This morning I got up at my normal "before everyone else" time and decided I was going on a quest. I set out on the beach ignoring every literary impulse to not go out on the beach because - in literature - beaches are where dead bodies wash up, are found, are made.......and I found what I was looking for and added it to my shell collection. I found some other things too. I hung out with the birds to see how close they would allow themselves to get to me before flying off. I took a close up of a plastic bottle covered with barnacles that had washed up on the beach. Those little guys never give up. I made it back into the house by 8:00 a.m. having already had a grand adventure.
It's our last day in Galveston. We aren't going to waste it. We headed out first thing in the morning to Moody Gardens - a local resort hotel with several attractions geared toward the younger set. Here, though, is the problem with traveling "off season" - sometimes you run into hiccups. And there were several at this resort. The ropes course and zip line are only open on Saturday and Sunday, the aquarium is closed until May for a massive renovation, and the rainforest - which on the website said would be back open today - was still closed for unforeseen difficulties in the tree maintenance scheduled for earlier in the week (and the reason we waited until today to show up).
So. We saw what we could of the rainforest - which included some pretty sweet looking frogs (some of the best and prettiest examples of poison dart frogs I've ever seen), an Amazon river otter (awesome - could have watched her all day), several different types of geckos, these HUGE Madagascar giant jumping rats, and a crazy big, leafcutter ant farm that made us all itchy. After that, we headed to the museum to check out a pretty cool display of 14 steel, interactive dinosaur puppets welded by artist John Payne. We were overrun by a grade school class of kids on a field trip - but the sculptures were worth being patient with the children and sharing the levers and controls. After that we sailed for an hour around the Harbor on the paddleboat Colonel. Don't recommend that one - it really was the only disappointment of the day.At this time I would like to state for the record that Mom IS the best navigator in the family. I did happen to spectacularly win - by a full 60 seconds - the "which way is the quickest way back to the car" contest. I don't know why they even try...
After piling in the vehicle, we traveled a very short distance to a quick highlight which was well worth the $10 admission fee. We also realized this is another one of our "standards" on vacation - the Galveston Lone Star Flight museum. The museum, which is basically a huge complex of hangers, has one of the largest collection of WWII airplanes that are still flyable. Most have been restored and painted to resemble famous planes that fought in the war. We saw, among other things, the Thunderbird - a B17 Flying Fortress (super cool), biplanes, a Cobra Gunship, the Scout Bomber Douglas (SBD) Dauntless, and an impressive display of nose art. These airplanes are pretty, folks - worth seeing if you are into that sort of thing.
After that, we had some final shopping to do in the Strand and then to Walmart for Texas fishing licenses. It was time to fish on the Galveston pier. We bought some squid in the bait shop where we purchased our pier pass. And then we headed out to the pier to see what the boys could catch. Within 20 minutes - nature boy had hauled in 3 good sized catfish. He was making the groups around us feel a little inadequate. After reeling in 3 in a row, he was done, too easy he said.
His brother, who has other talents, caught some sea grass and lost his bait a couple of times but nothing else. He did get some excellent lessons and quality time from big brother - so that's a win. While we were there, I made friends with a Border Collie/Rottweiler cross tied to the pier. Sweet, sweet dog. Some of nature boy's luck rubbed off on the dog's owner while I was petting the dog. He hauled about a 10 pound catfish which was very exciting. Meanwhile, Sam did the pier rounds shaking hands and chatting up the locals. When he is fishing, he is definitely in his element. We stayed about an hour and a half and enjoyed ourselves immensely.We headed down the road for dinner at Joes Crab Shack. Then it was back home to the beach. This was the longest - and according to Sam - the best day we've had. Success.
