Galveston Island is 32 miles long with sandy beach access everywhere. In the heart of the island, along the seawall, there are lots of restaurants and beach bars where you can watch all the people enjoying the beach. Of course seafood is highlighted in most of the restaurants along the beach, and we definitely took advantage of that. There is also an amusement park out over the water called Pleasure Pier. They have roller coasters, a big Ferris wheel, a bunch of other rides and restaurants all out over the “Gulf of America”.
Before we travel to someplace we’ve never been, we always check out the local food and recommendations. Since we were in Texas, we had to find a good BBQ joint. Queen’s BBQ was highly recommended and for good reasons. The inside was decorated with old signs, corrugated tin on the walls and a great smoky smell in the air, everything you’d expect at a good BBQ joint. We both had the brisket, which was melt in your mouth tender, plus they also had a great peach cobbler. Now that BBQ was out of the way it was time to check out the local seafood. We went to quite a few restaurants and bars where we had gumbo, oysters on the half shell, crab and lots of shrimp. One day we opted to give some Tex-Mex a try. After a couple ice-cold Modelo’s, the bartender highly recommended that we try the chili relleno. It was a huge poblano chile pepper, over stuffed with shrimp, dripping with cheese, covered with a green chili sauce and was delicious. I wish we had more time there to check out more of the great food in the area, but we’ll save that for next time.
One of the days we decided to take a tour on a duck (DUKW) boat. A duck boat is an amphibious vessel built during WW2 that drives on land and then goes into the water just like a boat. We toured around the island learning about all the vast history of Galveston. How the hurricane in 1900 was the worst natural disaster in US history, how they raised the entire island 10 to 17 feet, plus a lot of military history. There are a lot of big mansions, Victorian homes and unlimited ghost stories to go along with everything. After all, it is considered the most haunted city in the US.
After a tour and history lesson around town, we headed towards the water and drove right in for a tour of the bay. The duck boat only does about 7 knots on the water, which was just perfect. I was thinking how much fun it would be to have one of these down in Belize.
I don’t really have a bucket list, but there was one thing that I’ve always wanted to do. That was to ride in an open cockpit biplane. Well, that got checked off, because Scallywag Air in Galveston offered that thrill.
We met with our pilot (a 30 year old female) and prepared for a 20 minute flight over the island. Kelley and I (Yes Kelley) climbed into the front seat of the cockpit only a few feet behind the prop and away we went. It was an exhilarating ride, flying that high above everything in an open cockpit plane with the wind in your face and enjoying every sharp turn she made. Sarah, our pilot, truly loves her job, and in my opinion is the best job anyone could have. If you are ever in Galveston, I highly recommend looking up Scallywag Air and booking a flight with Sarah.
In our opinion Galveston Island was a great place to visit and we will be going back again on one of our stops in Texas. There are a lot of Airbnbs right on the beach, so next time maybe we’ll rent one of them instead of a hotel. With all the great history, ghost tours, attractions, beaches and great food, it’s worth going back to. Besides that, it’s only a 45 minute drive from Houston Hobby airport.
After a great time in Galveston we continued on to Arizona to see the grandkids. Our neighbor Amanda caught up with us in Arizona for a week in the hot sun. A few of the days the temperature was up around 115° so we ended up spending a lot of time in the pool with the kids, and of course some cold adult beverages
Most days started out working in their shop on some of their classic cars. This trip, the ’48 International pickup and the ’65 Lincoln got most of the attention. But there was still time to put a new electronic distributor in the convertible Nova and I managed to get the carburetor rebuilt on my Yamaha. We always spend a lot of time in Arizona working on stuff in their shop, and we love it!
Since Amanda hasn’t really seen a lot of Arizona, we decided to head up to Canyon Lake for the day and show her that there really are lakes in Arizona. Canyon Lake is the 3rd and smallest of the four lakes on the Salt River. It’s a pretty good-sized lake that covers around 950 acres and has a shoreline of 30 miles. After checking out the lake we headed over to Tortilla Flat in the Superstition Mountains to grab some lunch.
Tortilla Flat is an old west town with a general store, bar and a good restaurant. Inside the restaurant the walls are papered with dollar bills, they estimate that there is around $700,000 in bills tacked on the walls. The bar stools are saddles, there are lots of animal mounts on the walls, they have great food and they also make their own root beer. Tortilla Flat is the last surviving stagecoach stop along the Apache Trail. It’s also the smallest community in Arizona (population 6) with a US Post Office.
We had a great time in Galveston and Arizona and are looking forward to our next trip.
…Okay, here’s a couple of back stories from our trip.
The biplane was quite a challenge for me to get into. There was only about a foot clearance between the wing and the cockpit. But I was determined to get into that seat no matter how long it took me. The pilot told us that she calls this “airplane yoga” and it is quite common. Anyway, I did make it into that seat and getting out was just as much of a challenge.
After that plane ride we headed back to Houston to catch our flight over to Arizona. Well, that’s when the big storm came through Texas and delayed all flights. We were at the Houston airport for 9 hours before we managed to get on a plane headed to Arizona.
The kids recently had their pool redone, complete with a waterfall and slide. Us being young at heart, Kelley and I both had to try out the new water slide.
Kelley went down the slide very gracefully like a pro. Me on the other hand thought I would hold my arms up like I do on a roller coaster. As soon as I started down the slide, my body just laid down flat and I came off the slide very horizontal. Next time I won’t raise my arms so high.
On our way back to Belize there was another incident at the Houston airport. It seems that an engine on a plane caught fire after takeoff and had to return to the airport. Everything was okay, but inside the airport the fire alarm was going off for a good 20 minutes. There was a very loud siren, flashing lights and an announcement every 10 seconds to exit the building. It’s amazing that most people just ignored the alarm and just sat there or kept walking towards their gates, sitting at the bar or eating their meals like nothing was happening. These are not the people I want in the emergency exit rows on my plane.