Vacation

 SO, I planned something different this year. We're going on vacation the week before Christmas. Here we are all loaded up and ready to roll. DD is taking care of Ringo and Bean is going to take care of Bob and the house. Let's go to Galveston TX! It's Ocean time!

First stop Muskogee OK for an overnight stay at the Marriott Inn-nice room, and glad to get out of the truck! We had a good meal at Lopez Mexican Restaurant. It was pretty good. Nice place. Off to Texas, and with a fuel stop at Buc-ee's!

And look! We met Buc-ee in person!

If you're not aware, Buc-ee's is like a Quick Trip on steroids.

It's bigger than any convivence store you'll ever go to! There are soo many gas pumps, and they're all busy!

People are shopping in here like crazy-it's like a Casey's meets a Wal Mart. But no pizza. They have a beef jerky bar. and they serve BBQ meats hot out of the smoker all day long. It's really a show to see. 

Then on to Galveston. 

We got to our room after a SNAFU with the Marriott Courtyard-the room we made a reservation for had a bathtub-and we all know Hubs can't deal with a tub. SOoo, the desk person called around to find us an accessible room, so we ended up at the Hilton. Here's the view out our window. Nice room, great location, right on the sea wall. I'm getting up early in the morning to see the sunrise.....

And here's the sunrise, it's chilly-about 50ish. 

You can see the sea wall in this picture of the hotel.

I walked out on the jetty-there are lots of them along this stretch of beach. 

It's a gorgeous sunrise, but the day is pretty overcast. 

There are benches along the sidewalk above the sea wall and they have all kind so information on them. 

The ocean is pretty rough today 

We drove downtown to do some Christmas shopping...this is a real interesting view...that's a giant cruise ship at the end of the street!

I went into the bookstore to pick out a couple of things.....

Then we drove down to the pier to see the cruise ships.

I never realized just how big these ships are!

We took the ferry over to Port Bolivar.

The Disney cruise ship is heading out to sea.

It was a site to see!

Then loaded up for the return trip. 

The weather is not cooperating so I'm not getting much beach time. 

It's goping to rain our last day so I get my chair out and take what little ocean time I can get. 

The wind is absolutely viscous! I only spend a couple of hours out there....so sad.

But in our room, I have to mention this cool feature. They have motion activated lights under the bed! I love this!

When ever you put your feet on the floor, the lights gently turn on! I want this!

So since it's a rainy day we choose to go on the Washed Ashore Art Tour. The idea is you  drive around the island, and locate all the creatures that are made out of the trash that has washed ashore. 

We drove out to the Dellanera RV park to see Seamore the pot bellied seahorse and the flipflop fish too.

It's starting to rain and the ocean is wild!

This is the handicap accessible beach at the RV park. 

It's not too cold-around 55 or so, but the wind is crazy!

look at these giant homes on the shore!

Here's Sylvia the silver tip shark located out at the Artist Boat Heritage Preserve, 

And here's Greta the great white shark located at Moody Gardens...

Look at his trashed mouth! Moody Gardens is a big attraction in Galveston-they have an aquarium, a water park, fancy gardens and all kind of very cool things to see. 

I had a hard time finding the next sculpture, so I was wandering around Moody Gardens, 

There's a riverboat!  Look oranges are wind blown from their tree.

Aha! with the help of a maintenance guy, I found Giaconnetti the the river otter!

He's quite a large otter! 

We went to the Children's museum in search of Pinky the fish, but couldn't find it. 

SO on to downtown and we found Finn the Mako shark at the historic Tremont Hotel

A closer look at the trash on Finn.

Then out to the pier to see Rosa the bald eagle. And here's the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum

Pretty amazing!

And one more downtown, Octavia the giant pacific octopus, 

She was downtown too, in Saengerfest Park. 

Darn it, I missed part of the photo op at the park!

We did a little Christmas shopping at one of the many antique shops. 

Well, one more walk down the beach before we go.

It's crazy windy and cold-the weather man says they will be having  historic cold weather starting tomorrow. The news people are telling folks to turn off their water to avoid burst pipes. 

It could get as cold as zero here! That's a really big deal-folks aren't prepared for that cold. 

One last look at the ocean for me though and we're ready to hit the road for Tulsa. 

A long day on the road and we are in Tulsa at the Hampton Inn and Suites. And we got a suite-it's big! SO we go out to for some supper to the Black Bear Diner. 

Look at the size of these plates-this has to be the best food we've had the entire trip. I had the cheeseburger salad, and hubs had the chicken fried steak and eggs.

We're heading out early, the weather in Iowa tells us there is a big blizzard moving in, so we're hoping to beat it home! But first a stop at The Mercantile In Pawhuska OK. 

Look! I parallel parked perfectly...hubs is getting grouchy-he's not a morning person-but lucky for us the Merc opens at 7am!

Love these outside tables-it's cold here today though-about 45.

If you have ever seen The Pioneer Woman, then you'll recognize these pictures.

The café, 

With the old wall paint-I remember when she blogged about this!

IT WAS TOALLY WORTH THE STOP. 

We just made it a quick stop, I didn't take the time I would have liked to, we need to keep moving to beat the storm home.

Love the old wood floors of The Merc. Pawhuska is not on the way to anywhere, so it's about an hour out of the way, but we got an early start and didn't run into a little snow until around the MO IA border. The snow continued though Des Moines-it was just starting to get a little sketchy in DM, but we out ran the snow and had clear and dry road after Newton all the way home. 

We got home in time to wake up to this. It's always good to be home, but.......