We woke up and got ready to leave. Check out time was 11, but we wanted to get an early stop so we were on the road by 9:45.
We’re definitely going to miss our cute little Airbnb. I cannot tell you how great the location was. We never actually cooked a meal in the kitchen but it was so well stocked it wouldn’t have been a problem to do so.
We decided, on the suggestion of our host and my sister, to stop off at Kemah and see the sights there. It’s actually just an exit on our way home so it wasn’t really out of the way.
The boardwalk was nice.
If you can’t tell by my hair, it was a bit windy.
We didn’t ride any of the rides, but if you have kids this looks like it would be a fun place to hang out.
We didn’t stay all that long because we were getting hungry. We had seen this diner on our way to the boardwalk. We had a really good breakfast. If you are ever in the Kemah area I highly recommend it.
Next stop was Nacogdoches. the oldest town in Texas, founded in 1779. I have always loved their downtown. It has the cutest shops and very friendly people.
We went to the visitors center which is also a little museum. We had to stop at Su Su’s. I love popcorn and we got a bag of the strawberry cheesecake and a bag of the Ulta butter popcorn. Both were delicious.
So many yummy treats to choose from and they have now opened a fudge and ice cream room. I had to reel it in because after all my Pina Coladas I really didn’t need a whole lot more of sugar, but everything was so tempting.
Donny wanted me to see the inside of the Fredonia Hotel. It was built in 1955 and is just gorgeous. We did a little walking tour around the inside.
I loved this cozy courtyard. The pool is something you would see on a 1950’s postcard.
I got this picture off of trip advisor, but it’s exactly how it looks in real life. Just stunning.
We are definitely planning to do an overnight here one of these days. I realize it’s only about an hour from our house, but it’s still sometimes just fun to have a little adventure close to home.
All in all we had such a wonderful time. We both needed to just get away for a few days and relax. Galveston is now on our list of places we are going to go back to visit.
We have never really been into souvenirs. So other than the clothes I got, this is what we consider our treasures of our trip.
Shells that I washed and put into our smaller glass fish.
A coaster from our favorite place that I turned into a magnet.
And last, but not least, cheesy photo booth pictures where we didn’t know what to do in them. The third was was where Donny said to make a scary face. Oh well, we tried.
Today was beach day! We got up early to catch the ferry to Bolivar Peninsula. We got in line around 9:15. I had heard the wait could be long but I figured on a Thursday, not at a peak time, it wouldn’t be too bad. After waiting an hour we decided to back out and leave.
Unfortunately this was our view from the backup camera. We decided to just ride it out and about 15 minutes later we started loading. We actually did see a school of dolphins.
They were right where this picture was taken but those suckers are very fast swimmers. The weather had predicted overcast yesterday which was why it was history day and not beach day. It turned out to be sunny and today started out very overcast.
I had heard that the best place to look for shells was to make a right at Stingeree Rd. We didn’t want to go to Crystal Beach because we weren’t planning on staying on the peninsula for very long.
As you can see there was quite a bit of seaweed. Didn’t bother us though. I think the high tide brought a lot of it in because we had no problems walking along the shoreline.
We walked for quite a ways picking up any cool looking shell we saw. We wanted to head back to the ferry before it got too busy. We also had planned to visit some pocket beaches on the East side.
It was easy peasy coming back. There was only about a 10 minute wait. It was sprinkling so we just stayed in the car for the duration of the ride back to Galveston.
The first beach we wanted to go to was the one by the Tipsy Turtle.
It was a nice uncrowded beach. There were, however, a lot of man o’ war there.
The breeze and the weather turned out to be so nice so we walked both ways down the beach.
Our plan was to have lunch at the Tipsy Turtle, but I wanted to go see the hurricane statue that was on the seawall.
It’s such a poignant piece of art.
By this time it was getting late in the afternoon and we were starving. Instead of driving back to the Tipsy Turtle we decided to go to our favorite place.
Of course, The Spot. This time we chose to eat in the Tiki Hut. I ordered the shrimp diablo tacos and Donny got a burger. Both were so good! The drink of the day was a creamcicle margarita. Yes, I had two. That makes the grand total of drinks I had on the trip seven. I didn’t have anymore after that. They were quite delicious though.
We needed to get back to the Airbnb because we both needed showers. We wanted to go drive around and find the carved trees that are in the historic district. When Hurricane Ike hit the island in 2008, it destroyed a lot of trees. Instead of having them just be stumps, artists carved different statues out of them.
This one was called Venus on the Half shell. We saw a few more but I didn’t take anymore pictures because they are in people’s yards . We also were awed by the gorgeous homes all over the island. Just beautiful.
The one on the left is called The Easter Cottage.
We really didn’t know where we wanted to have dinner on our last night here. Katie’s Seafood was recommended to us, but that was on the water, by the Strand, where all of the construction was. As we were driving through the Eastside Historic District we saw this.
