After a ‘sorta’ month in Houston, we were hoping for a bit of a reprieve from city slicking. We headed to Galveston, TX, just a bit more than an hour south of Houston by car. Or more like 2ish hours by Dyna (life in the slow lane).
We got that bit of reprieve. In mid January, the beaches of Galveston are empty of people, free from most litter, and the brown water laps up onto the sorta smelly sand ceaselessly. We stayed at Galveston Island State Park, first for a week on the ‘bayside’ and then for a few extra days on the ‘beachside.’ Maybe we just wanted a few extra days of walking through extra large puddles to get out of the rig every time it rained. Or maybe we secretly liked brown water with evidence of oil bubbles upon touching the shore. I think we decided to stay because Galveston really is a cool place. It’s dotted with really beautiful, raised homes. There is plenty to do with a 4 year old on the island. It is very quiet in January. The sunsets and sunrises are amazing. The weather was a daily ‘I don’t know whether to wear shorts or pants’ and ‘it’ll probably rain, but we can’t be certain so we better pack a change of both shorts and pants’. And there is ample access to reasonably priced, fresh seafood; which we took full advantage of (ignoring the probability that it was tainted by slow oil leaks from the oil rigs you can almost always spot off shore). Also, we had repairs to make (bet you couldn’t guess that), and Galveston was as good a place as any to chill out for a bit and make them.
We spent our time in Galveston adjusting to having 3 extra living bodies living in the rig, playing on the beach, exploring downtown Galveston, learning ABCs, and as per usual, making repairs and adjustments to Dyna.
Our lube pump kit (the device that lets us flat tow the RedRammer) crapped out on us back before San Antonio, and Galveston gave Jake a bit of time to fix it. And by fix it, I mean reinstall it, as the initial install was done poorly and thus the pump’s monitor kept blowing fuses (which in turn means that the pump stopped working, potentially starving the poor RedRammer of the oil based nutrients he needs while be forcefully dragged behind Dyna). So, Jake and DavidMoon (with ‘help’ from Dexter) spent 2 days re-running and re-vamping the wiring from Dyna’s nose to her big butt.
Since re-running 40+ feet of wire under a motor home isn’t fun enough, Dyna also threw a water leak (which presented itself in the bathroom/bedroom area) our way. Because, extra fun.
I can’t speak for what Jake and DavidMoon did most days, as Dex and I were busy playing. We hit up the beach a bunch of times (which he thought was awesome, and I thought was overwhelmingly large and a bit dirty- I’m not a huge big bodies of water fan), played at the Galveston Children’s Museum, checked out an old submarine and warship, paid a bit too much money to play at ‘Pleasure Pier‘ and tested out nearly every playground on the island.
During our Galveston evenings, we sometimes explored and always had happy hour. I didn’t realize the importance of ‘happy hour’ until Dex came to stay with us. Children. They are the reason for happy hour. We even ventured out to a brew pub for happy hour in downtown Galveston one evening (Dex enjoyed a fine glass of apple juice).
We also finally got around to checking out Space Center Houston. Completely worth a look.
On our last morning in Galveston, two beautiful things happened. I’ll let you decided which we found ‘more beautiful’.
