February 1, 2005

February 1, 2005

Galveston to Palacios / Matagorda Bay, Texas

DAY 228

 

Another unpleasant, cold, windy day of rain. Tomorrow should be the same, then improvement.

We decided this morning to explore down back roads along the Gulf Coast, heading south. We left Galveston Island State Park and headed south on San Luis Pass Road towards, of course, San Luis Pass. We crossed the toll bridge over San Luis Pass onto the next island, Folletts Island, and followed the road along the beach until reaching the town of Surfside Beach, where we turned inland onto Hwy. 332. I don't know why, but the beaches / shore lines along Galveston Island and Folletts Island are much less developed than any other Gulf Of Mexico coast we've been at, in Florida and Alabama, despite the proximity of Galveston Island and Folletts Island to Houston. We travelled northwest on Hwy. 332 for a short time, then got lost searching for Hwy. 36. We stopped for lunch in a shopping mall parking lot in Lake Jackson. We stopped in a mall with a Petco, because we had never shopped in a Petco before. Petco is a large U.S. based chain of pet food and supply stores, on a par with PetsMart. We bought Teddy some Lap Happy, Bo some Greenies, and some training size little dog biscuits for both of them. Stupid cat now loves dog biscuits. Eventually we found our way to Hwy. 36, and continued northwest for a short time on Hwy. 36 to Hwy. 35. Southwest ( finally ) on Hwy. 35 to Van Vleck for diesel, then on to the town of Palacios on Matagorda Bay.

We have stopped for tonight at Bay Side RV Park on the outskirts of the town of Palacios on Matagorda Bay on the Gulf Of Mexico. We chose this park from our Passport America campground book, because the directions indicated that it was on the waterfront, behind the shrimping boats. We've never seen shrimping boats before. Well ... sure enough, we're parked on the Matagorda Bay waterfront, behind the shrimping boats. After getting registered and parked in our site, we walked down to the dock, and along the dock looking at shrimping boats. Joanne slipped and fell on the wet, slippery wood dock, and twisted her knee. All along the dock, there were ropes tied to the dock rail, hanging into the water. I wanted to see what was on the end of the ropes, so I pulled one up. WOW ! A crab trap. With 2 crabs inside. Are they ever interesting little creatures. Bright blue colouring on their claws. Eyeballs on little stalks that stick out of their head, and move around. We walked along the dock, me pulling up crab traps every so often to look at the different sizes and colouring of the trapped crabs. There were also oysters in the crab traps. I don't know if they were "trapped", or if they were in there as bait to catch the crabs.

This park has a pot luck dinner every Tuesday at 6:30, so instead of cooking supper tonight, we grabbed the dessert Joanne made last night, and went to the pot luck dinner. It was a wonderful dinner. We sat at a table with two ladies who were in the motorhome parked next to us. One was from West Virginia, and one was from Missouri. They each have a motorhome, but this winter are travelling together in the West Virginian lady's rig, for companionship. Apparently many of the RV Parks down here have a lot of these kinds of social activities, like pot luck dinners, because so many of the people in the parks stay for the season. We thought it was only the Escapees parks that have such a busy social calendar. It's unfortunate that we won't be here for a few more days. They have a casino junket. For $25, a bus ride to the casino, a room overnight, buffet breakfast, an $8 meal voucher, and $15 worth of casino chips. Pretty good value for 25 bucks ! The casinos down here seem quite motivated to get us RV'ers to their gaming tables. There was a similar casino junket from Rainbow Plantation in Alabama just after we left.

This park has a cable TV connection for each rig. This was the first time we’ve hooked Harvey up to a cable TV connection. We watched Amazing Race with a perfect picture. A nice change from the snowy picture we've had with just the roof top antenna, in Livingston. The 10:00 P.M. news has just started on TV. Tonight’s lead story is about one of today’s murders. We’ve been watching the TV news on Houston stations most nights for the last 6 weeks. Not a night goes by that there isn’t a murder in Houston. I kid you not ! The current story being reported, as I type this, is about a retail store employee who shot a customer who had shoplifted a cigar. God bless America ... and its constitutional right to bear arms ! HA HA HA ... I have to report on the next story. A man has been arrested for beating his elderly mother to death, after she flushed his marijuana down the toilet. Way to go, Mom ! Sorry ... I know that's macabre, but it struck me as funny.

DSK