September 20, 2018

We were relieved to climb from the tollway out of Galveston back to I-10 and putter due east towards New Orleans, where our oldest daughter Laura lives. Laura is our visionary/techno-wizard, who’s using her blogging skills to post these little travelogues.

This stretch of Texas-Louisiana is among the most heavily industrialized parts of the country, with refineries and other oil and natural gas-related facilities extending from Galveston to Baton Rouge. The bridge over the San Jacinto River, if I’ve got that right, reminds you of the highest roller coaster you’ve ever taken. Sandy held her breath and closed her eyes.

The heavy truck traffic thins as you move into and through this western sliver of Louisiana, through Lake Charles and Lafayette, and the French heritage names show up: Breaux Bridge, Broussard, Butte La Rose. Suddenly you notice you’re on a bridge, or a causeway, spanning miles of bayou or bog, and you enter the Atchafalaya River Basin, a National Heritage Area devoted to preserving one of the country’s most fragile ecosystems. Atchafalaya truly is huge—it occupies parts of 14 Louisiana parishes—one-third of the state.

Atchafalaya is a river, but — as we learned from a gent at the visitor’s center — it’s also a series of backwater lakes, bayous, and marshes, that form America’s largest swamp, some 150 miles long. It’s home to 270 bird species, 85 fish species, as well as bald eagles, egrets, alligators, raccoons,  and black bears. They inhabit a wilderness filled with upland pines, cypress, and hardwood forests. The vast area extends to the Mississippi to the east, the Natchez Trace Parkway in the north, and reaches the Gulf to the south.

Being a Yankee, even one married to a Southerner I plead guilty to not knowing much (actually, knowing nothing) about this complicated stretch of nature. Sandy, anyway, hails from southeastern Tennessee, a world very different from this one. But after all, we visited the Grand Canyon, on the extreme opposite pole of environmental wonders. So there we were at the visitor’s center, learning.  The bridge/causeway we were crossing stretches 14 miles. The brochure describes Atchafalaya as “America’s Foreign Country.”

We sensed, as new visitors to the region must, that we were entering a very different place. The hundreds of square miles of Atchafalaya swamps seem intimidating and inhospitable, but people do live there, of complicated European, African-American, and Native American ancestry, who created the mysterious (to us) Cajun culture of carefree music and tangy, spicy cuisine. Others come to camp, hike, observe the abundant wildlife, bike. Bug spray would be important.

We left Atchafalaya knowing something about it, without the time to change our itinerary to understand its hold on visitors. But we began to appreciate the vastness of this complicated green, hot, living place on the underside of the American continent, a strange, wild place—that like many others, drives us to keep moving, keep traveling, and then stopping, when we can, to learn more about the natural mysteries that surround us.

 

September 19, 2018

GALVESTON, Tex.: I don’t remember what prompted me, on our slog along I-10 from San Antonio, to propose to Sandy that we make a detour south to see Galveston. I recalled reading about traffic nightmares of driving through Houston at rush hour, which is when we would arrive there. Galveston seemed like an exotic sideshow. With no knowledge of the city, we looked up “Airbnb.com” and after some indecision, found a place, described as a “cute” one-bedroom bungalow in the backyard of a large home, only three blocks from the beach for $49, plus service charge plus tax plus cleaning fee. The catch: you had to go into the main house to use the bathroom.

We couldn’t find a better deal for three blocks from the beach, so we went with it. Not bad, we thought, for a spur-of-the-moment decision, and our first-ever Airbnb rental.

From I-10 during rush hour, Galveston isn’t an easy destination. We ground our way along the traffic-choked Sam Houston Tollway, then shifted to I-45 to fight more traffic across the causeway over West Bay, which feeds into Galveston Bay. We found the bungalow, comfortable, as promised, although the bathroom, like the room itself, required a punch-in combination code.

It was nearly dark when we arrived, but we were car-cramped and hungry, so we straggled towards the beach highway, Seawall Blvd.  Galveston is flat and hot and muggy in September, even after dark. Sweating, we looked for a restaurant we found online. It was inside the humongous, old-world style Hotel Galveston and Spa, which squats astride the beach highway. Pricey and ostentatious. Wearing tee-shirts and shorts, we moved on, but saw nothing except fast-moving traffic. We asked a woman at a beach shop about restaurants. She directed us, enthusiastically, to Mario’s, which “has everything—seafood, steaks, everything. Plus it’s across the street from my house, so I go there all the time,” she smiled.

Mario’s was on 7th Avenue. We were on 21st.   We trudged on few more blocks, gasping for air, then spied a Denny’s and gave up on Mario’s.

