Texas Trip - Part 2: Galveston

We did a day trip to Galveston, an island on the gulf.  (TV show "Big Bang Theory" fans may know it as the hometown of Sheldon Cooper).  It was a hot, humid, windy day so the surf was quite rough.

This was the view we had while eating a yummy lunch. 

 Unfortunately, John got a call from work during lunch.  We had to find a place with free wi-fi so he could use his laptop for a couple of hours. 

 The coffee shop we found had a plaque on the wall showing where the water level was during Hurricane Ike in 2008.  It seemed to me that Galveston hasn't completely come back from that devastation as some buildings were still boarded up and some stores have gone out of business.  While we were there, a cruise ship was in port but I didn't know that until we got to the harbor.  Not many people disembarked for Galveston.

During my walk while John worked, I saw several of these solar powered parking meters.  One meter for the whole block.  The parking spaces had numbers that you keyed into the machine so it knows which space you were paying for.

 This is a photo of the 1877 Tall Ship Elissa.  She was made in Scotland and sailed all over the world.  She is a museum - and is still sailed on occasion!  Engines were installed some time ago so she is not limited by the winds.  We enjoyed exploring the compartments on the vessel and learning her history.

 There is also an oil rig museum but we didn't have time to visit it.  Galveston is a place where oil rigs and ships are brought to repair.

 

 This deep sea oil rig was being serviced.

 Here are the ruins of the S.S.Selma, one of 12 concrete ships, built in 1919 (steel was in short supply so someone thought concrete might be a good alternative).  She was an oil tanker that had some successful trips but then ran aground and got a crack about 60' long.  She was towed to Galveston for repairs.  Supposedly the crack was repairable but the crew available did not know how to repair concrete.  It was decided to scrap the ship.  A channel was dug for her final resting place in Galveston Bay.

  

 I was not aware that Galveston was a major point of entry for immigrants - supposedly just as many as Ellis Island in New York!  Many arrived in Galveston from Germany and the Netherlands.  The Texas Seaport Museum has a database of the ships and immigrants.  I found a couple family names in the database!

This partial wall indicates where the hospital for incoming immigrants stood.  People were treated here or kept in quarantine if they were sick upon arrival.

A photo of the Galveston Island-Port Bolivar Ferry making a run.  The Texas Department of Transportation runs the ferries that are part of Highway 87.  The free ferry runs 24/7 and crosses 2.7 miles of water one-way.  We saw three ferry boats operating during the evening rush hour carrying cars, school buses, pedestrians, cement trucks, sheriff vehicles, and work vans.  We rode the ferry across and back as pedestrians - free boat ride!

On our return ferry to Galveston we saw even the birds were having their "rush hour" flights.