Downtown Galveston: great edifices

A very impressive, tall sculpture (I only could do part of it any kind of justice) in the middle of an intersection. The birds invited themselves onto the sculpture and into the photo...

Beautiful buildings. Amazing architecture.

Downtown Galveston: the "old city cemetary"

Some of you already know how into cemetaries I am! They are interesting places, and some of them are really neat, photographically speaking. My great aunt Emily - who made it to almost 92 - used to have me take her to various cemetaries, to visit her friends and family... I think it was with her that I became so comfortable with being in such places.

Galveston's main cemetary was divided into two parts - I preferred the older section.

Some of the tombstones are so amazing and beautiful.

"Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime bid me good-morning."

These are also good places to remember what gifts/people we need to constantly re-appreciate. As my grandpa (Auntie Em's brother) used to say (and probably a lot of other people have said it as well...!), "the only guarantee in life is change."
Nothing, and nobody, lasts forever...

The memorials for babies and youngsters are especially sad.

Spoonbill sighting!

So here's that view again - only there's on thing different. See that little teeny light pink thing in the water, in front of and to the right of the post?

That cute little thing is this! A roseate spoonbill! I was so surprised to find one right there, at our RV park!!! It was such a treat to see (I'd never seen one before but had heard the name)! And it was so funny too! One of the things that caught my eye were the crazy, rapid back and forth movements it was making with its long bill in the water. All I could think was, that's no "normal" bird! I would get to see more of them, but not till Florida.

Bill's new toy

Bill finally got to take his new radio-controlled sailboat for a spin! This RV park had a nice big pond, and there was just the right amount of wind on this day.

Scratty, normally The Bag Lady,

investigates the box it was shipped in.

Tractor helps his daddy assemble it.

Two kitties, boxing.

As usual, Bill and his hobbies are an attention magnet!

And go gators!!!

Our next stop was the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). A bit disappointing because of the cloudy weather and lack of birds, one element made the long drive worthwhile nonetheless - my new favorite - alligators!

The NWR had a loop drive that followed alongside mud-lined canals. You never knew where you might see a gator! It was like a more exciting Easter egg hunt!! And for those of you who know how much I love Easter egg hunts - well, I was in my element!

Most of the gators were pretty small (probably around 3 ft long), but we did see this one dude, who was probably more like 5-6 feet. This guy was right out in the open, relatively speaking, but most of them were more hidden/camouflaged.

And after a full afternoon of gator hunting, we took another ferry back home. It was a fairly long wait for our ferry to come get us, but we had a very colorful sunset to enjoy meanwhile!

Just ferries passing in the night...

The San Jacinto Monument

The monument was as cool as Billy remembered it.

Texas has an amazing history indeed. For more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jacinto_Monument


A great mural on an oil storage tank, enroute to the monument.

The base of the monument.

Billy revisits.

One of the inscriptions on the base walls. A crucial part of our American history.

You can take an elevator up to the top, just below the star.

Quite the view from up there!

The whole shebang.

Once again...The Lone Star.

A voice from the past... (from a memorial graveyard near the monument)

We took a ferry to the next destination - always fun (although often a very slow process!!!)

A sight to sea!

Go Galveston!

This was the view out of our front windshield at the Galveston Bay RV Park from March 22 to 28. Very nice! We were also happy that it was much less windy here than at Portland.

The kitties got a little biking in.

And here's Tracky doing a "window walk" while we were still enroute to the RV park.

More coming!