Oh Galveston...

A strip of land off the coast of Texas that was engulfed (literally, the Gulf of Mexico went right over the island) in 1900 by a hurricane that killed between 6,000 and 8,000; even after the San Francisco fire and Katrina it remains the USA's worst natural disaster. Now it is a tourist centre catering to the truck and motorbike crowd. I am staying at one of the older hotels...

http://www.commodoreonthebeach.com/

... and have just about had enough, after two days and about twenty plays, of Glen Campbell's marvellous civil war song. But forget all talk of sea winds blowin' it is brutally hot, temperature in the upper eighties and humidity sending the heat index (what it feels like) into the upper nineties... Not really complaining but it hasn't helped my temper in dealing with the lack of WiFi signal here for the last day or so... A period that has covered the missus' birthday morning which really buggered things up. But, on the bright side, it's up again (fingers crossed) and I now know what a Shrimp Martini is, and it's nowhere near as bad as it sounds, the one I had was an appetiser and seemed to consist of a tomato and Tabasco sauce over a bucket of peeled shrimp, which was then ladled over a couple of lettuce leaves (that's virtually health food here).

The old town is structurally beautiful but ruined by antique and gift shops... I leave on Friday but don't really know where I am going yet, might try Laredo on the Mexican border but will keep checking the weather as it is due to be up near 110 at the weekend.

The pictures are views from my balcony first thing in the morning (above) and in the evening (below).