It’s the oldest Mexican Food Restaurant in Texas established in 1916. We absolutely had to try this gem that was right in the middle of a neighborhood.
I got the cheese enchiladas, my normal order anytime we go to a Mexican restaurant. Donny got the fajitas. It was all wonderful and you just know the restaurant is truly good when their salsa kicks ass.
We actually closed them down being one of two tables left in the restaurant.
It was the perfect ending meal to our time here.
After our nightly walk on the seawall where we almost got run over by two undercover police cars who ran the red light as we were crossing, we returned to our humble abode.
Donny and I both love Galveston so much. He doesn’t really care for beaches, well, it’s actually the sand he doesn’t like. Here though you are surrounded by water but you don’t necessarily have to walk on the actual beach. We like it here so much that we were actually driving around seeing houses for sale and looking them up on Zillow. Maybe one day. Now we had to go in and start packing because we were heading out in the morning.
We woke up early to go to the Bryan Museum. The museum holds a portion of J.P. Bryan’s collection. It is housed in the rebuilt Galveston Children’s Home that used to be one of the orphanages on the island. If you didn’t know, Galveston was hit by a catastrophic hurricane in 1900 that demolished the island. Over 8,000 people were killed. It is the largest natural disaster to ever hit the United States. At the time there was no sea wall. Afterwards they built a 17 ft sea wall because the storm surge was 16.3 feet. If you ever get a chance to watch the movie/documentary Isaac’s Storm, I highly recommend it. I saw it several years ago and have always been fascinated by everything that went wrong on that day. There are also several good documentaries on YouTube about the storm.
We got to the museum at 9:45 not realizing that it didn’t open until 10. This gave us a chance to walk around the grounds.
There are so many monuments around the island that pay homage to the 1900 hurricane.
When we went inside to buy our tickets they asked us if we wanted to pay $5 each to see a documentary about the storm. Of course I said yes. So in we went.
Can we just marvel at this restroom for a minute?
The museum is 3 floors and is filled to the brim with artifacts from all over the world. I swear Mr. Bryan, who by the way is 86 and still collecting, is a modern day Indiana Jones. The artwork itself is incredible.
The top 3 on the right are by Andy Warhol.
This one was my favorite. It’s much darker in person. I love the way the lights just shine.
Donny was telling me that Mr. Bryan must have known Donald Sutherland because this was Donald’s house. Donny either did not have his glasses on or something because look at the description card.
We did get a good laugh at that.
I absolutely love Folk Art.
There were some amazing pieces.
There was just so much of so many different artifacts.
We thoroughly enjoyed our 2 hours spent here. Worth every penny, except for the documentary. I found it very strange that it didn’t mention St. Mary’s Asylum orphanage. Every single documentary I have watched always mentions it because the story is so heartbreaking. There was no warning of the hurricane for any of the residents. The nuns at the asylum noticed the water rapidly rising. The orphanage was right on the beach. They tied the children to themselves with clothes line. No one made it.
After the museum we were getting hungry. Definitely weren’t going back to Fish Tales. I had heard of a place called Mel’s Blue Plate. It was located in a Valero gas station. Oh lawdy, that was some of the best shrimp I’ve ever had.
It’s only open for breakfast and lunch and who cares if there’s no water view because the food is out of this world delicious. By the way, calories do not count on vacation.
Literally inside a gas station.
I had wanted to see the Rosenberg Library. It’s the oldest, still operating, library in Texas. The building was finished June 22, 1904.
The 4th floor was remodeled to look exactly how it looked when it was opened.
There was a whole section on the hurricane. They did a great job on that exhibit. You could push buttons and the narrator would talk about the pictures. There was a big screen that Donny pushed the button for and guess what was on it? The Great Storm. The exact same documentary that we had paid $5 to see at the museum. Donny just said, “we were bamboozled”. LOL
I had walked up to the 4th floor and Donny had taken the elevator. Because I’m deathly afraid of heights I decided to take the elevator back down so I wouldn’t have to look down all the way to the first floor as I was walking down the stairs. We stepped into the extremely small elevator car. The doors closed. Donny said, “This is a Westinghouse elevator which I don’t think they make anymore”. We pushed the button for the first floor. Nothing happened. We tried pushing other floors. Nothing. Donny said, “Push the door open button!”. I have never been out of an elevator so fast in my life. Needless to say I will take the heights over being stuck in a small box.
Next we decided to go to The Strand. It is the historic district with shops, art studios and restaurants. Donny and I both follow an artist named Mike O’Quinn. We love his work and love to watch his videos of how he makes each piece.
The woman who works there had just sold 20 something pieces to one person which is why there are so many spaces. I loved the smiley face on the far right. I don’t know why we didn’t buy one, but I’m thinking I’ll be getting a piece for Father’s day for Donny.
