We closed out our vacation in Galveston, but we weren’t closing anything out until we went to the beach. I usually spend time at our community beach club, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing. We spent 5 – 6 hours at the beach mainly playing in the water. At first, I was a little apprehensive about being in water where I couldn’t see the bottom, but jumping a few waves, laughing endlessly, and swallowing a few quarts of salt water helped me get over that pretty quickly. I had mommy and daddy in the water for most of the time we were there. When we were done, we were pooped.

We also built sand castles with moats and tunnels connecting them and the beach was pretty nice – no visible signs of BP’s oil spill. This isn’t to say there are no more effects of the spill, but I don’t want to get too heavy in my post – it’s vacation and I want to chill – okay, a year later and there are still 1.1 million barrels of oil still missing from the spill, but I digress.

Moving on….daddy and mommy did say that when I get a little older, we will go to the Caribbean where the water is so clear you can see your toes wiggle. For now Galveston will have to do and that is alright by me – I had a blast and I’ve got the tan to prove it.

I thought things couldn’t get any cooler than exploring caves, but Sea World sure did give it a run for its money. I mean, who gets to feed dolphins….besides the other few thousand people who were there with us? I didn’t have any problem holding the fish to feed the dolphins, but the smell was pretty bad.  I was able to tolerate it all for the dolphins – Blue Voice anyone? Maybe I’ll just boycott tuna or something more practical for someone of my advancing age (third mention).

I also got to ride a lot of rides, but the most fun for me was riding the roller coaster with mommy. She said that daddy was too scared to ride the roller coaster (daddy didn’t deny it), but that she loved them and would always ride them with me. Did I mention the roller coaster looked like SHAMU – too cool! Oh, and we also rode this big ride that made my tummy tickle so much. It was a water ride that took us so high that when we hit the bottom, we made a huge splash that got us all soaked. It was so scary fun. I do want it noted that the only one of us that screamed was daddy and he screamed like a little girl.

We ended our day watching Shamu do some cool tricks. Those whales are amazing – so big, but can do such cool things with their bodies. Way cool.

We finished the day with dinner at the Magic Time Machine. Food wasn’t great, but the atmosphere was silly. We had Minnie Mouse wait on us and we saw Shaggy and Velma along with some other silly stuff like a salad bar in a car. We also had someone make us all balloon animals. Overall, the day was cool. Next stop – NASA Space Center in Houston.

Sunday started the beginning of our road trip through the great state of Texas. First stop for us was Natural Bridge Caverns outside of San Antonio. Now, I’ve never been spelunking before so this was an exciting moment for me. I got to go 180 feet below the surface – below the dirt, worms, trees, and rocks. The tour we went on was about 3/4 of a mile – half down hill which means the other half was uphill. I handled it like a champ – so easy a caveman could do it. Although I must admit that there were areas where it was steep and that had me working my legs out a little. Oh, and it was over 70% humidity in there so I was sweaty, too.

All of the sweat and hard work was well worth it to see a cave for the first time. We got to see stalactites (on the ceiling), stalagmites (on the ground), c0lumns (where the two meet), soda straws, and more cool stuff. We couldn’t touch any of them because of the oil in our skin deteriorates the formations. Of course, when they told me I couldn’t touch them, that’s when I wanted to touch them more – I didn’t though.

All in all, it was a great time exploring. Next stop Shamu and Sea World, then off to NASA, and Galveston for a couple of days.