Monday, 8 April 2019
Kemah, Texas, USA
Driving from San Antonio to Houston on the interstate for 2-3hrs. Flat and featureless landscape. There is literally nothing in between for about 200miles.
Just think about that.
It’s like driving from Nottingham to Brighton.
With nothing in between.
Just think.
No Leicester or Luton.
Big signboards at every junction advertising lawyers, insurance and restaurants. Not the big signboards you get on British motorways. I mean really big, structural sort of towers with signboards. Massive they are. This is Texas remember.
Pass a tanker lorry. On the side it tells me its contents.
Liquid Chicken.
The last time I looked, chicken wasn’t liquid. The mind boggles at what it contains. Can only assume it’s disgusting.
Drive around the south western side of Houston to avoid the centre. Quite by chance, pass the HQ office building of a company I used to work for in Europe. One of my colleagues was based out of the Houston office. Impromptu visit to reception to see if he still works there but he’s not on the system so assume he’s retired.
Continue on to Galveston, about an hour away on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Actually an island and made famous by the song, which I always sing as “Gaviscom” (the indigestion medicine). It amuses me, anyway.
Think Blackpool. Yep. Don’t stay long. Quick drive through.
Head up the Gulf coast to the small village of Kemah.
You won’t have heard of it. Neither had I until searching for suitable hotels. But it’s a little gem of a place. Staying at the Holiday Inn (https://www.ihg.com/holidayinn/hotels/us/en/kemah/kemtx/hoteldetail) as it has rave reviews, which are lived up to, and has great views across the marina from my top floor room.
Some nice plush houses here, especially the beach front ones which each have their own piers jutting about 50m into the bay for their boats. The boardwalk has many restaurants and a small amusement park with wooden roller coaster (think Scooby Doo).
But I’m headed off to the highly recommended Crazy Alan’s Swamp Shack, by the marina. The sort of place you would see featured on ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives’ on the Food Network. And if you haven’t watched it. Do so. You will salivate at what you see. Fatal to start watching it when you get back from the pub at midnight. Trust me.
Have to ask the waiter what Hush Puppies are. He says, “You’re not from round here are you?!”
Nope.
In England, Hush Puppies are a brand of shoe. Here they’re a dried corn mix hash brown type thing.
He recommends the fried alligator tail. But fancy something a little less swampy. Excellent pan fried jumbo shrimp (prawns). So fresh, succulent and melt in the mouth. Not like the rubbery stuff we get in the UK.
Ah yes.
This’ll do nicely.
