It's 11:00 p.m. and this morning seems like ages ago.  We got up at 4:00 a.m. and headed from our Denver hotel to the airport.  Here we are with our discreet luggage.  No one will ever peg us as tourists with these puppies.

Actually I'm hoping that we will draw so much attention with them that all the creepers will want to leave us alone.  So far it's worked.  The creepers have completely isolated us.  Not sure they're the only ones though.

We arrived in Houston at around 10:00 a.m. Texas time and hopped on a shuttle for Galveston.  They dropped us at our hotel around noon and we realized we were hungry and stranded without a room because check in wasn't until 3:00.  We had nothing to fear though because this is the south and they do what they can to take care of you.  (My kids were thrilled the first time they heard the concierge say "ya'll".  She didn't have much of a southern accent but when she said "ya'll" they felt they were really getting a taste of southern culture.) They immediately pulled some strings and found us a room then called down a driver to take us wherever we wanted to go.  He was thrilled to do it because he said otherwise he'd be back at the hotel folding towels.  He seemed a little disappointed that we didn't want him to take us back to Houston to dine.  When we told him we wanted somewhere  close, he recommended a hamburger place right across from the ocean so we took him up on it.

Then we crossed the street and went to the beach so that the kids could get their "feet wet".  Any seasoned parent knows that once you tell a kid it's okay to get their feet wet you have basically given them permission to dive in the water with all their clothes on.  So that's what they did.

And all was well with the world until they unwittingly started drifting eastward...

... and we heard a whistle blow.  That's when we turned around to see a girl in true Pamela Anderson fashion take off her shirt, grab her rescue tube and go running out to sea.  

Thanks for the rescue, tan, blonde, bikini lifeguard girl.  We promise to pay better attention to signs from now on.

We took that as a sign that it was time to call our driver and tell him, "ya'll come back and get us now, ya hear?"  We headed back to the hotel but not until after the driver gave us an unsolicited tour of the town including a drive by of his own house.  He also obliged us with a quick stop at Walmart to buy eye patches for pirate night on the ship.  He really did not want to go back to the hotel.  I will miss having a driver.  And I think he will miss being one.

The End