Ahhh.  The ocean was so beautiful today I wanted to circle my arms around it and draw it into myself.  I literally experienced that desire to “drink in” the scenery —  I feasted on the view with my eyes and my heart.

Tomorrow we make the trek home, and I am filled to the brim with stored up joy and refreshment from this mini-vacation.  If I was an inanimate object, I’d be a bubbling fountain.  Or an ocean wave.  I wish I could bottle up the coast and transplant it up a ways north so we could visit more often!

This is Jerry Allen, our breakfast buffet chef here at the Galvez. Jerry made us feel welcome each morning and made some fantastic omelets while dishing out stories about the island a few years ago when Hurricane Ike blew ashore.  We learned that the 100-year-old Galvez only suffered three broken windows.  The basement flooded, but everything above the basement stayed dry.  Jerry rode out the storm on the island and, when the storm passed leaving the whole island without power, he became chef to many first responders.

This hotel is a vacation on its own merits…especially for those who love ghost stories.  But the only “ghosts” I saw were those captured on my camera during a long exposure!

Today we visited the Schliterbaun water park.  The spring break crowd was immense…in more ways than one.  I didn’t take any photos because there was too much water splashing and dripping from the overhead enclosures and screaming, trampling guests.  I think my eyeballs fell out a few times when a couple of wardrobe malfunctions happened right in front of our chairs. Here’s a tip to all you ladies: even if you wear a T-shirt over a bathing suit, the bathing suit needs to be large enough to stretch over all body parts…otherwise the wet T-shirt will only magnify those parts that are not covered. (Insert shudder here.) Enough said.

I did venture into the “lazy” river even though my skin crawled at the thought of all those GERMS that must be floating around. This was a HUGE “accomplishment” for me since I am such a germaphobe.  This germaphobia isn’t so unfounded as I observed a teenaged boy cough, hack, and expel a chunk of mucus right onto the ground at his — and my — bare feet.  Ugh!  Didn’t that boy’s mamma teach him some manners, like don’t spit in public?My mind kept envisioning all of us getting sick from the water…but I somehow got enough gumption to wade in the wavy river for one time around.  When we got back I wanted to bathe in a tub of Purell sanitizer, but I didn’t have a bottle big enough to fill the tub…

This evening (after I scrubbed my skin with tons of soap), I went on a photo safari and snapped some shots of the hotel.  It was hopping tonight with new guests arriving.  The exposure was long due to the low light, so these people look like ghosts.  Since the Galvez is rumored to be haunted, maybe some of these streaks really are paranormal…(insert spooky sound here).

This old timey Letter Box shines front and center in front of the elevators.  They just don’t make them like they used to, do they?

We have really enjoyed our family time together — we experienced the gamut of weather, from thunderstorms to extreme fog to beautiful, crisp nighttime air.  We stuffed ourselves with excellent food, and we feasted our eyes on the beauty God created.

Jerry the Chef told us that his mother had never been off the island.  If I had been born here, I don’t think I would leave it, either.