It's December. Time to go to the beach. Although a Texas beach in winter is sort of like a northern California beach in summer. And I know this because I nearly froze to death under a blanket off the Sonoma coast once in July. But our jaunt downstate this time was at Carol's invitation to have a Hill/Burdine family get together at Crystal Beach, east of Galveston and on the Bolivar peninsula. Glenn and I drove to Dallas first and spent the evening with Andrea and Tina before heading down I-45 to Houston. In Houston we all wandered around Whole Foods gathering groceries for our cabin retreat. It was to be steaks one night and seafood gumbo the next. Glenn does make a mean gumbo and this time he got to select fresh crab and shrimp.
We drove out east of Houston then down and and around to approach Crystal Beach from the east rather than going to Galveston and across the ferry. The peninsula itself had been devastated by Hurricane Ike in 2008 and looked pretty bare of even palm trees.
Here was our cabin, a humble but cozy place as compared to some of the beach front cabins that looked more like McMansions on stilts.
At least all six of us got a bed to sleep which is not always the case. (Well, Mark did end up on the porch on top of the couch pillows). On Glenn's side of the family their idea of a fun vacation is to pack as many people in one small space as possible then let things happen. There WAS only one bathroom but as we were all adults we waited in an orderly fashion.
The cabin was about a quarter mile from the beach so we could walk it easily, and there was also a golf cart for dashes back to the bathroom, the refrigerator, or drives along the beach. It even had a radio, tuned to a country western station playing such hits as "I'd Like To Have a Beer With Jesus". Because it was mostly cloudy and in the Sixties, and hardly anyone was around there was a certain lonely melancholy air. I loved that.
Glenn and I took a stroll as soon as we got there. I had not seen the ocean since I was in Jacksonville in 2008 visiting Dad before he passed away. Even with the rushing of the waves there was a stillness about the place as if everything was in a state of hibernation.
We all set up camp on the beach and I brought my sketchbook and camera.
Mark decided winter be damned, he was going for a swim.
I was happy just to sketch, and amble along the beach.
Gordon also liked his quiet time.
Other than that we ate lots of good food (the gumbo was heavenly) and played Settlers of Catan, Skip-Bo, and Spades. Lets just say that Glenn's side of the family is pretty competitive and they all like to bicker about the rules.
Here are some of my sketches, although the ones done on the colouful backgrounds make the scenes look a lot sunnier than they actually were.
Later we went home through Galveston so we got to cross the ferry before driving through a Houston rainstorm and getting back home, finally, 12 hours later. It's a long way from beach and palm trees to a sudden winter dust storm on the plains.
