The Levys Go to Galveston

On Saturday Jennifer and I packed up the kiddos and headed south on I-45 for a day-trip to Galveston.

Our trip started at Moody Gardens where we got to go through the Aquarium and the Rainforest pyramids.

Benjamin LOVED the aquarium. We saw a zillion different types of fish and got to see them feed both the penguins and the seals.

That monkey was about 3' from B before I could get the camera out

Benjamin was kind of so-so in terms of excitement in the Rainforest pyramid. He saw a crocodile really close up, and there were a couple of different types of monkeys roaming around that got within 3-4 feet of him - but he really wasn't all that into them. We saw a couple of bats and went through a butterfly farm. Inside in some smaller displays that we didn't have access to he got to see all sorts of exotic frogs, chameleons, and snakes (vipers, constrictors, etc.).


After we wrapped up Moody Gardens we took the kids to the Rainforest Cafe (a Landry's restaurant that is now down on the sea wall). Benjamin LOVED the gorilla and elephant robots that would go off every 10-20 minutes - it was probably the highlight of the day for him.

I snuck in a destination - the Galveston Railway Museum. I remember going with my folks when I was a kid and Benjamin is obsessed with trains right now so I thought he'd enjoy it.


He was not all that thrilled with me making him pose with the statues in the old train station but he did get a kick out of the original phone booths they had.

I was really sad to see the state of the museum following Hurricane Ike. The damage was evident in both the station (ex. the guy in the picture above was missing his cane in his left hand) and especially in the train cars and engines. They simply aren't a big enough operation to fully recover from something like that - and admission was only $6/adult and kids under 4 were free. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon it was us and two other families....maybe $40 worth of admission.

There were 40 railcars and 6 engines but only about 6 or 7 of the railcars were open and two engines (although I'm not totally sure we were supposed to be in one of them - it was kind of dangerous).

Regardless, I think he enjoyed them. He also got to see a traction engine, like Trevor in his Thomas the Train movies - so that was good.

Personally, I really liked the station itself - they had the worn marble tile floor and most of the old portions of the station had been restored. I kept thinking back knowing that my grandfather had taken the train from Houston down to Galveston when he was young and that he walked across these same worn marble floors that Benjamin was walking on. The city was booming back in the earlier part of the 20th century and you can just imagine all the bustle that would have been going on in the station.


From the museum we headed down to the beach for both of the kiddos first ocean experience. And what better beach than the free one right off the sea wall for them to have that lasting impression. Really though, it worked out well - it wasn't very crowded so we put down our blanket and Benjamin played with his buckets and rake we brought. Then we walked them both down to the water.



Bekah did NOT like the water....she's her Dada's daughter. At first Benjamin was pretty indifferent to the water - he just wanted to dig in the sand - but he got more curious about it and we went back down to the water (about knee deep for him) and he had fun. Until he fell down and inhaled a mouthful of Galveston's finest. I think it scared him more than anything but that was the end of the ocean for him....he went right back to digging.

We were at the beach for maybe an hour (and the kiddos were completely doused in sun block so don't fret). We had a great time down in Galveston - maybe overdid it a little bit - but certainly memorable.

Here are all the photos we took on the trip - I couldn't squeeze them all into this update.