Hello friends! We’re almost finished with the road trip with only one more day on the road! To continue where we left off, I want to tell you about Thursday, when we drove from Texas City to New Orleans. We knew we wanted to stop in Galveston, see the Gulf of Mexico, and continue on to Louisiana.
We said goodbye to Texas City, only to return in a moment of time because I had left my traffic citation in the hotel room. We ran back to get it, but in vain, as it ended up being in the car the whole time! Needless to say, we found the citation, and got back on the road to Galveston. Once there, we drove around for a bit before we could really tell where the “downtown” was. The city was mostly a grid, but the city is quaint and therefore hard to find.
Once we found the secret downtown area, we parked the car and walked around for a bit, taking pictures of the beautiful architecture and historic signs. We got lunch at a restaurant that was nearly empty but gorgeous. Corelyn ordered crab cakes, and I settled on oysters. We both got fried okra and sweet potato fries.
As we ate, I swear that I discovered two pieces of shell AND the beginnings of a pearl. Don’t worry, there is photographic evidence coming soon. I made sure to take a few photographs for proof. After this meal, and a few cups of coffee, we were ready to walk around Galveston a bit before heading to the ferry that would take us to the Bovilar Peninsula. Or so we thought, until we happened on the Bishop’s Palace. This mansion kept us occupied for about 40 minutes as we took pictures outside and strolled the bookstore reading history books on the area of Galveston as well as the palace itself.
Soon we found ourselves behind our self-imposed schedule, so we purchased a cookbook of Galveston favorites and headed to the ferry. The 15 minute ferry is free to cross to the Bovilar Peninsula, thank you Texas Department of Transportation. We enjoyed ferrying across the water to the gulf, and once on solid land decided to take a trip to the gulf to stick our feet in.
The gulf’s water was quite warm (almost like bath water!) and was positively delightful. Once at the beach we noticed that people were driving their cars on the shoreline (which we found quite strange) and that all the houses were on tall slits. This seemed usual for a hurricane area, but the houses were VERY high. We figured that this was because of Hurricane Ike which destroyed much of the region.
On the beach we also discovered tons of clams that kept being uncovered by the waves only to immediately burrow back into the sand. This kept us entertained for a few minutes, and then Corelyn collected seashells (by the sea shore) and we headed back to the car, shells in hand, sand on feet. Trying to avoid getting sand in the car was impossible, but we did the best we could since the White Sands were already in the car…
After sticking our feet in, we drove from the Peninsula until we couldn’t anymore. Ryan, Corelyn’s old roommate and a good friend of ours, has lent his atlas to us, and it claimed we could drive to the end of the peninsula and to Port Arthur. We found this to be untrue, and figured it had something to do with the hurricane as well. We turned north, headed for Beaumont, and then onto Louisiana. We didn’t stop again until we got to Lafayette, where we ate dinner, as we knew we weren’t going to make it to New Orleans in time for food.
In Lafayette there appeared to be some kind of street/music festival happening, and therefore we couldn’t get to any of the restaurants we originally planned on eating in. So we headed to Blue Dog Cafe which was off the main drag, and were delighted to find live music and tables covered in butcher paper and crayons. Corelyn set out to draw our trip thus far, and I made a day by day itinerary on my side. I ordered some brie bisque and Corelyn got crab cakes, again.
When we asked our waitress if we could get the bread pudding to go, she explained that we could, but we’d need a microwave to warm it. We explained that we were in from out of town, and on the road headed to New Orleans. “I was there a few weeks ago, in this kitchen of (she named a restaurant I can’t remember) and they had one. So that’s at least one microwave,” she said. And so it was settled: we took bread pudding to go.
Once we got back on the road we headed for New Orleans in the dark. We checked in around 11:30, and headed up to our room. No microwave! Lucky for us, the car had been warmed and the top of the bread pudding was pretty melted, allowing us to have delicious Lafayette bread pudding in New Orleans. We went to bed soon afterward, ready to hit New Orleans in the morning.
[addtoany] Yum