Savoring Every Last Moment in Texas
We still don’t have the best internet connection but we haven’t done much to blog about anyway. We move to a new destination tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll have better internet and phone service. Barry has spent most of his work time at an area McDonalds. It’s a bit of a pain but the girls love taking turns to go with him. It kind of works well for me, too. I send one girl off with a bunch of schoolwork while I get to work with the other two.
On Monday, January 2, we drove back into Houston
to spend the day with our friend who lives there. We mostly spent the day at her apartment. Our girls have always liked to bead but she took them to a whole new level the last two weeks. They spent the day learning all kinds of new things. This is a perfect new hobby for them because it takes up so little room. Barry and I kept track of the bowl games in which we were interested (MSU won but WI lost). We also watched a couple of movies. It was great to just relax.
Yesterday, January 3, we started school again. It was so nice to walk down to the bay for our breaks.
This morning, January 4, started out a bit crazy. Barry was super busy with work while the girls and I had school. Fortunately, things calmed down after lunch because our friend had the afternoon off. We wanted to spend the rest of the day together. She wanted to take us back to Galveston to ride the free ferry over to Bolivar Peninsula. I’m so glad we did! We loved walking around the ferry on the 20 minute trip to the Peninsula. We saw a lot of birds and more dolphins! We also saw numerous freighters, oil tankers, and coast guard vessels. One large ship was carrying several blades for windmills. What a beautiful and interesting trip!
Once on Bolivar Peninsula, we drove around for awhile. Nearly all the homes are on stilts. Even the elementary school was built on stilts. Its very curious to us that people would choose to live in a place that floods so often, endures many tropical storms and even hurricanes. The view of the gulf they have, though, it so beautiful.
After taking the ferry back to Galveston, we drove to Texas City. Our friend had been told that we could find better shells there. The place we stopped at had still not been redeveloped from the hurricane but we did find a lot of really neat shells. The algae growing on the rocks make them look like big, furry Muppets just sitting along the shore. Before saying goodbye, we stopped to get a bite to eat at Gringos. Oh my!!! What great food. We had more than a bite!!
Barry still had some loose ends to tie up on our way to Galveston so I drove. I commented to him a couple of times how often and quickly the speed limit changed. I found myself speeding a few times. I also noticed that the speed limits in construction zones were very inconsistent. One our way home, Barry drove. We came off a road that was 55 mph when it suddenly turned to 40 mph just as we passed a police officer. Barry knew he was going to get it. Sure enough, the lights went on and we pulled into a business with all the necessary paperwork ready. The police officer was incredibly nice. He had seen we were from out of state and just wanted to warn us to slow down. We really haven’t dealt with a kinder police officer. When he heard about our trip, he wanted to talk more about that than the stop.
Tomorrow we leave this magnificent state! We’ve seen so many things and learned so much. Thank you Texas for such a wonderful time!