Galveston

Galveston is one of my favorite places in the world. It is old, seedy, rundown, the water is full of silt so no clear blue/green Florida keys kind of beauty. It was once called the Wall Street of the South because of the wealth generated by its port and more immigrants landed there than anywhere else in the US outside of Ellis Island. There are numbers of old houses, extravagant, even outlandish in some cases. There is wonderful food, the people are generally pleasant, and then of course there are the beaches full of water birds that aren't fearful because of the constant presence of people. I first learned to love water birds there and took endless numbers of pictures. The brown pelicans were and are my favorite, another totem animal for me. They are almost silent, they live comfortably among their own, as well as among egrets, cormorants, gulls, skimmers, roseate spoonbills, and American pelicans. They know and understand the value of cooperating with their environment, whether solar coasting high in the sky or just barely skimming the surface of the Gulf.