July 17 - Traveling to Galveston

We left Fountainbleu at 8:00 and began our 350-mile journey to Galveston Island State Park, Texas. We took a slight detour off I-10 to visit the McIlhenny Factory in Avery Island, Louisiana, the only place in the whole world Tabasco Sauce is made. Avery Island is a small town located on a salt dome island, one of five that sits along the Louisiana gulf coast (which is a good thing as the salt is used during the fermentation process). Everything around the neat brick buildings was lush and green and quite frankly a little too neat for my taste and for some reason, it made me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The tour itself was extremely short and the videos we watched which detailed McIlhenny’s Tabasco-sauce-making methods (did you know that Tabasco sauce sits in oak barrels for 3 years before it is bottled?!) were peppered with advertisements for their products and merchandise. The sales pitch worked and after having a quick lunch in the parking lot, we left with several bottles of Tabasco sauce – garlic, habanero and the newest addition – chipotle (and we got a free jar of hot salsa for spending more than $10 – woo hoo!). In the small country store, we were treated to several samples of sauces, jellies, and salsas. They even had Tabasco soda and ice cream. Back on the road, we made a quick stop for groceries and caught our first glimpse of the gulf at about 5:00 p.m. We waited for some time for the ferry to take us from the mainland to Galveston Island State Park. The journey across the water was beautiful. We stood at the back of the ferry watching the seagulls chase after fish in the churned up waters of the gulf. A large flock of pelicans came racing after the ship quite low and we were able to get a good look at these funny birds (all wings and beaks with little bodies). The campsite we have is just yards away from the beach. It’s beautiful but a bit buggy. We got eaten alive by mosquitoes while we set up camp and it was blowing a gale when we arrived, but the sweet reward was being able to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean waves – aaaahhh.