Day 3 - Galveston to Kingsville TX

400 miles under the belt and we're at Kingsville, Texas.  We left Galveston mid-morning - the wind there - and right along the Mexico Gulf coastline to Corpus Christi was a pretty steady 25 knots, which is just a little too much to really enjoy the beach environment.  It was enough to generate some good waves at Galveston-perhaps it's a regular thing, as Glen Campbell mentioned the waves in his well-known song.
Here's the sea wall at Galveston; protecting the city from the brunt of sea inundation, primarily from the hurricanes that tend to hit this area every few years.

Before we left Galveston, we had a walk around Moody Gardens - a nice public gardens complex.  The unusual thing about this place, though, is that they have three very large pyramids.  One contains a 'rainforest', another one is an aquarium and the third is science-based.  Here are two of them.

 

The other surprise at this place was a lovely old paddle steamer, called the Colonel.  I presume it offers rides up and down the West Bay water way, separating Galveston from the mainland.

We took the Bluewater Highway out of Galveston, which gave us lovely views towards the sea for around 30 miles.  The houses along this stretch are all up on stilts so sea inundation doesn't damage their properties.  We heard from one local that they can't claim insurance if they don't have a stilted house.

Some of the Texan roads were very long and straight.  Most of the towns we passed had what we presume were water towers, often emblazoned with the name of the town.  Each of the towns had a sign on the side of the road, stating its population.  These aren't rounded to the nearest ten or thousand as you might expect but offered the exact population.  To the nearest one.

There is a nuclear power station a little ways west of Galveston and we set out to find it.  We travelled along what were essentially farm roads, with bayous, skunk road kill, lack of cars - but those that were there were predominately Ford F1500 utes, and occasional food shops selling strawberry chocolate whoopee pies...

...until we found what we were looking for, the South Texas Project 3200MW Nuclear Power Station.  This plant is America's most recently built nuclear power station and it generates over three times the power output of the Huntly Power Station in NZ.

We got talking to some employees, who took us into a mock up operations room, used for training purposes.  Nige happened to ask..."So what happens when you have to do an emergency shutdown"?  The response was..."would you like to see?"  So on-cue, Nige flicked a large red lever and all of a sudden there were flashing lights and sirens and all sorts of things going on.  Luckily, of course, it was simulated - but a bit of a hoot, all the same.
Here's another shot of the complex from a bit further down the road.  Here you can see both of the reactor chambers.

The road opened up to a fantastic big Texan sky as we approached Corpus Christi.  Just what I imagined of rural Texas.  Still the odd refinery or chemical plant here and there but otherwise pretty fine.  The main attraction we wanted to see at Corpus Christi was the USS Lexington, an 888ft aircraft carrier.  This massive ship entered service in 1943 to replace one that sunk in the Coral Sea.  This ship was hit by a kamikaze, resulting in 51 deaths and many injuries.

By the time we got to the Lexington at Corpus Christi, we only had an hour to tour the ship, so we (very) quickly put ourselves through four self-guided tours. The most interesting one was the flight deck tour.  Here, several aircraft were on display, including an F14 Tomcat, Skyhawks, Cobra helicopter and others.

I knew the runways on aircraft carriers were short but I was surprised to see just how short they were.  The arresting systems must have been pretty efficient, I guess.

It was 5pm by the time we completed the Lexington tour so, we head out to Padre Island on the coast to find a place to stay but the combination of very expensive motels and the even stronger wind and blowing sand sent us on our way.  We drove on to Kingsville, Texas, where we found a cheap Motel 6.  We popped into a BBQ Steak House for dinner and started a conversation with a family dining on the next table to us.  They heard our accents and asked where we were from.  After they left, the waiter came up to us and said our meal had been paid for by our new friends, as had the next round of beers.  Nice folks, those Texans.  Thankfully, the next round of beers weren't their standard one litre glasses...

There is a large airshow here tomorrow, so we'll have a rest day and check out all things aviation.  The highlight for me will be a B1 Lancer supersonic bomber doing a few passes.  The Navy Blue Angels F18s are there as well.  Should be fun.  Where are my ear plugs???

See you tomorrow.

PF