The-PITTSTOP

Friday
We entered Texas via a bridge into Port Arthur - a huge oil refinery town. We passed miles of refinery pipes and buildings and venting gas belonging to Valero - ugly and a bit smelly, but must be providing a lots of jobs. We continued on to Beaumont - another oil town for our campground south of town.

A neat, clean campground with a good laundry so I could catch up with our dirty clothes. Laundry rooms in campgrounds often serve as the office water cooler in corporate America - and I had a great conversation with a lady who said she was local. I wondered why she was local and here in a campground and when I asked, she said her home had flooded twice in the last few years - 6' of water that stayed for 7 days, so nothing was salvageable. The last time, she had enough and she and her husband decided to get a big trailer (5th wheel), stay local until she retired in 6 months, and then they would travel the country and decide later where to retire permanently. Duh! We were wondering why we saw so many campgrounds with obviously full-time residents in motor homes and trailers and why along the back roads we saw what we thought were poor people using camping trailers as homes on residential lots - these were folks who had lost their homes and were struggling to survive. Sure hope Mother Nature spares them from hurricanes this year.

Robot telling the story of early oil exploration in East Texas

Saturday

Well, it turns out we left hot and humid southern Louisiana for hot and humid eastern Texas. Woke to 74 degrees with all the windows covered in condensation, so today will be yet again an "indoor" tourist day. After some shopping, we drove into downtown Beaumont to visit their Texas Energy Museum. Note that Texas Energy = oil, and no other type of energy. The museum concentrated on the process of refining crude oil and we did learn a few things, but the emphasis on chemistry and reliance on panel boards with a lot of reading meant we skipped quite a bit. The second floor concentrated on the discovery of the first oil gusher in Texas - Spindletop. A great story that resulted in 10,000 people coming to a rural area to "sightsee" the spectacle, along with folks hoping to get rich on an oilwell gusher. Similar to the gold mine strike stories we heard about in northwest Canada and Alaska.

A small exhibit about off-shore drilling

They had a section on Gas Station Marketing and importance of Logos

Robots telling the story of the first Oil Well Gusher in Texas

After the museum we drove to Rau's Bakery and Cafe, opened in 1941. The pastries were beautiful, and a large assortment of flavorful ices and gelatos made it difficult to concentrate on lunch. Decor was 1940's with Frank Sinatra serenading us. Jack had a cup of chicken and sausage gumbo soup and a half ham sandwhich on a fresh, buttery croissant while I had a muffaletta panini. All were outstanding!

Gelato

Ices - love the presentation with the fruit!

These birds' colors have no indication of the sex and do not follow
the norm that the brighter colors are male. Here we find the male a Pale
Pink and the Female a dark pink

We headed south to the Anahuac Refuge where I was hoping to see a few Snow Geese that might be hanging around after their winter nesting season. We drove a short 3 mile loop and although there were no snow geese, we did get to see lots of wading birds, ducks and especially a pair of roseate spoonbills. It looked to us like they were doing a bit of a mating ritual with one repeatedly chasing the other and spreading his wings. She finally had enough and flew off, leaving him looking a bit dejected.

He is displaying what a fine catch he is

Chasing and displaying

She is ignoring and shortly afterwards, flies away

From here, we drove a little further south to the Gulf and then across Bolivar Peninsula to our campground and spent another night with the AC on. Even though there was a nice breeze, 90 degrees at 9pm is way too hot to open the windows.

Thursday

Leaving Lafayette, we headed southwest to Abbeville and then west through southwestern Louisiana. I read about a great restaurant for a Cajun lunch. Five miles out of a small town, we found Suire's Grocery. Atmosphere and no-nonsense lunch joint. Place was very busy with folks doing a lot of take-out and a few eating in. We asked what they suggested for us newbies to Cajun food, and she recommended the special, Chicken Stew for Jack and I ordered a couple of appetizers – a pistollete and boudin balls. Pistollete is a yeast roll the size of a very large dinner roll with a creamy craw fish filling and then the roll is deep fried. Yum! The boudin balls are a take on regular boudin which is ground pork and rice, spicy seasoning in a sausage casing. The balls are the same, but instead of in a casing, they are covered in cornmeal and deep fried. Excellent! Jack had the chicken stew which was not a stew as we know it. Two large pieces of chicken atop a mound of rice, all covered in brown gravy.

Our drive across southwestern Louisiana started with miles of rice fields. Some fields were flooded, and had conical cages in the shallow water to catch craw fish (AKA Mud Bugs). High ground was used as grazing for cattle. Red-winged blackbirds flitted across the road and covered the telephone wires. We made a stop at one of the two large wildlife refuges in the area. They had a small visitor center with an interesting multimedia presentation about bayou creates and the Cajuns. We drove a 3-mile loop through the low country and spotted quite a few animals. I would love to come back during a spring or fall migration to see the birds.

We are right at the junction of two flyways - Mississippi and Central making this a prime birding location

The Cajun woman in the multimedia presentation

Our campground is a city park with a boat launch and fishing pier right on the Gulf. Nothing special for campsites, but being on the ocean with the waves crashing, the gulls shrieking and brown pelicans everywhere. Unfortunately, the low overnight was to be 80 degrees, so too warm to sleep with the windows open.

Offshore Oil Platforms

Friday

Enjoyed my morning coffee outside watching and listening to the birds and the large shrimp boats and oil tankers going to the port. Very breezy, so even at 80 degrees, it is comfortable.

Graves are above ground in most of Southern Louisiana

Continued our drive along the western Louisiana Gulf coast continued a few miles this morning to a nearby beach, known for shelling during the winter. We drove right onto the beach and enjoyed our lunch watching the Gulf.