GALVESTON- A STORM & A FEAST!

       It was 1987. My ex-wife, May, and I had driven straight through from Des Moines to New Orleans for the New Orleans Jazz Festival. If you want some good advice, never, never drive that route straight through At that time there was not a good straight route via interstate from Des Moines to New Orleans. It was a killer. We could have divorced then after that journey that didn't seem to end despite seeing some beautiful scenery along the way.

       After a few days in The Big Easy and heading home, my compulsion was to head west and then down the Texas coast to Galveston. I really don't know why exactly. Maybe it was the song by Glen Campbell- "Galveston." Who knows!

      The drive from New Orleans to Galveston was not that scenic. Oh, yes we did stop to see "Oak Alley." This has to be one of the South's most scenic mansions with its majestic 150 year old plus oaks lining the drive from he passing road and Mississippi River up to the Antebellum with its pinkish glow. I photographed it and is still one of my most cherished photos on film. 

      The south-eastern part of Texas, around Port Arthur, with is oil refineries was not that scenic to say the least. But, along the way I got to see my first alligator in a ditch. along a roadside. Once in Galveston, it was somewhat anticlimactic as it was a Sunday afternoon late and a storm of some significance was coming in off the Gulf, producing waves of huge proportions. 

      At the end of a large and long pier sat a restaurant still open that time of day and even though the weather was threatening. The place was quite rustic, but, clean and BIG. From anywhere inside you could see this huge "menu" board high and up front of the restaurant. Knowing that this would be my last shot at enjoying gulf food, I didn't hold back. When the waiter came to take our order, I'm sure he wondered how many I was ordering for or maybe he was dealing with a lunatic.

       To this day, I don't remember all I ordered to eat, but, I sampled a lot even though I had tried a lot of different southern and/or Cajun food at the Jazz Festival in New Orleans and the French Quarter. That stormy afternoon in Galveston was "icing on the cake" to a most enjoyable week down south!

-------------written originally September 2008