The room was okay, except that the air-conditioner, fixed in a window above the bed, was set on high-cold blast, and could not be adjusted. I pulled on a second shirt and wool pajamas and settled in with my head beneath the quilt. Getting up at night and walking outside to use the bathroom in another building, and trying to remember a combination to unlock the door, is no fun, either.

One big plus: the house had a washer and dryer. We got up early and tossed our stuff in the washer, then set out one last time to see something of the place. At 7:00 AM it already was hot. We strolled the Gulf beach between jetties. Tiny Gulf-type waves lapped the shoreline. On the horizon, a dozen or more giant oil tankers, the lifeblood of the local economy, sat waiting to unload. 

Unlike other beaches we’ve seen in the early morning hours, this one was deserted. No one else strolled by to wave good morning. A half-dozen blocks from our street loomed Galveston’s giant “Historic Pleasure Pier,” which houses all sorts of the typical beach amusements. We kept walking, looking for something worth the walk, but gave up a few blocks on.

Walking back, we inspected the local housing. The streets were lined with frame homes, some under renovation, others badly in need of it, some painted in garish purples and yellows, some chipped and peeling and collapsing. The neighborhood impressed us as Jersey Shore wannabe, mixed with some mocked-up low-rent French Quarter style.  Oh well. To be fair, we didn’t see what’s said to be the beautiful end of the city. But by mid-morning we weren’t in the mood for touring. We dried our laundry, waited out rush hour, and said goodbye to Galveston.

September 19, 2018

We spent Tuesday night in Austin with friends, Scott and Barbara, who had relocated from Lake Ridge last year. We enjoyed the chance to get caught up with them and get their sense of the area, because we weren’t going to spend time in Austin, at least on this trip. Scott still is a charter member of our Lake Ridge running group, the THuGs (cryptically means Thursday-Gold’s, because the group started meeting at the Gold’s Gym to run at 5:00 AM on Thursdays).

Sandy and I were feeling a little schedule pressure. We have to be back to Lake Ridge for my appointment Sept. 26, but want to visit our daughter Laura in New Orleans, who’s posting these blog entries, and second daughter Marie, son-in-law Mike, and grandsons Noah and Patrick in South Carolina.

The Alamo, in San Antonio, still was in front of us. We headed down I-35, passing some of those Hill Country places, San Marcos and New Braunfels, that we would have to miss on this trip.

The Alamo, site of the tragic battle of 200 Texans, Tennesseans, and others against a 1,500-man Mexican force on March 6, 1836, is reverently preserved in the heart of the city. The original mission church is only part of the complex of fortifications built several hundred feet out from and behind the church, which stretched the defenders thinly against the final Mexican assault. The names of all the defenders who are known are engraved on gold plaques, with some extra recognition given to the most famous, Davie Crockett, and original co-commanders, Jim Bowie and Col. William Travis.

Because Bowie was ill, he ceded command to Travis, a South Carolina native, 26 years old, who had brought his wife to Texas, hoping to set up a law practice. He was appointed counsel for Texas by “Father of Texas” Stephen F. Austin, then commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Legion of Texas by the governor and ordered to recruit a militia. He arrived at the Alamo with 18 men, joined by Bowie’s 30 men. Other volunteers trickled in, including Crockett’s 30 Tennesseans. On Feb. 24, as the Mexican siege began, Travis wrote, in a letter seeking reinforcements: “I am determined to sustain myself and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his honor and that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH.”

The rest of the story is well-known. The reinforcements never arrived. On March 6, after a 13-day siege, the Mexican army overwhelmed the defenders, taking no prisoners. On April 12, the Texans, under Gen. Sam Houston, defeated the much larger Mexican army in the Battle of San Jacinto, an 18-minute fight that led to the establishment of the Republic of Texas.

Heartened by the spiritual substance that emerges from story of the Alamo’s defense, we left reluctantly. Across North Alamo Street one finds the famous San Antonio River Walk, an exercise in conventional American tourism. We hiked a short way down the Walk, mostly to say we saw it, then headed back to the van, found I-10 and got out of town. Next stop: New Orleans. No, wait: Galveston.

September 19, 2018

We left Fort Stockton before dawn. We had become efficient at breaking down the tent, heating up water for coffee, gulping our oatmeal, and packing up. We said goodbye to the RV Campground, appreciating the “God Bless You” sign at the gate. The first mileage sign reported Ozuma at 100 miles. We roared over the empty countryside, passed by and occasionally passing big rigs and long pickups. We felt confident staying at 80 with so little traffic, actually no traffic, as the green hills and prairie flashed by. Still, the road atlas map of Texas showed us at just couple of inches of progress from El Paso.

