Libby Visits the Gulf Coast

Feb 17, 2014 Abel Longoria Vanagon 0

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Libby (my 1987 Vanagon) with her feet in the sand at Jamaica Beach, Galveston Island, TX. She grew up on the west coast visiting all of the nice scenic beaches up and down the coast so I wanted her to see the gulf coast as well. Yes I know, its not the same as a California beach but ya know its all we got.

Here in Texas you don’t really see any Vanagons and/or Westfalias at all so driving Libby on the beach definitely got some looks. Everyone stared and waved as she strutted down the beach. She was a big hit! I guess white, top heavy ladies do attract a lot of attention on the beach. Wait. Wut? =)

After shooting a few photos of Libby on the beach I noticed a few beach combers on wandering around totally in the zone listening for tones of buried goodies. I almost stopped him to ask what was the coolest item he had every found. Now that is something I’d like to hear about… maybe next time.

After a brief stay on the beach I then drove up the seawall headed towards East Beach. I thought I’d snap a photo of the “historic” Hotel Galvez. They say “historic”… I say “haunted as f#ck!”. This is one of the three haunted hotels I’ve stayed at and have actually experienced/felt something.

You may not believe in ghosts. But I do. And whatever it was in my room that one night I stayed there was NOT friendly. It would not let me sleep at all so I simply sat up in the bed and stayed awake the entire time til about 6am in the morning then I checked out. I’ll save the complete story for another post.

I decided to take the ferry over to Bolivar Peninsula in order to check out the Fort Travis Seashore Park and see how it has rebounded from Hurricane Ike a few years ago. I’ve camped out there before in their Cabanas but it seems all of their Cabanas are undergoing a major renovation and are out of service. Boooo… Very disappointing as I was hoping to make a stay there this spring.

Libby sitting in Fort Travis Seashore Park which is right on the southern tip of the Bolivar Peninsula. Fort Travis was built in 1898 and currently still has some very old battery structures which once housed large weapons protecting the entrance into Galveston Bay.

In the photo below you can also see the Bolivar Point Lighthouse Station in the background. This lighthouse isn’t the original one built on this site back in the 1850’s which is believed to have been dismantled during the Civil War so that the iron can be used and that it could not be used by Union warships as a navigational guide.

This second rendition of the lighthouse was built after the Civil War in the 1870’s and was retired in 1933 and still stands today. This lighthouse and its predecessor has definitely seen a lot of Texas and World history first hand… The Civil War, The Great Storm of 1900 and both World Wars. Wow.

One the way back to Galveston Island on the ferry this shrimping boat named “Donnie” passed us by. I think its real name is “Jenny”… pronounced “Jen-neeeyyyy” a la Forrest Gump. And yes, I may have said it out loud as it passed by… along with the line “But you ain’t got no legs Lt. Dan”. Don’t judge me.

This trip to Galveston Island gave me a good opportunity to test out my new Sony RX100 II camera I got a couple of weeks ago. Granted I did shoot more photos of Libby than anything else but hey… I tried. Next time I’ll do better.

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• beach, galveston

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