Magnus Goes Beaching, Day 9

Wednesday, December 11 2024

Today we went to Galveston Island State Park. Lovely place. Saw the statue of the extinct Eskimo Curlew which used to winter on Galveston Island.

 

 Went on a long walk looking for alligators but saw none.  Over by the statue and observation tower, I saw lots of Great Egret, plus a few Snowys, Herons, and White Ibis.   When we first arrived, Northern Harrier, Kestrel, and Phoebe.  Plus a sparrow I couldn't identify, as usual.  Will I never ever get to add a Dusky Seaside Sparrow to my life list?

For some reason I thought you had to pay at the state park even if you had a park pass, but I was happily proven wrong. Of course, we still have to pay our $2 toll every time we cross the bridge onto Galveston Island.  Ignorant.

But the state park has two areas of RV campgrounds, oceanside and bayside.  They're both very nice but of course we prefer oceanside.  Maybe we'll stay there in a year or so.

 

 

We went for a long walk on the beach there, but it appeared to be mucky black and dirty--oil residue?  Unlike "our" beach which was much cleaner.  There were almost no birds, there, either. Just a very few Sanderlings.  So our beach is much better in that regard, with gulls, terns, Sanderlings, Willet, maybe Plover (can't tell), and gulls of course.  Every gull I've looked at closely has been a Ring-Billed Gull.  Funny, I thought the Laughing Gulls were here this time of year, but no.

We got back at around 2pm but then Ed wanted to go shopping again. Bah.  I guess we'll go, after I have a shower and give Molly another long walk. She got lots of walking this morning, but when we leave she'll be stuck inside for hours.

 



LATER
Shopping turned out better than I expected. With the parking figured out, we were able to secure a spot for two hours for $4 and then go all up and down the street to multiple little tourist trap shops. They were not all as overpriced as the first one had been, and I picked up a couple of little things.  We did find a lovely throw pillow with a pelican design that would probably have made an okay present for Grandmother, but it cost $95. Who pays $95 for a pillow?

One thing I have to say about the whole Galveston (in winter, on a weekday) experience, all of the salespeople are exceedingly happy to see you.  Restaurants, too.

Our dinner at Katie's Seafood turned out a mixed bag.  The waiter was overly effusively friendly and therefore extremely annoying, plus he took a long time to bring our ticket and an even longer time to retrieve it.  I was eager to go home to Molly--time spent waiting on something that should have been trivial, was not time well spent.

The food was fresh, locally sourced--mostly from their own ships--and very well cooked.  But it was expensive and skimpy for the price.  Ed had a seafood fry with boudin and some sausage and beans---that was sufficient, but I would have expected more for the price. I had parmesan crusted snapper in a cream sauce over cabbage and mixed vegetables, and, well, it tasted great. But the vegetables were boring broccoli/cauliflower/carrots and only a small piece of cabbage that I could see. and it didn't come with salad or bread or anything interesting to give it a garnish. If I did reviews, I'd give the place 3 stars. Plus the restaurant was loud to the point ear-splitting. Wish we'd eaten outside on the dock. They appeared to have heaters out there, because the people there were not wearing heavy coats against the chill.