Thorpeland Photography

A Room With a View

I just got home and cleaned up from an awesome road trip to the beaches of Galveston Texas! Good friend Cheryl has been accepted to medical school and needed to find an apartment in the Texas coastal city, four of us (cheryl, mike, emily and myself) loaded up our bags and took the 5 hour drive to help her find a place to live come August. The drive down wasn't too bad at all. I was picked up at my apartment by Mike and Emily, then the three of us proceeded to into Dallas to pick up Cheryl at her work. From there it was onto highway 45 South, bound for Houston. After a couple stops for food and to refuel, we hit Houston around 11pm. The excitement begin to build, knowing Galveston was just under an hour away. Sure enough, just before midnight we rolled up to our hotel, the Victorian, located right across the street from the beach. It was a very cool feeling to step out of the car and smell the ocean and hear the waves crashing on the beach! We took our bags up to the room and got settled. The Victorian was the type of hotel room that has a full kitchen, so we decided we'd better get some food for the next couple days. Lucky for us, Walmart was right next door. So, even though we were tired, we headed out on a short walk to Walmart. Thirty minutes later, we're on our way back with good stuff in hand. Everyone crashed pretty quick once we were back in the room. Exahaustion was catching up! Saturday was going to be a big day. Falling asleep though, wasnt so easy for me. My assigned bedding would be the fold out couch in the hotel living room. Sometimes you get lucky and they are comfy. Not this one. My head and legs were facing downhill, and my back elevated up about 6 inches. I joked with the others saying I didnt actually fall asleep Friday night, I passed out because of the lack of blood flowing to my head. LOL I eventually got comfortable and fell asleep.

Saturday morning came and the sun woke me up as it shined in our sliding porch windows. As I got up I noticed Mike and Cheryl had not left yet to go apartment hunting. They were just too tired to get out of there by 8am. It was now 10am and we were all just getting going. I walk out on to the porch to see our room overlooks not only the pool and courtyard of the hotel, but a nice view of the ocean. We were on the 3rd floor, so I can see probably about 10 miles out to sea. I find myself mezmerized by the distant oil drilling platforms barely visible on the horizon. Are they starring back at land, wondering the same? Ha! Anyhow, we all eat breakfast (cereal from Walmart), then Cheryl and Mike head out to look at apartments. Emily and I now have a few hours to kill while they are out, so we decide to get cleaned up and head down to the beach. Now, for those who have never been to Galveston, the wind is a constant 30mph gust at all times it seems. Also being that it is still only May, the water was quite chilly. So we decided to go down in just shirt and shorts rather than swimsuits. When we got down to the beach, there actually were a lot of people swimming. Although, mostly kids... which will swim in the waters of the arctic circle if you let them. There were a lot of fishermen on the piers and others walking the beach just taking in the scenery. First thing I noticed was, unlike other beaches ive been to, the Galveston beaches have a lot of washed up seaweed. There were also a lot of Man-O-War jelly fish lying around. This is something Emily took an interest in. Each one we found, she would poke with a stick and step on until their big clear air sack, popped. Not so mean i suppose. They are already washed up and doomed, why not finish the little poison buggers off? LOL We walked the beach for about a mile. Then got a call from Mike and Cheryl saying they were on their way back. Turns out they had'nt had much luck apartment hunting. Or at least finding what they were looking for. From there we ventured down into the tourist distric of Galveston called "The Strand". Its full of open doored shops, horse carriage rides and things to do. It was a lot of fun!

With the evening coming up on us and everyone getting hungry, we decided on a Mexican food place called Tortuga, located across the street from the beach. Good food! We left there stuffed and decided to find a bar, or somewhere to hang out. We stopped at a place, which i cant remember the name of. It was alright, but we were practically the only ones there. Slow night? We had some drinks and left. We decided to walk the beach sidewalk and look thru some of the stores still open. One we came across was very cool. They sold all kinds of coastal city type souveniers, like giant shells, hermit crabs, full shark jaws, etc. It was very intersting. We got back to the hotel close to 1am. We were beat from all the walking, and decided to crash and prepare for our last day.

Everyone got up really early on Sunday, I think it was at least 9am. We cleaned the room and gathered our stuff. Checkout was at 11am, so we couldnt be too lazy. We ate our cereal breakfast and headed down for checkout. Of course, on our last day there, it was perfectly sunny and warm. The wind was still whipping, but it was more bearable. As we headed out of town, we decided to make one more beach stop. We took more pictures and took in the sights, then it was time to start our long drive home.

Nothing too eventful during the drive. It was a slow 5.5 hours. I wish I had more time to spend in Galveston. There is more I would have liked to done. I will definatly go back when Mike and Cheryl move there in August. Hey, there's nothing better than having someone to stay with at a great vacation spot! Perhaps I'll just fly down next time though. Haha! Check my site soon for pictures!