some time on the sea wall, which is 11 miles long, learning about the hurricane of 1900, which caused it to be built. We also learned more about the crazy damage that was done by Ike in 2008. We then went to the historic area, which is on the bay side, away from the Gulf. We hit the Nestles chocolate store for lunch, and went to the Storm Theater to see a movie about the 1900 hurricane, but it was closed until further notice because the projector was broken! We then decided to walk along the docks on the bay, and tour an oil rig museum. It was a real rig that had been retired, and opened as a museum. It was educational, and we had some fun dressing up like oil rig workers. We then walked around the historic district, window shopping, reading historical markers, checking out the high water marks on buildings from Ike, and looking at cannonball damage on a building from the War of Northern Aggression, as they call it below the Mason Dixon Line. As the day wound down, we took a self guided driving tour of many of the carvings that were done from tree stumps remaining from Ike. Salt water damage slowly killed many of the live oak trees, and the residents of Galveston, at their own expense, hired chain saw artists to create these great, creative carvings out of the stumps, rather than tear them out of their yards. Thus they created memorials of Ike, plus art, out of otherwise dead trees. Pretty cool.
The entire Historic Downtown Galveston, as well as the Gulf Seawall area, were stocking up and preparing for spring break, which was advertised as being from March 9 to the 17. Many of the stores and restaurant/bars, looked big enough to handle a pretty big party scene, but today it was a pretty quiet. There was a lot of construction and remodeling work going on, presumably a combination of recovery work from Ike, and standard off season remodeling.

Mike on the jetty - you can't really tell how angry the Gulf was.

On jetty looking at Galveston

Lunch at Nestle's Cafe

Along the bay, looking toward the oil rig museum

Looking across the bay where they were working on ships.

Ocean Star - the oil rig museum

Just working on the oil rig....

I'm coming out of retirement....

Mike too.....

Looking up at the tower on the oil rig

Drill

Model of one type of ocean oil rig

Another type

And yet another type!

Some of Mike's buddies!  These are brown pelicans

It was so windy, they would just snuggle down low and ride it out!

This is a white pelican - they come south for the winter!

Looking at the bay

This was on the wall of a small building on the bay side - it also had a plaque that said it was a survivor of the 1900 Galveston hurricane!

And now you can really see how high the water came up!

Pirate museum

Tree stump carved to look like a squirrel

Two great herons

And this one was on a school playground.  The figures on the top were from children's stories. What a great way to "recycle" dead trees!