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Galveston

 I never wrote anything about Valerie and my trip to Texas - and since right now they're having some very unusual weather (accumulating snow!), the place is fresh in my mind.

Most of the trip was family visiting stuff, but it did have some outdoorsy (which is the ostensible theme of this blog) aspects. Probably the biggest one was that we happened to be there at the time that migratory sandhill cranes were stopping in as they headed south for the winter.  The cranes' range is from Canada, where they spend summer and breed, down to Mexico, where they spend the cold months. In some of the big nesting areas you can see upwards of 10,000 cranes at once; however in Galveston you usually see only a few at a time. It's more of a birder thing, a chance to check another species off on your birding checklist.

Henry, Valerie, and I headed over bright and early to hear a lecture about sandhill cranes, which was actually pretty interesting (Cailin slept in). The admission included food, but it was limited to regular coffee, ham and egg breakfast burritos, and butter cookies, so not really my speed. OK, I actually had some coffee and two butter cookies, which left me buzzing from the caffeine and sugar.

The speaker, who was a crane expert from Nebraska, asked the crowd where they were from, to see who had come the farthest to see the cranes. Valerie and I were pretty much tied for first place distance-wise with a couple from Montana.

After the talk, we all headed out to some spots where cranes were known to congregate, and where volunteer birders had set up spotting scopes. Yeah, there were some cranes, but maybe ten at each place, and all very far away. It was cool to see them, but not exactly a life-changing experience - nothing like seeing the great mass of migratory swans at Eastern Neck Wildlife Refuge. But fun.

The best viewing was near the small non-commercial Galveston airport, and so to paraphrase an old commercial hawking New York's transit connection to JFK airport, you could take the plane to the crane, the plane to the crane!

Cranes

Gulf Coast Texas is generally pretty warm even in wintertime (except days like today when it's snowing!), so I got a couple of runs in along the Galveston seawall, the beachfront wall which provides the island with some limit protection from flooding during hurricanes.

Two different sunrises from two different runs

Also, as we drove from the Houston airport to Galveston we made our first visit to Buc-ee's, a famous chain of convenience stores known for their merch and for their amazingly clean bathrooms. Does visiting a store named after a cartoon beaver count as a wildlife outing?

Valerie tries on a gaudy cowboy hat at Buc-ee's

Other than that, it was all family stuff - had some nice dinners, attended the Rotary Christmas luncheon (!), saw a play my sister-in-law directed, and got a cool behind-the-scenes tour of the historic 1894 Opera House (my brother and sister-in-law have bonded with the artsy community on the island). 

Celebration of Lights at Moody Gardens

The Opera House


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