I hung around Galveston during the day. It's a long, thin island with tons of beachfront. I wandered around to the pier and saw the beautiful old oil tankers and barges and cruise ships at the dock, and the fishing trawlers dragging nets back and forth through the bay. It was hot out and when Casey got out of work we went swimming at Stewart Beach Park. I've never felt ocean water so warm. It was like a jacuzzi. It was very salty and easy to float in. The waves broke at odd angles and it was fun getting beat around by them. Little fish swam around between my legs.

We went to Houston that evening. We wandered around the downtown area and ran around to different spots. She grew up in south Houston and knew all the good hangouts. We had an amazing pepper pizza at Star Pizza and then went to a couple bars. There were many people around and lots of good live music. We listened to a few bands and wandered around.

Houston reminds me of Los Angeles, in that it's a huge, sprawling, decentralized city. It's a city built largely on the oil industry, booming in the 1980's when the oil industry there was growing exponentially. Development expanded further and further from the city center and everyone wanted to get out from the old inner neighborhoods to the new fancy developments on the outskirts. Now that the Houston-area oil growth has tapered off, many inner neighborhoods are blighted, many people live far from their jobs in the city, and regional hangout spots have evolved instead of a centralized destination that everyone wants to get to.