We woke up rather early this morning, and I was getting ready to go run (on the beach!) when we hit a little snag: we were locked in! The gate on Polly and Steve’s driveway was locked and we had no idea where the key or switch was. So we did our computer work FIRST and tried to be very quiet, so Polly and Steve could get some more sleep. When I heard Polly stir around 8, I asked about the key, but she mercilessly woke up Steve to get it from him (the way only a long-time significant other would feel comfortable doing–these two have been together since college days; I met them when Bruce and I were in grad school in Houston).
Then Mark and I were off to the beach. I ran a little ways down the Galveston seawall promenade (allegedly the world’s longest continuous sidewalk) and then back to where Mark had wandered on to in the meantime with his camera, a cluster of palm trees with a couple of historical info displays and some tables in much-needed shade. But it was already in the mid-80s and Houston-level humid, so I ran less than 2 miles. We probably walked another 2, along the beach in fairly high tide, and then back to Steve and Polly’s, where we arrived around 10 or so. We sat on the porch with them and then also their daughter Lindsey for the next few hours, catching up and finding out about Lindsey’s view of the world–just a little bit older than Kati (born in 1993, I think) and a budding photographer who is currently living in the lower-level apartment under Steve and Polly’s house with her boyfriend, a graphic designer. I remember her as a baby, with her big sister Erin being about Jupiter’s age, 5 or 6. At some point along the way, Steve made us fabulous grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, and just around 1 pm, we went inside and I took a much-needed shower and we both rested a little–Mark actually took a real nap, but I just relaxed for a bit.
Then we took off and drove to the eastern part of the island to walk along the beach some more, away from the very urban strip of giant resorts and strip malls along the center of the Seawall. There are still some big condo developments at this end, but many points for public beach access and way fewer people than along the seawall closer to town. So that was a very enjoyable walk, and we were actually grateful that it was overcast. Just like yesterday, there were quite a lot of white-capped (if not especially large) waves, along with a refreshing breeze. But the humidity was still pretty high.
From this walk, we went to the historic district along the actual harbor (where ginormous cruise ships headed to the Caribbean often sit, waiting for the cruise to get started. It was interesting to see the older buildings, but nothing struck us as especially noteworthy–many of the little shops in the buildings from the 1890s do not look that different from those in other historic districts, and the only one that interested us–an ice cream shop–had such a long line for the ice cream that we gave up. None of these are directly at the waterfront, so they didn’t do much for us. We walked around for less than an hour, and then made our way to the west side of the island. Along the way, we stopped at a Sonic for some totally generic and corporate but still yummy ice cream. It had gotten hot and humid enough that we actually opted to have it in our (air-conditioned) car, the way you are supposed to have a Sonic meal–with the important distinction that this sonic had a line of diagonal car spots that looked out onto the ocean!
Then we went to another public beach access point, this time in a brand-new development where lots of houses were still unoccupied or being built, so we could actually see various stages of the process: Big 12+ foot stilts are built first, and then a LARGE 2-story house (sometimes plus an attic under the gabled roof) is built on top, in a fake-Victorian style and layout, with large porches or verandas and windows looking out to the sea (sometimes even with a turret with bay windows–just all kinds of variations on the “Victorian” theme). At the end, the area with the stilts become a car port and a shady veranda, with the idea that during a hurricane or flood, the water can just wash through that part and not damage the house. That is the main concern about any building in Galveston, given its history of being pummeled by hurricanes. Anyway, the development looked pretty absurd in all its fake Victorianness, but the beach behind the houses was just more beautiful beach (and not very crowded), and I finally got to in the water and splash around a little bit. As I remembered from a handful of trips long ago, the water was so shallow that I could only walk out to chest-high waves without getting into riptide territory, but the water temperature was perfect (later in the summer, it will be an unpleasant tepid bathwater feel, as I also recall). Glorious!
We got back to Polly and Steve’s about 6:30; I took a shower and we hung out in the bedroom for a little bit; at about 8 pm, we had a lovely dinner that Steve had cooked for us–leg of lamb cooked on the grill and a salad, plus some sweet potato fries. It was wonderful, even though we ate 20 feet apart (Polly and Steve in the kitchen and the two of us in the living room, as a Covid precaution) and talked across great distances, later again outside on the porch, as it had finally cooled off. Now it’s almost 11 pm and we are very tired! Not that we ran around as much and as fast as the little sandpipers, but still!
