Galveston Historic Homes Tour

It has to be largely my grandmother's influence that I love living with history. She had an antique shop for a while, and would often tell stories about various pieces of furniture, who owned it, where it was from, and what wood was used to make it. She had stories about dishes and silverware, paintings, and music boxes. She had picture books on her leather top coffee table of beautiful historical homes in Kentucky and Virginia. She talked at length about her childhood home in Mississippi and little by little, I came to love the things she did, which is why I was so excited to win four tickets to the Galveston Historic Homes Tour courtesy of West University Buzz magazine.

As one might imagine, it was a bit of a shock to visit Galveston back in 1985 as my 21 year old self after growing up in Hawaii. At the very least, I was stunned to see cars driving on the beach! It didn't take long, however, to learn to appreciate the charm of Galveston. Back then, with a young family in tow, we were always in a hurry to get back to Houston after a long day at the beach.

As our daughters grew up, however, I jumped at the chance to chaperone  field trips to Galveston. They were usually when our daughters were studying Texas history and we toured the tall ship Elissa, the Menard House, and the Old City Graveyard. All these years, though, what I always wanted to do was go on the Galveston Historic Homes Tour. But just because I love things like this, doesn't mean that my loved ones love it, too. Not wanting to coerce anyone, but really wanting the companionship, the Amazing Reese, daughter Anna, and dear friend Erin, all, bless their hearts, agreed to go with me.

With a picnic lunch sandwiched between our tour of six of the ten wonderfully interesting homes, with Bishop's Palace thrown in for good measure, it was a full day. Longing for more, it should come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I've spent a great deal of time these last two days researching historic homes for sale in Galveston. It's certainly not practical and only vaguely realistic, but I have grand dreams of the Amazing Reese (and Tilly) and me loving a historic house in Galveston back to life.

Even at the end of a long day, the Amazing Reese was a good sport. He went on this tour only because he loves me, and never complained about it once.....not that he's a complainer, he isn't, but still, he could have complained, but he didn't. Thank you, Reese -- just another example of why you are so AMAZING.