Wrapping Up Galveston

Today we wrap up our stay in Galveston with some reminders of our stay on the Island.

We spent more time in the wetlands and along the shore observing waterfowl. My next challenge will be to identify more of the birds we saw. For now we just enjoyed watching them.

Towering at the head of the Strand, the vast Railroad Museum boasts one of the largest restored railroad collections in the southwest. It is housed in the former Santa Fe Railroad station.

This shrimp watched over the Gulf from a restaurant's roof

A fellow traveler

It was raining on the night of the recent lunar eclipse, but we captured these photos the next night.

It was overcast with a very light rain on the morning that we left Galveston. Heading out to the channel on the Galveston-Point Bolivar ferry, we passed one of our new favorite birds--the pelican.

The 2.7 mile trip takes approximately 18 minutes to cross one of the busiest waterways in the world. Through the Bolivar Roads Channel flows the commerce of the Port of Houston, the nations largest inland port, as well as other Galveston and Trinity Bay communities. Approximately 7,000 ships visit the Port of Houston each year.

The ferry operation consists of five boats, each of which can carry approximately 70 vehicles, 500 passengers and six crewmembers. Each ferry is capable of carrying eight 18-wheel trucks weighing 80,000 pounds each. All of the boats are double-ended with a pilothouse on each end, and the Captain changes from one pilothouse to the other to go in the opposite direction.

A conservation group completed purchase of 1,350 acres on the Bolivar Peninsula, preserving one of the last remaining large tracts of undeveloped land on the peninsula.

"The purchase by the Conservation Fund for Texas secures vital habitat for migrating birds and will permanently protect estuarine emergent wetlands, associated tidal flats, subtidal ponds and Gulf coast beachfront.

"The purchase protects the dwindling habitat for a wide variety of birds following a major migratory path that takes them across a vast stretch of the Gulf as they fly from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico to the Texas Gulf Coast (chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/article/Preserve-purchased-on-Bolivar-Peninsula-5081962.php).

On to Louisiana.