Monday May 13 2024

 Monday May 13^th

Our first full day at Galveston Island State Park. For those that don’t know, Galveston was built on a barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico, just south of Huston. At the turn of the 20th century, it boasted the second most millionaires of any city in the US. In the fall of 1900 Galveston suffered the strongest hurricane and the worst natural disaster ever recorded in US history with a lose of life between 9,000 and 16,000. It never regained its pre hurricane status.

Modern Galveston is still susceptible to hurricanes, but the buildings are designed to handle the storms that often hit the gulf coast. What they can’t protect against is rising sea levels. Galveston is only a few feet above sea level, so who knows what it will look like in 50 rising sea level predictions prove true.

Lydia and I started our day with a run on the beach. We did an out and back and stayed mostly within park boundaries. The state park is approximately 5 km wide and is really the only undeveloped area on the island. Thankfully the state set aside this parcel of land for all to enjoy otherwise the island would be one long stretch of uninterrupted housing and commercial development. The other thing we liked was the way all development along the beach is across the road from the beach. This gives everyone easy beach access all along the strip, very accessible.

After the run we were very sweaty… 100 percent humidity and close to 30 degrees Celsius. We showered and then hung out in the trailer with the A/C on full until it was time for yoga which we had booked at a studio in town. On the way to town Lydia reviewed the confirmation email from the studio and realized that we were 1 hour late for class – oh no! We continued to the studio and were able to rebook for the next day, so all good. We for a coffee at a great shop called Mod Coffee – great drinks and banana bread.

Afterwards, we decided to drive out to the western tip of the island to have a look around. Like many beaches in the US, this segment of beach was drivable. There were only a few other trucks on the beach, a few surf fishermen and others just hangin’. We took a short walk but before we got too far the sky turned dark to the north of us… very dark. We did a quick one eighty and picked up the pace back to the truck. The sky looked ominous.

When we arrived back at camp it was raining hard and blowing harder and we were hoping it would not turn into hail! We checked the radar and didn’t look good! We packed away the chairs, lowered the BBQ and battened down the hatches. Soon the rain was pelting down, thunder and lightning non stop and howling winds. They were so strong the trailer was shaking, and we were hoping this wasn’t a one way trip to Kansas!

With all the rocking and rolling we were doing, the stabilizer jack pads came loose and floated away, so then the trailer was really unstable. I donned my rain jacket and went out to put them back and re chalked the wheels – that improved things. Soon the worst was over and there was no hail – so all was well. Several tents however were flattened.

After the storm we had an early supper, then headed into Galveston and went out to the movies. We watched Civil War, a new dystopian modern-day civil war movie, something to calm us down after the storm!

On the beach San Luis

Nice stroll

Uh-oh...