Galveston, Day Two

It’s amazing how past experiences modify our behavior, both positively and negatively, and depending on one’s perspective, the two can be the same.

          Let’s go back almost a year ago and look at the Post entitled, “The Gauntlet”. This treatise described the truncated journey of our planned first trip to California.

          Suffice to say, we had meteorological issues along the way and did not finish that trip.

          Fast-forward to yesterday in Galveston where the skies were sunny, and the temps hovered in the high seventies. It was as nice as can be!

          But…… the forecast was for a cold front, combined with some light precip, and the accompanying schmutz.

          After enduring that spell of inclement weather last year, we vowed to NEVER put ourselves in that position again.

          Not even maybe, just maybe a chance.

           Nope, we want at least two days buffer between us safely bedded down (preferably not in a Walmart parking lot) and slippery roads!

          So, we spent a half day in Galveston and then headed out.

          We had identified several things to do and see while we were there and we did want to leave some “Good Stuff” for the next visit, so we were comfortable not clinging to every last bit of daylight.

          We decided on two things to do before we left for Home Base yesterday, The Galveston Railroad Museum and then one more delectable lunch at Katie’s Seafood.

          The Train Museum was as good as we had heard.

          The focus of this Museum was not old steam locomotives, (which it did have a few of) but the 20^th century rail system in all of its glory.

          Dining cars, sleeper cars, (both First and Second Class), and a myriad of other cars were on display and were open for our perusal.     I’ve never been inside one of these dining or sleeper cars and it was quite nice imagining oneself traveling the rails seated in the Observation Car for the day and then having a nice meal before retiring for the night to one’s berth.

          The Museum is housed in the old Santa Fe Station, complete with rows of waiting benches and several “Ghost Travelers” statues that made it easier to imagine the folks of those days waiting for what was for them, a normal mode of transportation. It would be like some day in the future, Newark Airport being a Flight Museum, complete with vintage aircraft that you could visit to see what travel was like before some Star Trek transporter made it obsolete.

          We’ve always steeled ourselves against our heightened anticipation being somewhat dashed, and you’d think that  by now that we would let that all go, but we’ll never learn! The Museum was even more than we had hoped for! We came away from the Galveston Railroad Museum with a new-found appreciation for that mode of transportation and the people that worked on the lines to make it all move.

          The lunch at Katie’s was as good as the day before. Our favorite waiter, Anthony {it’s funny how you can have a ‘favorite’ when we’d only been there once!) was not on duty, but his replacement, Joel, was excellent as was everyone else we came in contact with.

          Paula has already picked out what she is going to order when we make our return trip to Galveston!