Chess+Taffy+Seawall Blvd

Wanderlust runs through my veins.  I am apart of many travel groups. I read about many destinations, experiences both good and bad, and look for wonderful advice from those who travel much more frequently than we do. 

A common question is....how do you afford to travel often? The answers vary from ---- I live frugally to I prioritize traveling. 

For us, we are not rich. We are not able to jump on a plane every year (yet) and fly across the world, but we do PRIORITIZE traveling.  I believe travel to be a relative term. 

Here are my thoughts: there is NO HARM in exploring your home state. Your home town. Heck, even within your parish (county) you can find things to learn about. 

My littlest one is now 3. Anytime there is a mention of going some place (even to the Dollar Store lol) she screams " I am coming!" My 12 year old is tired of the go go go from all the years of dragging him along, but he does dream of far off places such as Washington D.C. & N.Y.C and Paris. We have plans to visit DC/NYC in 2022 and Paris/London in (hopefully) 2024. Both have learned to love an adventure. 

Sure, my oldest rolls his eyes and at times asks to stay home instead, but as a momma who believes in the power of travel, all I want is for him to appreciate the world around us. And I truly believe he does and will continue to as he grows into a young adult. 

​

Travel DOES NOT have to be an expensive plane ticket, gourmet food and week long excursions. An adventure can be a tank of gas, sandwiches and an excited heart. Read that again. 

That is what we did back in 2019 when we headed down to Galveston, TX. My son was just into chess playing and I was itching to get on the open road. I was researching life-sized chess boards and came across the one located on the Strand in Galveston.  I researched other fun things to do  and found out about LaKing's Confectionery and decided to make a day trip out of it. 

We headed out around 7am and made it to Galveston around 10AM. It was drizzling on the way, but luckily we didn't get too wet on our trip. 

Our fist stop was the Strand. We knew we wanted to visit LaKing's, check out the chess board and walk down the Strand (first picture is of Finn and Jon walking down the Strand). 


​

We parked along the road and headed to the life-sized chess board. Within a few minutes, the rain started and the pieces were picked up. We hung around after the rain stopped hoping they would put the pieces back out, but we weren't lucky enough. This is certainly reason enough to make another trip there soon! On a sunnier day, of course. 

You can see below Jon walking on the chess board. He was bummed that we couldn't play a game or two! We probably wouldn't have made it to the seawall had the pieces been out that day! 

Since it was raining, we need a place to run for cover so we headed to LaKing's Confectionery. We missed the 9AM taffy pull, but we still went inside and took a look around and had ice cream to cool down too! There was tons of candy we could have devoured, but we chose the ice cream instead! 

​ Our plan was to come back for the 1PM taffy pull, but we were enjoying the beach. We'll know to get there earlier on our next trip out! 

​

After we had our ice cream, we decided to head to the Seawall to check out the beach and a pier I had heard about. Anytime we are exploring a new place, we love to ride through the historic district and check out the beautiful homes. So, along the way, we rode through some nice neighborhoods to see what their houses were all about. I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately.  But there were some beauties. 

​

Before heading out, I knew there was a fun pier with rides and games, but I wanted to skip that for this trip. I was trying to skimp on spending money :) . We rode further down Seawall Blvd and came across 61st Street Pier. It looked cool so we parked along the highway and headed for the pier. 

When we got inside, there was a fee (duh, Brandi) so that we could actually FISH OFF THE PIER lol but since that was not our plans, we just turned around and walked along the water/rocks and enjoyed the beauty of the coast. 
​

After spending time in the sun, Finley was exhausted. It was time to get her back home. So we decided to take the back way and hit the Galveston Island Ferry. 

It was a fun experience for the little one for sure. Her brother held her so she could see over the side, she chased birds under cars and thought it was funny when the birds flew above us. 

On the way back home, we stopped in Crystal Beach to potty and check out the nice camps you can rent there. It's certainly a small, quiet area. 

We made it home, told daddy all about our day and had a great night's rest! 

​

There is never going to be the perfect time to travel. You don't have to be rich to go on an adventure. If you teach your kids that LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE, they will treat every experience as an adventure.