Thursday, February 14, 2013

February 14, 2013 Santa Fe, Texas

Heading west. We drove south of Houston and went to another Harvest Host site in Santa Fe, Texas. It is between Houston and Galveston.

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A yellow bridge south of Houston, north of the bridge toward Houston, refineries as far as the eye can see.

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The bridge over to Galveston has a wavy center divider and wavy street lights. One of the attractions on the beach, with a volcano and Mayan buildings. The beach is pretty commercial.

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John at the low point of Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, on Galveston's beach.  The car parked on top of the sea wall. In  1900 a hurricane drove a 15 foot surge wave over the island that devastated it. They built up the height of the island and built this  big seawall. It is painted with fish.

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Pleasure Pier has an amusement park on it.

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The Strand Historic district is a 36 block area of restored  buildings from the 1800’s. It now has shops, restaurants, galleries etc.  The AAA guide says the buildings are iron fronted, but I don’t see it.

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The Haak winery is our harvest host tonight. They grow blanc du bois grapes. It is a hybrid white grape. There is a bacteria on the whole gulf coast that kills pure species grape vines. This hybrid is the only one that will grow on the gulf. The vines are dormant in the winter, but will start leafing out in March.

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Our tour guide Sara in front of the fermenting tanks. Oak barrels of wine.

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Our tasting with the rest of the tour group. The wines are pretty sweet. We did not buy any, but it was a fun tour. We had our valentine dinner here in the bus beside the winery. They had a sweetheart dinner at the winery tonight, but it was $300 a couple, so we had  home made Mac and Cheese at home. John with his valentine chocolate billion dollar bill.  It was as close as I could get to what he wanted- a 30 lb box of  hundred dollar bills.

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