This home movie from 1969 captures the Joseph family at their home in El Paso as well as on vacation across Texas and New Mexico. After celebrating Fourth of July with a picnic, the family travels to New Mexico, visiting Ruidoso, Cloudcroft, and the White Sands National Monument. Next, they venture to Houston, where they stop by the Westbury Square shopping center and the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center). Then, the Josephs travel to Galveston, where they watch sailboats in the gulf and visit the Sea-Arama Marineworld amusement park. Last, the family vacations in Austin, touring the Texas State Capitol Building and surveying the city from atop the University of Texas Tower.
Opening in 1965, Sea-Arama Marineworld in Galveston was one of the first ocean theme parks in the nation. It spanned across 25 acres, including a four-acre ski lake and a 200,000-gallon aquarium. The park offered a variety of attractions, from shows with dolphins and Mamuk, the killer whale, to alligator wrestling and snake charming to a water-ski performance.
By the late 1980s, Sea-Arama needed major renovations. After Sea World opened in 1988, the park found it difficult to compete and unwilling to invest in the dying park’s revitalization. Sea-Arama closed on January 14, 1990. The ruins of the park remained until 2006, when it was finally torn down.
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