Galveston and Houston

We downloaded self-guided walking tours of both Galveston and Houston onto our cell phones. But we didn’t actually complete the walking tour of Houston. We started our walking tour in the “historic” centre of the city. They still call it the historic centre on the tour, but the only building that dates back to the early days of the city is a pub—and it was closed when we got there. Every other building that might have been built in the early 19th century has been knocked down and replaced with high-rise office buildings. When walking through the historic centre of Houston, the tour narrative talked about buildings that were long gone.

We finished our tour early when Jackie tripped on something while reading a sign in the theatre district. Her wrist changed colour and developed swelling within seconds of the fall. She could still partially move all her fingers and turn her wrist a little, so we didn’t think she had broken anything, although it was extremely painful. We suspected a sprain but didn’t know for sure. As the pain and swelling got worse we decided to stop at an urgent care facility. Once there, a nurse applied an ice pack to the swelling, and technicians wheeled in a portable X-ray machine to examine her wrist. The diagnosis came an hour later…extremely bad bruising but not sprained. It is a week later and the wrist is still swollen and the entire forearm and hand are bruised. Jackie still can’t put pressure on her wrist or turn it properly. Even with all this, it was a big relief to find out that it wasn’t a bad sprain that might have put her right hand out of commission for a long time. We have yet to see the invoice, which they said would follow. The clinic doesn’t do the actual billing and could give us no idea what the costs would be. This could be interesting.

Our visits to Galveston were much nicer. Many of the 19th-century buildings have been preserved, even though they have been repurposed. Galveston is built on an island that is only a meter or two above sea level. Also, its position on the Gulf of Mexico means that it is subject to occasional tropical storms. So any buildings that were built in the late 19th century (roughly 1850 to 1900) and remain today were very solidly constructed.

Pictured above is the George Sealy Mansion on Broadway Avenue. A few blocks north of Broadway Avenue is Sealy Street, and on “The Strand” is the Hutchings and Sealy Building. George Sealy was an influential businessman in the late 19th century. He clearly had vision and influence in the development of Galveston following the Civil War.

Our “GPS My City” self-guided walking tour of Galveston took us to the docks, where we saw that the three-masted schooner that was normally docked there had been moved to a dry dock on the north side of the Galveston Channel. The photo at the top of this blog shows about how close we got to it…..not very close. The tour also took us to the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig. The Ocean Star drilled 200 oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. It is now retired and operates three days a week as a museum.

The news every day makes the point that the war in Iran has increased the price of fuel because Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the world’s oil and gas shipments must pass. While we were stopped to buy fuel for our motorhome a week ago, the war in Iran was in its second week. Those of you who are familiar with travel on the highways in the USA know that gas stations along the route have very tall signs. So tall in fact that you would be forgiven if you thought that they were trying to sell fuel to passing aircraft. Those tall signs advertise the price of diesel fuel in green light and gasoline in red. So, as you drive along, it is easy to compare prices offered by the various filling stations.

We passed stations selling diesel fuel at $5.49 per US gallon ($1.99 CDN per litre). When we saw a sign offering diesel at $4.34 per US gallon ($1.57 CDN per litre) we exited the highway at the next off-ramp, backtracked a bit, and pulled into that filling station. All the fuel pumps were occupied by big tractor-trailers, so we had to wait in line. As our turn came, I noticed that the truck that had just left our pump had purchased $850.00 of diesel fuel. At about the same time, Jackie noticed that the green lights posted high in the sky had changed. Diesel fuel on that sign was now on offer for $4.89 per US gallon ($1.77 CDN per litre).

Fortunately, they changed the price on the sign in the sky before they changed the price at the pump. The price on the pump remained at $4.34 per US gallon but did change to $4.89 immediately after our purchase of $307.00 US dollars of fuel. The lineup of trucks awaiting their turn to buy fuel had disappeared while we were fueling our rig.

Now that “March Break” is history, we thought we would visit “the boardwalk” at Kemah, Texas. If Jackie hadn’t been recovering from a bruised arm and leg, she might have insisted on taking a whirl on some of the amusement park rides—which I hate. What with her bruises and scrapes Jackie was content to limp along beside me as we ambled about the attractions.

We are headed to San Antonio, Texas next. We have been there before, and we have previously visited both the Alamo and the River Walk. So we are quite looking forward to seeing San Antonio again.