Galveston ~ Day One

We had such a great couple days in Texas. 

It was fun to surprise Kris, who had NO idea where we were going until we were on our way to the airport. It was also great to celebrate 15 years with our feet in the sand. 

I love the beach so much. It was interesting to see the gulf in a different state. It was surprisingly different from Florida. The beach area in Galveston was pretty small and the town is protected by a very long sea wall. There were lots of birds but not very many shells.

We went exploring the night we arrived and found our favorite spot. Rocking chairs on the deck of a large store called Murdochs. You could sit and have a drink and watch the waves. The perfect spot. We ended up their every night we were in Galveston.

Our first day we went exploring on The Strand (a shopping/historic area) and on Pier 21. They have lots of amazing statues all over Galveston. The seagulls are psycho everywhere we went, so this statue was pretty fitting. I had a very similar moment like this guy on Wednesday.

We decided to go on a boat ride. We really had no idea where we were and what the area was all about, so when we heard it was $10 and we might we dolphins, we were IN.

They had a huge pirate-looking tall ship named the Elissa. Volunteer ship lovers take care of the ship and get to sail it on weekends in the bay.

There were a lot of old oil rigs that will be scrapped at some point on the boat ride. The boat captain was very informative and we learned a lot of interesting things about oil and all the boats that come through this area of Galveston.

Shrimping and fishing boats were so fun to see.

We went past a seafood market that is right on the water. One of the guys came out to show us this huge red snapper that just came in. 

We ended up having the same kind of fish for lunch. I never had snapper and it was SO good. 

My hope all along was to see a dolphin on this boat ride. As soon as our boat left the captain said they had seen tons of dolphins on an earlier ride and we ended up being just as lucky. We saw so many dolphin. I was honestly about in tears. There was even a baby with it's mom and they were trailing a shrimp boat and eating out of the nets behind the boats. Smart and so adorable. :)

Some of the boats were huge. I've never really seen anything like that before and it was pretty impressive to be next to them.

We wandered around the Strand after our boat ride and watched them make taffy in a Candy Store that seemed to be a pretty big deal in the area.

 A film crew was there taping for a travel show while we were there. This meant they kept throwing candy into the crowd, which I enjoyed very much. :)

We drove out to the other side of the island to see a fishing pier we had read about. There were only about 4 people fishing, but it was very pretty on the upper deck and they had music playing and we sat and enjoyed being alone.

We watched the pelicans fly in a line over the ocean and felt totally relaxed. Doesn't happen very often. We wondered why they fly in a line and not in a V? 

We never did visit this fancy pier with tons of rides because it just didn't seem worth the expensive price to enter the pier. It was beautiful at night all lit up and we enjoyed it just like that and went back to our rocking chairs at Murdoch's to enjoy the ocean.