We went into the Witchery which I thought was really cool.
I hadn’t been to the Strand since I was about 13. It’s changed a lot.
The architecture is amazing. I love the fountains.
One of the other things on our list for today was to see the two churches that were raised after the hurricane. These were done without the modern tools that we have today. With each 1 inch raise the workers had to make sure that the buildings were completely level else they crack in the middle. I can’t even wrap my head around how painstakingly slow that must have been.
While crouching down to take this picture the wind blew me over right onto my butt. Slightly embarrassing, but extremely funny.
We were getting hungry again and decided to find a place to have happy hour. That is one thing about Galveston, it has some fabulous happy hours.
We were a little hesitant to try The Spot. It’s several venues in one and looked a little like a tourist trap. Boy were we wrong. It’s privately owned and is fantastic. It became our favorite place to hang out. We decided on the 21 and over Rum Room.
We ordered fried pickles and diablo shrimp. Both were amazing. The servers were so incredibly nice. The drink prices were so cheap. I had two Pina Coladas which makes 5 if you are keeping track. We chatted with a server that grew up in my hometown so that was fun. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon here.
I will say that having rich alcoholic drinks in a body not used to either creates quite the “I’ve swallowed a bowling ball” effect. We went back to our Airbnb so I could take a nap. Unfortunately while I slept, Donny was stuck inside because he didn’t know the codes to the doors and couldn’t get back in if he would have left. Luckily I didn’t take a super long nap and I was ready for our nightly walk on the sea wall when I woke up.
Donny and I actually got an early start. We were on the road at 9:30. We knew that we couldn’t check into our Airbnb until 4, but we wanted to do a little sightseeing and arrive early enough to be able to do it.
The drive wasn’t bad at all. It took us about 4 1/2 hours. We could smell the salty air as soon as we got on the island.
We were ready for lunch and I thought that the Lucky Lounge did taco Tuesdays. They didn’t really have food, but we had some drinks. I had the first of a few Pina coladas that I sipped on throughout our trip.
Such a cool place and the bartender was so nice and was giving us recommendations of places we should check out. We definitely needed food. I had read about the Fish Taco Company. It’s off the beaten path but the reviews were so good I wanted to give it a shot.
The tacos were SO good. Donny and I both got the Captain Johnny Shrimp Taco. I don’t how it was made, but it was delicious. I really wanted to try to eat here again, but we just ran out of time.
Their logo is so cute.
When we were getting in the car to go check into the Airbnb, Donny said, “there’s your house”. It was the cutest house that was quirky and colorful and suited my tastes to a tee.
The location of our little apartment was perfect. We dropped our luggage off and decided to go walk around and see what there was around us.
This was a 5D theatre that wasn’t open. (since we were here mid week there were some things that only opened on the weekends) I googled it and the reviews were awful so I guess we weren’t missing much. We wandered into some Tshirt shops that were WAY overpriced. We saw the Beach Break shop and decided to check it out. The prices in this store were amazingly cheap compared to the others we had looked in. This store also had two sides and one side was a boutique-ish store. I really never get souvenirs. I don’t ever wear shirts of places we’ve been, it’s just not my style, but Donny found the cutest items for me and yes, I had to have them.
I absolutely love these pants!
and this purse is just the cutest thing.
We decided to walk down to Murdoch’s which is two souvenir shops with a big deck overlooking the waves in between.
It’s the building on stilts.
Another great place to get tshirts and whatnots because their prices are also really good. We grabbed a drink and sat in the rockers to enjoy the breeze.
If you’re counting, that’s my second Pina colada. 😉
We wanted to take a selfie and right as I pushed the camera button the wind almost blew my sunglasses off of my head.
Second try.
The place we were staying was a very short walk to Pleasure Pier. It’s not open during the week right now, but we weren’t planning on going there anyway. We did like the lights from the ferries wheel at night though.
We really didn’t have plans for dinner. We had made a quick trip to Walmart and picked up some snacks and drinks and by the time we decided we were hungry it was after 8. There was a mustang car show in town so we walked over to where they were staging it. It was mainly the souped up racing cars, not the vintage ones that we prefer. Since they were at Fish Tales that night and according to Donny the restaurant was “walkable” that’s where we decided to have a snacky dinner. I didn’t want anything really heavy because it was getting late and because we had an early day planned for tomorrow.
There is a reason that we do not like to eat at chain restaurants, especially anything under the Landry umbrella. The hostess who seated us looked like she hated her life. No smile. no talking just laid the menus on the table and walked away. Our server seemed even more miserable. He took our drink orders (3rd Pina colada for the count) and we only ordered 2 appetizers, crawfish eggrolls and dynamite shrimp. The view was gorgeous minus the loud engine revving from the mustangs and the racing up and down the seawall. There were actually cheers from the other customers when a cop pulled one over.
