On the Border of Isengard

We’re at Sea Rim State Park, which is an astoundingly beautiful coastal area, along the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail and near the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge. Tracy’s gone birding gleefully every morning, and I’ve been biking and walking the beach. More on the goodness here in my next post. In the meantime …

Port Arthur

The town you drive through to get to the coast is this dark and fuming place, Port Arthur, right near the border with Louisiana.

It’s the home of the largest oil refinery in the country, but when you’re driving through it, it feels like a city of evil machinery, some rusted, some spouting flames. The refinery must be built to last, seeing as how the rest of the town keeps getting destroyed by hurricanes.

(I, of course, have a hand in this seeing as how we go through diesel fuel at an alarming rate.)

Janis Joplin’s Home

Here’s a case study in how small, economically depressed towns abhor difference.

I listen to a fantastic podcast about the history of rock music. When I posted to its fan community about having driven by the house where Janis Joplin grew up, someone from Port Arthur chimed in that she’d been bullied in high school, and then again at her 10-year reunion when she’d come back to gloat.

She died a few weeks after that reunion, age 27. Her critical acclaim came the posthumously released Pearl. Jeez Louise.

Our Flooded Site

I would say, On to cheerier topics, but I think I’ll get all this negativity out of the way.

This doesn’t look like much water, but I took the pic as I was chasing after three shoes and an empty bin that had floated away from our trailer.

The upside is that all the shore birds Tracy has been enjoying right where the gulf breaks on the sand were in our campground, fishing in the parking areas and gathering insects. He could go birding from our sofa.

A Kazillion Times and Then This

The high water from that tropical storm meant the ban on beach camping was extended, so we found an opening at an unflooded, ocean-view campsite right here and grabbed it. All we had to do was a mini pack-up, then hitch and cross the street into a pull-through site. Easy, right?

Um, no. We’ve hitched and unhitched like 700 times, but damned if we didn’t screw this one up because we didn’t stick to our routine.

I started us off by standing in a fire ant mound for the third time in as many travel days. There are just too many things to be looking for when you’re dealing with the trailer to be looking at your feet. I also was not looking for whether I’d taken off a safety chain after unhitching. At least now we know those safety chains work; Tracy drove the truck a few inches and was stopped cold.

All’s well that ends well for us in that our new site is gorgeous. I’ll post those pictures after our stay here.