Tag: adventure

Day 4 – A Little Sightseeing

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn VacationLeave a comment

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.

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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.

Galveston Day 3

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn VacationLeave a comment

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.

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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.

Galveston Day 1

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn VacationLeave a comment

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.

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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.

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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.

Crazy Storm

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

I check the weather every day. Several times a day on 3 different weather sites. Yesterday there was 20% chance late in the afternoon. Nothing crazy. At 4:45 we got alerts on our phones of a tornado warning. Donny called right after that and said they were closing down early because the weather was supposed to get bad. As I headed up there it started raining. Big heavy raindrops. The wind was also whipping around. When I got to Donny’s work it was pouring so instead of me getting out and going to the passenger side he just jumped in and we left. By the time I pulled out of the parking lot I couldn’t see, even with the windshield wipers on full speed. Then the hail started. We were inching along with all of the other cars. We all had our hazards on because you couldn’t see the road ahead of you. I started panicking. I was in the middle lane with hail, cars and rain I couldn’t even see through. Donny told me to get over and turn into this big parking lot because it had an overhang. Another car was already parked underneath and then another car joined us. Just as quickly as it hit, it went away. This was a crazy fast moving storm.

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Luckily there didn’t seem to be too much damage in the garden.

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The wind was so bad! There were things just flying around. It was a mess.

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We lost power right at 5:00. We didn’t even get hit the hardest. White Oak had thousands without power. I think we had around 800. Luckily we have my candle tray. It came in really handy.

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We finally got power back around 11. The wind was still gusting like crazy. It ended up blowing our backyard swing over which has never happened in all the years we’ve had it.

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It was still going strong this morning. The whirlie gigs were whirling.

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The electric company is replacing the power poles in our neighborhood. We have a transformer on ours so that meant that we were not going to have power for most of the day while they replaced it. I did have fun watching them put the new pole in. It’s fascinating.

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We live in the gardening zone 8. That means that we should have already had our last frost and plants can safely be planted.

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And then Mother Nature said, “hold my beer”. It’s supposed to be 32 degrees the next two nights before we hit the 90’s on Friday. Yeah, that’s not weird or anything. So, I got to cover all of the plants.

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The patio plants went to their cold weather home in the laundry room. The other plants that are just now sprouting and our flowers are all inside along with the seed trays.

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Now to just keep Baby Ruth, our kitten, out of them.

Walkie Talkie

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Day Date, Longview, txLeave a comment

Hannah was feeling overwhelmed when I picked her up from college on Thursday. When this happens we go for walks. We decided to start at The Green, our favorite park. It’s so much easier to talk about problems and life goals when you are surrounded by nature, I think.

The trees were in bloom so that led us to Google Lens to try to find out what kind of trees we were seeing.

We always say hi to Shelldon because he is just so cute.

We always stop to play the xylophones. The one Hannah is playing is like experiencing a sound bath. The notes are so clear and beautiful.

And of course we had to admire our favorite tree. It is just so symmetrical and stands out against all of the other trees.

After a few loops around the park, we decided to go walk on the trail in our neighborhood. On the way there we passed beginning of the Boorman Trail that we had never started from. I always see this statue and wonder what this trail is like and where it actually goes. So we decided to pull in and find out.

The trail was beautiful. It’s more up kept than our more rustic trail near our home.

We still walk over the creek that runs through all of the trails.

We had walked quite a ways when Hannah spotted a park up ahead. As we got closer we realized that this is the park that we normally start with when we walk this particular trail. Since the first time we came here almost 6 years ago, I noticed the racquetball courts. They are a little run down, but I still want to bring our racquets and hot a few balls.

We don’t know what exactly this is but we thought it was funny.

We found another little library that we want to bring some books to.

This was a productive walk because we decided that we want to have a table at the next Art Walk downtown. We’ll see how that pans out. We decided to head back to the car and go to our next trail.

I am so happy that our neighborhood trail is finally open. As we were walking we found out why it had been closed for so long.

Apartments are going in. This makes me so sad. We still have the rest of the trail that is still heavily wooded, but it’s just not the same.

I am very happy that one of the bridges is open again. The city did such a good job rebuilding it and it means that we don’t have to drive to the entrance, but can pick up the trail from our neighborhood.

I don’t know how many miles we walked, but it was a few. I wore my Brooks which I never do for walking the trails. I normally wear my Merrills or Sauconys. This meant that I had a very painful blister on my toe. Hannah wanted to go to the gym later that evening so the next morning I was even more sore and my feet were hurting.

On Friday Donny and I were in Kilgore just puttering around. We went to an estate sale and on the way back he wanted to go see what there was at Synergy Park. We found Lake Elder, which lucky for me, had a 1 mile walking trail around it. That was sarcasm because yes, I do love water, but I was wearing my footbed clogs. Being the trooper I am I walked that blister screaming mile.

It was absolutely beautiful though.

My reward was getting spring rolls from our favorite Thai place.

So worth the pain and if you haven’t ever tried a Thai iced coffee you are missing out. In fact, I think I may go get another one today.

We need to run to Gladewater today so, who knows, we might just go take a walk around the lake there. I’ll be sure to wear appropriate shoes this time.

A HipCamping We Will Go

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Weekend GetawayLeave a comment

I had never heard of the app HipCamp before. Hannah wanted to go camping for her birthday and although we have Caddo State Park very close to us, it’s booked months in advance. I googled “camping near Longview Texas” and low and behold HipCamp popped up.

We found a campsite in Hawkins, TX. It’s about a 25 minute drive. The only problem was that the campsite was down a long dirt road that is very rutted and gets very muddy when it rains. They really want you to have a 4 wheel drive. I contacted the host and told him what car we would be in, but that it does have front wheel drive. They gave the okay, so Saturday after Donny got off work we headed out.

They were not kidding when they said rutted dirt road. It got a little hairy, but we made it. After taking the tour where the owner showed us where the composting toilet and the dock, kayaks and canoe was, it was already dark and we still needed to set up our tents. This campsite was right by a lake and extremely isolated, which we loved. But, when I say it was dark, it was pitch black. Luckily, I remembered to pack my headlamp. We also had about 5 different light sources, but the headlamp was definitely the winner.

Just a quick selfie

I had ordered a bundle of wood so we wouldn’t have to bring any with us. It was a little damp so we decided to have cake while Gavin and Donny were getting the fire started.

The campsite came with a fire ring and a picnic table.

We had fun hanging out around the campfire and later playing a game of Apples to Apples. I think I finally crawled into the tent around midnight. There is nothing better than sleeping outside. Our tent is mainly netting that we can cover if we need too. I loved being able to look up and see the sky and the trees. The only problem was that I tend to have to use the restroom at night and there was no way I was going to walk down a long, curvy very dark path to the toilet. So I just had to use the bucket that was given the us to scoop lake water so we could douse the fire. Hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right?

It was a little chilly when we woke up, but it turned out to be such a nice day. Overcast, not windy and no rain. It has rained on every single camping trip Donny and I have taken. We would even check the weather forecast, but it still rained. We really lucked out this time.

There were some cool lily pads on our part of the lake.

We walked down the trail to the floating dock because Gavin wanted to go kayaking.

There was a super cool dome house that you could also rent. It had a deck with a grill. I snapped a quick picture because people were staying in it.

Donny started the fire again and we just relaxed, enjoying the water and all the sounds of nature.

I finally made it to the toilet. Can you imagine walking this trail in the dark? I swear there were animal burrows all around it.

Although our trip was very short we had a lot of fun. I cannot wait to use Hipcamp again. It was so easy and this campsite was gorgeous. And we made a little friend.