We waited forever to get our order. Our server came over and told us that the bartender was overwhelmed and that was what was taking so long. Did he not realize we had a direct view to the bar and the bartender was in no way overwhelmed. Plus there were hardly any people in the restaurant. Since I was once a server it was obvious that he just forget to put in the order. Honesty is always the best policy and it’s much more believable. When he finally brought our drinks and food, he just plopped the two plates down with no appetizer plates at all. I had to get up and ask another server for two small plates. The food was so bad. The egg rolls were mushy and the dynamite shrimp was so over breaded and the shrimp inside were hard as erasers. We couldn’t even finish the food. All in all it was an awful experience. we were not going to let that dampen the trip. We were just hoping that we didn’t get sick from the food.
Do not eat here!!!
We ended each night with a walk on the seawall. The weather was perfect.
And as a post note, I have meant to get these Galveston blogs out so much sooner, but I was the last person in our family to get the dreaded, evil, awful cold virus. It hit me full force late Friday night and I stayed in bed with a fever, body aches and more congestion than I can ever remember having, all day Saturday and Sunday. I got a steroid shot today and am finally feeling a little more myself.
I had no idea what to get Donny for his birthday. I mentioned this to my friend Lisa and she suggested to give him an experience. I thought that was a fabulous idea so I started searching on airbnb for a place in Jefferson, one of our favorite towns. Everything there was way over my budget for a one night stay, but for some reason a place in Lone Star caught my eye. The price was perfect, it had great reviews and it was right on Lone Star lake so Donny could fish. Since everything for us always seems to work out best when it spur of the moment, I ended up booking it two days before we were leaving. Donny’s “weekend” is Thursday and Friday so we decided to leave after Jack got home from school on Friday. It would only give us one day there but we would make the most of it.
Friday we packed our bags and headed about 35 minutes away to Lone Star.
One thing we love about living in East Texas is that there are so many small towns around us to explore. When we drove up to Scenic View it was picture perfect.
The small motel was built in the mid 1940’s. The nicest couple bought it in 1998 and have taken such good care of it. There are 8 motel rooms, a cabin and a full hook up small RV park. If you have seen the show Ozark it reminds me of the Blue Cat.
We dropped our things off in our room and decided to go find a bite to eat. I had read good reviews about a place called Arnold’s family restaurant. It did not disappoint. Our server was attentive, we met some locals having coffee and had one of the best chicken fried steaks I’d ever eaten.
I ate every bite. After we got back to the motel and were feeling almost too full to move we decided to try to work some of it off by playing corn hole.
I lost both games, but it was so much fun. Even though the temperatures weren’t in the 100’s we still got sweaty and decided to just sit, have a beverage and enjoy the lake view.
Donny wanted to wait until sunset before he got his fishing pole out. We decided to move onto the deck because there were fans and it was starting to get a little hot out.
There were grills guests could use and so many places to enjoy a meal outdoors.
The sun was setting so we headed out to the pier to do some fishing.
It was so beautiful out on the water.
We only had one snafu. The worms the container of worms that Donny bought before we left were, well, wormless. There was nothing but dirt. He ended up trying to use pork rinds and kettle corn with no luck. He said he didn’t care because he was having so much fun just relaxing.
We started seeing some lightning so we gathered up our things and went up to the top deck to watch the weather roll in. Nothing but a few raindrops and I ended up falling asleep in the lounge chair.
I loved the way the owner had everything lit up. It looked so pretty at night.
Next thing we knew it was morning and we had to pack up our stuff and head back home. We absolutely love this little motel. The rooms were older but pristine. The beds were so comfortable and Donny loved the pillows. The little kitchenette was perfect for what we needed.
And you get a real, honest to goodness, key.
The cabin is so cute.
Donny had a relaxing fun filled birthday and we will definitely be back to this little gem.
I finally booked our Airbnb for our short vacation to Corpus Christi. It’s going to be later in the summer than I would like, but the place I really wanted to stay has been booked solid. I looked a few days ago and there were 4 days open in July. I put in the request and it was accepted.
The kids absolutely love Corpus. I grew up there and we lived there for a year when the kids were younger. We have been back a few times for my high school reunions. The house we found is only one street over from where we used to live and is a very short walk to the Bay front. We have a little cove that we would always walk down to where we would find sea glass and look for hermit crabs living in the rocks. That’s why I wanted to get this house. It’s the perfect location for all the things we are wanting to do.
The kids like to ride the ferry to North Beach. One of our favorite restaurants is Pier 99 on that beach.
I am in desperate need of some beach time. There is nothing like the smell of salt air and sand between your toes.
And guess what came to visit again tonight?
Another major thunderstorm that was so loud it made me jump several times. I like rain, but there is something about enough is enough.
The Funky Frugalista 