Day 5 Galveston

I began writing this as we sat around a fire pit outside the hotel looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. In contrast to yesterday, today has been one of those days that make it clear why, despise the the awful smells, farmyard noises and natural disasters that tend to accompany us, these trips are so amazing. 

First of all I want to thank everyone who has commented on the blog. Because of the necessity to eat, drink and get horribly drunk every stopover it isn’t really possible to reply to every comment, so in fairness I’ve decided not to reply to any. But your comments are really appreciated if only to confirm that someone is actually reading this stuff. 

We woke to dark clouds at about 6.30 but as the morning went on the sky cleared and the sun appeared. When we set off about 9.45 it was reasonably sunny and dry.  We took the I-10 southbound and crossed from Louisiana to Texas. I’d somehow expected some sudden transition between the two but of course they’re wasn’t and we found ourselves riding through the Texas bayous. 

At about 100 miles out we stopped at what described itself as a “safety” rest area. I assume this referred to safety from tiredness, as its leafy environs appeared to harbour just about every venomous animal and plant one would hope not to meet.

We were also accosted by a passing lady, who assumed we were Canadians because we were riding “thin bikes like the Canadians have”. She then proceeded to lecture us on all the must-see sights within a 3000 mile radius of where we stood. Having asssured her that if we did reach Alaska on this trip we would most assuredly give the Trans-Alaska Highway our attention, we got back on the road. We followed the I-10 until we turned off onto TX -146 just before Houston. The trip wasn’t particularly eventful apart from a small detour around a car crash on a junction. Fortunately no-one seemed to have been badly hurt although I imagine some cold-eyed lawyer somewhere is smiling a bit more broadly today. 

Our route to Galveston took us along the coast but rather than pretty little fishing villages and awe-inspiring views of the Gulf of Mexico as we had fondly imagined, we found ourselves riding through oil refineries almost the whole way. Galveston, which is on an island, however made up for all that. It was warm and sunny when we arrived and the hotel looks out over the Gulf. Having unloaded the bikes we took a stroll along Seawall Boulevard looking for food and drink. The road follows the sea wall was built following a devastating tornado early last century which killed several thousand people and destroyed most of the town. We decided to turn away from the sea and walked towards what the signs described as “Historic Downtown” in the hope that, leaving “Historic” aside the “Downtown” bit might provide bars and restaurants. That was beginning to look like a forlorn hope until we were hailed by a jolly middle-aged couple in a golf buggy who asked us if we were OK. After a brief conversation we found ourselves bundled onto the back of the buggy and carried off to the Bryan Museum which we had walked past earlier. It seems that the museum has a regular event every Thursday at 4pm featuring food, drink and live music. We got there at 3.45 and a volunteer very kindly gave us a fascinating, 15 minute, whistlestop  tour of  the magnificent building which was formerly an orphanage and now houses a museum of Texan history. However too much history can give a chap a terrible thirst and what was on offer at the museum didn’t look too impressive so we abandoned our new-found friends and walked further downtown where we found bars in abundance, although most of them were closed! Fortunately we found one that was open and quaffed several pints of the local brew before walking across the the restaurant over the road where we ate a very agreeable meal (although later discovering to our horror that we had just spent $45 on a bottle of wine!). 

Part way through the meal we suddenly realised that our golf buggy aquaintances had also come in and were sitting at the bar. Fortunately there were no hard feelings about us sneaking off from the museum and we spent a happy few minutes chatting to them before catching a taxi back to the hotel.

It will be a wrench to leave Galveston and head inland, particularly with the prospect of a 290 mile ride ahead of us. The booking for the next stop was made while Mark was, how can I put it, rather well lubricated and when I asked him what it is called, it is either “Fuctifino” or possibly “Marlin”. No doubt we’ll find out later!