Day Four

Finally stopped for the night at a very luxurios Super 8 Motel just north of Corpus Christi Texas.  The day started in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  It got down into the low 40s last night - if I wanted that I could have stayed home.  Anyway - the Cathedral complex in Lake Charles was quite impressive.  I got there about two hours before mass, because I am weird that way, and managed to convince someone to let me in to take pictures.  They are always reluctant at first, I don't make agreat first impression, but eventually they always come around.

Immaculate Conception Cathedral

From there I moved on to Beaumont, Texas.  On the entire trip, Texas is the only state that I am going to for the first time so I was pretty excited.  You don't realise how large Texas is until you experience it.  They are quick to brag about it though.  For example as soon as I entered the state a sign showed the distance to El Paso in west Texas - a quick 877 miles!  That is roughly the distance between Cleveland and Jacksonville, Florida.  It is going to be a long drive through Texas.  Beaumont was another nice complex that I got in early thanks to my Midwestern charm.

St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica

I also take lots of photos inside, but they take forever to load and I am lazy.  Here are some samples from Beaumont:

From Beaumont over to Houston for mass at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart which was built in 2008 and is kinda boring.  I did run into horrible traffic despite being noon on a Sunday so that was fun.

Next I wandered south to Galveston.  I was looking forward to this stop because there are not alot of oceans in central Ohio.  Even though it is technically the Gulf of Mexico I am calling it an ocean and it is my blog so that's final.  It was weird driving to an island.  The beach was great.  I love the sound of the water.  One of my favorite quotes (I believe I read it in a Matthew Kelly book) is "It is impossible to be an atheist if you grow up near the water, concrete and steel produce atheists not moving water."  Unfortunately the Cathedral in Galveston never rocovered from the hurricane a few years back and is now closed.  I only took pictures from the outside, but the beach made up for it.

St. Mary Cathedral Basilica

My last stop was back inland at Our Lady Of Victory Cathedral in Victoria, Texas.

So that brings the totals to: 1742 miles, 6 states, 13 Diocese, 13 Cathedrals/Basilicas/Churches, numerous deer, birds of all types (took some good pics of a pelican today), a turtle, thousands of cattle (apparently beef is popular in Texas) and I almost ran over a rabbit and then a raccoon in the span of about two minutes (both survived).