Galveston Island, Texas
This is Dickens on the Strand weekend in Galveston (December 3-4, 2011). It is a time when the locals get to pretend to be English. Go figure! They fought the English in the 1770's for independence and now they like to dress up and try to talk like them. It was far from English Christmas weather. Today was a lovely 73 degrees F (23 degrees C.) but that did make it all the nicer to stand and watch the Queen's Parade.
My favorite parade music is the pipe bands.
Not the Queen but maybe she is royal.
A walking Christmas tree.
Our friends, Katie and Chris, are members of a Scandinavian dance group and for many years the group have sold Glögg (mulled red wine) from this little stall. It is not a hardship to go down and help support them by purchasing a wine or two ....
Go back in time, to the time of Dickens. Some of the dresses are quite pretty and others well .... some look like Dance Hall girls.
The chimney sweeps would have little work to do here in Texas - the home of air conditioning.
I could not believe the mess of electric wires along this back alley. This is hurricane country, so why are the wires all overhead and not buried? Amazing!
In the storm surge of Hurricane Ike the sea water was above the first floor level. Where the Queen's Parade was held on The Strand nothing survived on the first floor of every building. It was heartbreaking to see the debris on the streets when we visited Galveston in the weeks after the hurricane. Houstonians were encouraged to go to Galveston to spend money and help with the economy, we did our best. Galveston is coming back, slowly, but Texans (like those of SW Louisiana, eh Dawn) are a strong folk and get stuck into doing for themselves and not relying on government aid.
This is Dickens on the Strand weekend in Galveston (December 3-4, 2011). It is a time when the locals get to pretend to be English. Go figure! They fought the English in the 1770's for independence and now they like to dress up and try to talk like them. It was far from English Christmas weather. Today was a lovely 73 degrees F (23 degrees C.) but that did make it all the nicer to stand and watch the Queen's Parade.
In the storm surge of Hurricane Ike the sea water was above the first floor level. Where the Queen's Parade was held on The Strand nothing survived on the first floor of every building. It was heartbreaking to see the debris on the streets when we visited Galveston in the weeks after the hurricane. Houstonians were encouraged to go to Galveston to spend money and help with the economy, we did our best. Galveston is coming back, slowly, but Texans (like those of SW Louisiana, eh Dawn) are a strong folk and get stuck into doing for themselves and not relying on government aid.
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