TX Travel Priorities

I spent the past weekend on the road - Saturday at a beach in Galveston, and Sunday at Saint Mary's Seminary in Houston as well as at a nearby park. This isn't going to be much of a tour-guide type post; there wasn't much touring involved. Oh, the drive through Galveston was nice enough with the rich houses, but I can't tell you where to find them except that we passed the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street. The beach was nice enough, as far as that goes, but I've no idea what it was called or how to get there again. And the seminary was gorgeous, but that's hardly the sort of place I can recommend everyone go. About the only recommendation I can give is that the Hampton Inn we stayed at was lovely, and most likely far far out of my price range if I hadn't been sharing a room with others.

Unlike so many of my trips, I wound up with far more pictures of people than of scenery. It was nothing I would have done by myself and all the better for it. I went for the music and games in the van, the sand castle built using a snow shovel, being given the opportunity to sing, taking up the entire hotel lobby at breakfast, honoring the new acolytes (and particularly admiring how well the readings fit the occassion*), and the birthday party complete with cakes in the park. Most times when I go somewhere, it's at least partly because there's something there I really want to see; at the very least, I end up finding something I'm interested in seeing by devoring tour guides after selecting a general location or two. But there's something to be said for simply hanging out and enjoying family time away from home. Someday I'll return, and visit NASA, and the museums, and whatever else catches my eye as a particularly interesting goal.. but all in all, if I can choose to have trips like this, I'll gladly forego the tour books with starred destinations and outlined maps, and find my career doing something other than travel writing.

*for the unaware, we only barely avoided telling the new acolytes to give up and immediately find wives, after which, no divorcing allowed!