Day 1
My wife and I left YAPC a few hours early (I'll finish my YAPC posts later in the week BTW) and we drove down to Galveston. We got down here about 4pm and just started driving around to get a feel for the place. We had made a reservation for the night before leaving Houston so we were in no hurry to find a motel. Galveston is much bigger than I imagined it would be. It is very touristy but has the small town feel at the same time.
We stopped at a place called Casey's on Seawall Blvd for dinner. It has a large fiberglass or plastic shrimp on a pole out front. I had some sort of seafood platter that ended up being more blackened than grilled like it should have been. It wasn't bad; just not what I had been expecting. Mary had Fettuccine Alfredo with a tomato basil sauce and grilled chicken. She had the waiter, Kyle R, take it back and redo it since her chicken was also blackened instead of grilled like it should have been but more so than my seafood. She also asked for the sauce to be on the side since they had put way too much the first time. A short time later he brought the food out to her and it looked awesome. When we received the check we saw that he had removed her meal from the check. I try to tip well normally but let's just say that Kyle got more than he would have ordinarily because he treated her so well.
After dinner we checked into our room and put our stuff away. We decided to go down to the beach so we put on our swim suits and flip flops and walked back up to Seawall Blvd (like 1 block away from the motel). We strolled over to a place called Tortuga's and had a drink on the patio before hitting the beach. We walked in the shallow water while chatting about things. As we were going to turn around and head back Mary asked if we could go for a swim. I agreed provided that we didn't stay in the water too long since it was already starting to get dark. The water felt great; it was very warm and the waves kept lapping up against us. The seaweed was a bit annoying though. After we got out of the water we walked over to the 61st Street Pier and sat up on the observation deck and just enjoyed the ocean breeze and the sound of the waves crashing around us.
Day 2
Today we slept in until just before 11 am. We weren't feeling very adventurous so we went to Waffle House for coffee and a late breakfast. We stopped in to Wal-Mart afterwards to pick up more ice and soda before heading to the beach again. This time we drove out a bit and stopped at Beach Pocket Park #2 which had a pavilion with restrooms, showers and picnic tables. The beach had been cleaned recently which meant a strip of seaweed about 6 feet wide (instead of 18 to 24 feet wide that it would have been otherwise) running the entire length of the shore. The wind was cool which was a nice accompaniment to the heat rising from the sand. We walked in the water for 45 minutes to an hour before deciding to go out into the waves. We went out one hundred fifty feet or so from the shore and the water was waist deep until a wave hit us. Some of the waves were small and subdued which was nice. Some of the waves were quite large and would crash over our heads which was a bit annoying. Salt water doesn't taste very good and it has a tendency to burn my eyes. At least our sinuses are clear now! We stayed at the beach for a few hours and ate a light lunch before leaving.
We checked into a different motel this afternoon (this one was slightly cheaper) and took a 2 hour nap. When we woke up we headed out to dinner at a place called Fish Tales. I had a seafood platter that consisted of fried catfish, fried calamari (the rings and the tentacles, yummy!), fried shrimp, fried oysters, french fries, a (crab?) stuffed shrimp and two shrimp poppers. I call them poppers because I really don't know what they were called. The shrimp were stuffed with cheese and jalapeños before being wrapped in bacon and fried to a pleasant crisp. There was so much food that I couldn't eat it all. Mary had a 8oz center cut sirloin fillet cooked well done with a loaded baked potato. The service was prompt and friendly. The prices are a bit high but I'd still recommend it.
We came back to the room after dinner because Mary wanted to soak in the tub for a while. We are about to head back out to Seawall Blvd to walk and check out some of the souvenir shops.
