Our month long stay at the Xscapers Winter Home Base in Galveston went by surprisingly fast. We participated in some, but not all of the group activities, because the weather was just too cold -for us- for outdoor activities after dark. The thing about Xscapers events is that they’re geared for working RVers – which means activities are only after the standard working hours of 9-5 Monday through Friday.
On Superbowl weekend, we had a viewing party of the big game. It had to be outdoors because of Covid (all the activities were) and there are no more potlucks at these things, so Holly (our host) had it catered. It was fun….but SO chilly!
Holly had a Valentine’s Day party planned, but we had to reschedule because of the severe weather and deep freeze. It was still cold on the postponed weekend, but we managed to have a lot of fun. Several brave couples signed up for a version of The Dating Game, which was hilarious.
We chickened out of some of the night time events, but tried to participate in the weekend ones, including a group trip to a nearby brewery. We also played miniature golf with the group on our last weekend.
Since we have time during the week to play, Tom and I went into downtown Galveston for a nice lunch.
It was very disappointing to know we were here for MardiGras, yet their events were cancelled. Too bad because Galveston’s is the third largest Mardi Gras celebration in the United States, and brings 300,000 visitors to these downtown businesses. Between Covid and the deep freeze, I don’t know how these businesses will survive. We also drove out to the end of the island and watched the cargo boats come and go.
On the nicer days (and there were a few!), we took long walks and bike rides along the gulf. The beach was across the street from our RV park, and we could ride for miles. It was fun to check out all the vacation homes lining the shore.
Trying to explore places we haven’t seen yet, we drove off the island into the cute town of Kemah. We had a nice lunch and strolled around the marina and the Boardwalk.
On the way home, we drove past a busy port and container yard. It was amazing to see the volume of containers and the amount of trucks coming and going from the place. I felt like we were going to get run over!
We had done a lot of sight-seeing in the Galveston area when we were in the area three years ago. But one thing we skipped back then was visiting the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. We announced we were going and one of our new friends, Christine, went with us. It was a full day of fun. When we drove past three years ago, the parking lot was full. One advantage of visiting during Covid was that the crowds weren’t there. So Tom had lots of chances for interacting with the exhibits.
We watched a movie on the future of space exploration. It was a little disappointing to me because it included so many computer graphics along with the real shots, that it was hard to determine what was achieved already and what was hypothetical. But I digress.
We took the tram tour around the grounds and saw all the buildings and got to go inside the massive one with a Saturn V rocket. (And their new Apollo 13 bronze statue.)
We also got to go in an even larger building that housed the research and development of a space station. We walked along a catwalk and peered down through the glass to see what they were working on. Quite interesting – especially the robotics!
I was hoping our last week here would be full of sunshine but it was fogged in. We never did get the shorts-weather I was hoping for when we started our trip here.
My brother and sister-in-law, Mark and Doris, brought their rig down for the last weekend in February to stay in the park with us. After all, they live just a couple of states away – in Arkansas. They are planning on going full-time sooner or later. It was fun to visit, play games, and eat together. (Although they did have a bit of a time finding us, because the RV park was bought out by KOA after they made their reservations and no one told them of the name change!)
I’m not going to say it was the greatest month to be in Texas, but we did have a lot of good times and special memories. Although we are not sad to be leaving!
Happy Travels,
Peace and Love, Joy