We were able to gas up at Ozuma, after a tense half-hour after I noticed the gas gauge needle hovering at a quarter-tank with 20 miles to go. We drove through the town. A few stores, gas stations, small homes. We didn’t stay long.

Our target for the day was Austin. We got off I-10 where it intersects with U.S. 290, a local road as fast as the interstate. We cruised through pastures, relieved, somehow, to feel we finally were making headway against the huge remoteness of West Texas. We broke free of the prairie and gradually moved into the famous Texas Hill Country, the pretty rolling center of the state accented by Austin, San Antonio, and dozens of smaller towns, many, like Gruene and New Braunfels, named for German immigrants who settled the region. Then I saw the sign: Harper, Texas.

Harper is Sandy’s maiden name. With all the tiny-print towns on the Texas map, how did we find ourselves in her namesake? She loved it. It was about lunchtime. I couldn’t help myself—I parked next to the Longhorn Café, your classic small-town Southern diner, old folks and young construction workers keeping their caps on indoors. Me too—until Sandy frowned at me.

We passed on the chicken-fried steak and all-you-can-eat buffet. She had the chicken sandwich, I asked for the four-vegetable platter. The waitress smiled but gave me a puzzled look. The food seemed to take a while. It’s on the menu, but they probably don’t often get an order for the veggie plate. Just a guess.

Afterward, per the waitress’s directions, we drove out of town a way to get a photo of the “Harper” sign at the edge of town. That was it for Harper, and we got back on 290. The next stop was Fredericksburg, a well-known outpost of the Hill Country. We drove slowly past the art galleries, chic boutiques, wine-tasting parlors, cute restaurants, and souvenir shops heavy on U-Texas and Texas A&M gear, which every younger guy seemed to be wearing. Apart from that I felt I was back in Old Town Alexandria. We got back on the road for a long winding drive past endless wineries with faux English and German names, towards Austin, the high-tech, high-prosperity, high-traffic volume state capital.

 

September 17, 2018

FORT STOCKTON, Tex.: We left El Paso refreshed and restored, but without a concrete plan for a next stop. We headed out I-10, got gas, and pushed past the industrial side of the city as it fell away to the south alongside Mexico, which stretched out green and rugged to the horizon.  This was the section that we had heard extends for some 90 miles with few services. Within 30 minutes we were practically on our own with the long-haul trucks. The two interstate lanes shimmered in the heat in front of us at 80 mph in miles-long curves and straightaways, bordered by the west Texas scrub.

We took turns driving, talking, going back over the trip, and what was to come. Even in its truncated version, the trip would be our last big splash for who knows how long. As we raced across the West, the future seemed sharply defined by what the doc would tell us September 26.

We had to get there first, we reminded each other. There were only a few “picnic areas” along this stretch of I-10. The rolling green scrub flew by. I pulled off at an exit labeled “Plateau,” but saw only a shut-down gas station and café. The road at the end of the ramp simply ended.

Occasionally we saw a structure, but no cattle, no farm vehicles, no human beings. This is West Texas, I reminded myself, while Sandy dozed—vast and nearly empty, prompting thoughts of Dostoevsky’s description of the Russian steppe that, he wrote, drove the insane political visions of the country’s 19th century radical fringe, most of whom were executed.

Eventually the interstate splits, with I-20 leading northeast toward Odessa and Midland, Texas’ big oil country, while I-10 simply drags you due east. We hoped, because of the mild weather, that we could find a state park for camping close to the highway. I studied the map—nothing. Finally, as the miles flew by, we settled on the Fort Stockton RV Park. I called, yes, they had a tent area, sites for $19.00. Sounded good. Did we need a reservation? “Never hurts,” the woman on the phone said. “We’re at exit 264, you can’t miss us.”

We hoped to avoid a commercial campsite, but this was it. We passed through a couple of Fort Stockton exits. Gas stations, stop-and-go convenience stores, mobile homes. There’s a Walmart, we were told, but never saw it. At exit 264 we saw the sign and pulled up to the office. Monster RVs lined the lanes of the place. The woman explained that the tent area had four sites, one already taken. “Take your pick,” she said.

We followed the map to the end of the lane. The tent section was squeezed between the RVs, the bath house—and the interstate. We stared as the big trucks roared by a couple of hundred feet from our assigned site, generating a constant breeze through the underbrush that served as the only buffer between our site and the highway. The site itself was OK, soft patio stone along with a picnic table. I set up the tent and we headed for the camp café for a Texas catfish-and-hush puppies dinner. While at dinner I squinted at our map to find Fort Stockton. It’s there, in slightly bolder print than Plateau. 100 more miles to Ozuma.