Entries this day: skate_galveston

skate galveston

13 October 1998

This morning I went to Galveston to skate.

"Galveston?" you may ask.

It's the city on the Gulf of Mexico 60 miles south of Houston on I-45. It's where 3 lanes each direction of I-45 melts into asphalt surface road with lights at mile marker 0. Galveston.

So anyway, I drove there early this morning - like 8am and parked on Stuart Beach. I walked slowly around the beach and waded in the water, and even sat down in the shallow surf for a while, all while reading my new JavaScript book. Ack.. can't get away from computers, even at the beach!!

I enjoyed the sun and sea and birds and all and then I sat in the trunk of my car to read in the shade. I pored through seven chapters and found my brain was full.

Time to skate.

Meticulously brushed my feet off before driving off the beach up to the sea wall, where I parked and put on my skates.

There were very few people on the island (it's not actually an island, but it's close, so they call it that.) but I skated about 1/2 mile upwind and followed a driveway down toward the beach. I could see it led to an old parking lot of some sort, but I couldn't see exactly what.

Over colorful graffiti I rolled, reading about who loves who for how long and who can bite what and who rules and who was where and all variety of stuff. Greenery squeezed out a living between the large slabs of concrete and an empty pay phone shell stood at the edge of the lot like a sentry.

A rusted hand rail stood between the parking lot and another driveway that curved up toward the street again. Or did it? I decided to follow the other driveway since it disappeared, curving into the tall weeds.

More graffiti, this time a picture of a gun with a ridiculously large bullet leaving the chamber, and wait-a-minute! this driveway curves back around into a loop?? This was a go-cart track!!

Mystery solved, I imagined what the facility must have been like when it was new. Why did it go out of business? How long ago? Hmmmm.

Back to the sea wall boulevard, and across to the other side, where the road surface slopes upward again, making a secondary sea wall. Nothing to sea, er see, over the wall so I sped back down the slope and back across 5 empty lanes to the sea-side sidewalk.

Wow. Now I was skating with the wind and it was soooo much easier!! At the light for Ferry Street or Road or whatever, I turned right, toward the ferry. It was 1.25 miles away according to the signs, and I found it pleasing to skate past all the cars and trucks and a bus that were parked in line waiting for the ferry after they had all sped past me on the street.

All the way up to the sign that read, "DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE UNTIL INSTRUCTED BY DECK HAND" I waited for the ferry to arrive. I imagined a giant hand on the deck motioning for me to cross the line.

By the time the ferry arrived, I was joined by some others intending to walk aboard. The ferry docked and one of the Deck Hands walked past me and without stopping said, "you can't wear those on the ferry boat."

I blinked.

Hmmm. Do I want to go across the ferry, or do I want to skate?

I want to skate.

So I watched the whole process of loading and unloading of cars, intrigued by the nearly imperceptible listing of the ferry as the cars rolled off one side, then the other, then as new cars rolled on one side, then the other.

But what was most impressive was the number of cars they packed on this thing. The bus, a couple of 6 wheeler "cube" trucks, three short 18 wheelers, and a lot of cars. As they filled up the back of the ferry, I was all, "okay that's the last car." nope a van.. "okay, that's the last car." nope a couple more cars. Finally the last car squeezed on. An orange-ish red VW Bug. Yeah.

They closed the gates and began to pull away, and I skated past the ominous sign toward the churning waters behind the ferry. The Deck Hands whistled to get my attention and waved me away. I smiled and waved back. "Come get me!!!" I thought.

Ah well..

Skated 1.25 miles back toward Stuart Beach and back to the sea-side side walk and again skated downwind for a while.

Oh yes this is great! I jumped up onto and down off of the concrete benches as I went past, swerved around sign posts, or between them if appropriate and had a great time. I watched some guys preparing rebar for a concrete driveway and even skated out onto a paved jetty on the end of which some people were fishing.

The pavement was hardly smooth, so I abandoned the thought of going all the way to the end. In fact, I almost ate it once on the way back, as I skated pretty close to the edge and almost didn't make it jumping over a large gap in the rocks.

But, I did not wreck and made it safely back up the steps to the sidewalk. Skate skate skate to another jetty, this one not paved, but just essentially cube shaped granite stones with a few inch gap between each one.

Now that was a challenge to skate very quickly. Each instant I was stopped by a bump, rolling down a rut, stepping past something and jumping over the gaps all at once. Wow.

Yes, I had my helmet on. Yes it was dangerous. No I did not fall. Yes I would do it again.

A bit further down wind I skated and then realized, "wait-a-minute.. I'm going down wind!"

I turned around and my car was out of sight. Not like, "hey baby, that car is out of sight!" but like really really far away.

Oh yes. I savored the delicious leg muscle burn as I tucked and pushed into the wind. My lower back began to ache from maintaining the crouched position but I forged on.

Okay, so I'm being a bit melodramatic, but the difference was quite significant. I had to act as my own cheerleader at the end to keep myself from stopping.

Made it.

Sweat literally poured out of my helmet when I took it off. Threw my sweaty helmet, skates, pads and socks into the trunk and headed home.