Galveston Island--Day 2

Well, as I mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, Day 2 of our little vacation started unnaturally early. Jed woke up, ready to play, and we decided it must be around 6:30, because that's around the time he normally gets up. We all trekked to the bathroom and then checked the time. It was 4:45! After wrestling around in the tent for a while, we finally gave up about 6:15 and ate breakfast.

As if to apologize for our early start, the sunrise was gorgeous.

After breakfast, we decided to take a long walk on the beach. It was fun to collect shells, watch the tiny clams sink back into the sand and look at the fabulous houses along the beach as we walked.

Just one of the many gorgeous beach houses
We saw a bunch of people walking their dogs and had a great time examining the trash that had washed up on the beach during the night.

Jed got in and out of the backpack since he still wasn't sure about the water. We could have just carried him, but we didn't want to get sandy that early in the morning.

I kept examining every plastic bag stuck on the beach to see if it was actually a jellyfish, and we saw a couple. This guy was the best one--the gulls had pretty much left him alone when we found him.

When we got tired of walking, we headed back to camp for Second Breakfast.

Jed had fun in the camp chairs and kept going from chair to chair as Dave or I would stand up to get something else to eat.

A big spider and a cricket got stranded in our sand bucket overnight and Jed had a good time watching them.

Dave and Jed giving big "cheese" faces

Watching Daddy do fish lips

"Hmmm, what else is in there?"

Once we were full from second breakfast, we headed over to the bay side of the Galveston Island State Park to check out the marshes and walk along the paths.

They have done a lot of marsh rejuvenation to help the original marsh grasses flourish and it was so interesting to see all the different plants that grow in the estuary. We were able to get up on an observation tower to check things out--it was gorgeous!

A Great Egret hiding in the grass

These are Roseate Spoonbills. They're pretty rare birds and I was SO excited to see them. I just about wet my pants, seriously. I know you can't see them terribly well, but if you go here you can check out what they look like up close.

While Dave and I were enthralled with the Spoonbills, Jed fell asleep. I'm attributing it to the early morning and not his lack of interest in my birds :) Poor guy, that does not look comfortable.

In a futile effort to help Jed sleep longer, we drove around the park for a while.

Another view of the bay side of Galveston Island.

We left the state park and decided to explore the island. We came to a little community called Jamaica Beach and had a great time looking at the houses. The street names in Jamaica Beach were hilarious--Henry Morgan Way, Davy Jones Lane, Captain Bligh Drive. I think the community stayed small because they ran out of pirates.

We loved that all the houses are on canals that hook up to the bay. How fun would it be to keep your boat under your house and just lower it down to go fishing?!

Like everywhere else, Jamaica Beach is still rebuilding after Hurricane Ike, but most of the houses look good.
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The best part of our day isn't on camera at all. Once we finished lunch, we donned our swimsuits and headed down to the beach to build sandcastles. Dave and I tried to get Jed to help us build a masterpiece for a while, then we gave up and knocked it down together. We buried Jed's feet, then his legs, then my legs. We tried to keep Jed from throwing sand in our faces and mostly succeeded. We got so sandy! The funniest part of the sandcastles was watching Jed be so intent about knocking them down. He would lean on them and jump with his little legs and pound the sand down. It was so cute.

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Because we were so sandy, we went in the water to rinse off and couldn't get Jed to leave! He would wade out into the surf and just keep going, deeper and deeper. It didn't phase him at all when a wave would knock him down--he'd just jump up and wait for the next one. We worked our way down the beach, splashing and playing and having the best time. I kept thinking of those jellyfish we'd seen that morning and was a little nervous, but we never saw one in the water. I was surprised at how salty the Gulf water is. The water on Midway wasn't nearly as salty, but when Gulf water gets in your eyes--ouch.

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Finally we convinced Jed to leave and we showered off at the camp bathrooms. It felt great to get into clean, dry clothes and get ready for dinner.

Dave and Jed cooked hot dogs while I got everything else ready. Jed is such a good helper!

Really enjoying that cookie

When we drove into town the day before, we saw the coolest looking mini-golf course. We thought it would be so much fun to watch Jed play mini-golf, so after we were done with dinner, we loaded ourselves into the Rodeo to hit the course. Poor Jed fell asleep before we made it to the mini-golf course, so we decided to just drive the Seawall Boulevard and watch the people.

Here's another hotel hit hard by Ike. This pier is closed and the hotel isn't open, it was so badly damaged. If you look at the upper left side of the hotel, you can see that the whole chunk of the wall is missing.

This was a perfect vacation day--just what I was envisioning for us when we decided to go down. It was indescribably wonderful to have nothing scheduled, nowhere that we had to be, no one who needed us. I love just having my Men around and playing together. We definitely need more of these days.

Stay tuned for Day 3, coming tomorrow!