[Previous]
[First]
The vacation to Galveston wasn't pretty. In reality, Galveston isn't exactly a "beach resort", the beach is separated from the main city due to a concrete seawall placed due to a devastating hurricane that destroyed the entire city, caused over 8,000 people to perish, and ultimately caused its similar-sized rival inland (Houston) to take advantage of an oil boom. The ultimate circumstances crippled Galveston into basically being a tourist town (a few universities remained) and allowed Houston to become insanely successful, becoming one the fourth largest city in America.
Back to the present, er, the past. Galveston in this particular September, was in its off season. This meant that the beaches weren't maintained, traffic was lighter, and homeless people hung out at street corners.
A few memories in no particular order:
- I read a copy of Popular Mechanics extensively. A review on it will be done later this year on TWR.
- One of the bums I remember was asleep, with only a warm 2-liter bottle of store brand cola as liquid sustenance. (a 12-ounce can for visual purposes)
Finally, we went to Pelican Island. It was full of surprises. First, there was an awesome raised stoplight: it has to be really seen to be believed.
View Larger Map
It was exciting for my inner roadgeek. Bonus points in that it was suspended over a rail yard in a swamp. And, if you count my more recent discoveries, it wasn't even built as a suspended stoplight. The east-west portion was completed in the late 1980s or early 1990s (between 1982 and 1995).
As we approached the bridge to Pelican Island, we could notice an actual railroad running alongside the road.
Sadly, much of it (especially leading up to the bridge) has been completely removed, even by 2005 some parts were missing. Still, it held up remarkably well. A switcher had been there up until 2003, and the railroad hadn't been really used for at least 15 years. By 1995 at least, the Island section had been dismantled.
During that time, we visited the ships at Seawolf Park, including the submarine Cavalla and the U.S.S. Stewart. Both ships were long since retired by the Navy (the very early 1970s) and were basically sunken into the ground. On the helm of the Stewart, we watched a cruise ship go by. The thing was huge. For size comparison:
We were standing on the helm and watching as thousands of cruise-goers stood on multiple levels (each well above us) and waving. We waved back. I think people tried to say hello, but it was lost in the wind. It must have been quite a sight for all of us...my family seeing a giant cruise ship with people crammed aboard (everyone must have been on deck...the cruise ship was departing) and so distant and tiny, or going off in a cruise and seeing one family waving from an old WWII destroyer escort.
The Cavalla was far my favorite. Thanks to the nice "submarine metal" smell, it really was cool. And we were the only people on the tour (if I recall). If I recover any pictures, I will share them.
Anyway, I returned with high hopes for, ironically enough, SimCity-related dreams (my brother watched Lost episodes) to share on a new SimCity website I joined. What was it? Come back tomorrow for The Spirit of 2005: Simtropolis and SimCity 4, of which I will try to make one of the longer TWR posts ever in terms of text.
I finished the Redwall book report, by the way.
Want to read more on my adventures in Galveston? Check out the 2008 "sequel" here!
0 comments:
Post a Comment