Ch 10 Texas Gulf Coast

Travels with Jake – 2012

Chapter 10

Texas Gulf Coast Feb 28 – Mar 4

Hello again and thanks for joining us. We finally made our escape from the seductive pleasures of Snowbirdville and drove the short distance from Donna, TX to the coast on the Gulf of Mexico. We had been hearing about South Padre Island for some time, and as it was known as a popular destination, particularly for college students at Spring Break which was due to begin shortly. This annual mating ritual and alcohol testing is performed at several warm places in the US and as appealing as it might sound to some, we hoped to avoid the congestion. The island is less than a mile wide and stretches north roughly 150 miles in a curve just off the mainland coast, and becomes North Padre Island by the time it reaches Corpus Christi. The southern tip is where all the action is and the town looks a bit like a mini Miami Beach. It shares its latitude of 26degN with Miami, and is about as far away from it as Winnipeg is from Vancouver. Heather spent some time as a child in Fort Myers and kept saying “I've been here before, but they used to call it Florida!”. The island is just a strip of sand thrown up by successive storms and consequently many of the smaller structures are built up on stilts so that when they are flooded (not if), they can do some fishing from their back doors. The built-up part is confined to the southern tip and sports several tall hotels, some nice beaches, plenty of restaurants, wide streets, and has no industry apart from tourism. The state park service offered some camping without services right on the beach, but even the light onshore breeze was creating enough surf to cause salt spray to swirl around our vehicle so we decided to look elsewhere. Besides, we seldom find tourism-only places to be that interesting with their formula architecture and tropical artifice. Having seen the sea, we crossed over the bridge again to the mainland where we found Port Isabel more to our liking. It had been a notable historic place since the 1500s as part of the Spanish Main, even snagging a treasure fleet as it struggled against a hurricane. In later years it was involved in the Texas insurrection, the Mexican-American war, the Civil War, the Spanish-American war, and WWII. (They do like a good scrap, these Americans). It is now a working shrimping port and has local businesses to support the industry, so it has a real reason to be there, unlike the fairyland over the bridge. So we had a good sniff around before considering our options for the night. Feeling a bit remote at our southernmost point and with a million miles still to travel, we thought it best to move north. Considering the daylight left to us we picked a town about the right distance away named Kingsville, a bit south of Corpus Christi, where we settled in for yet another Walmart night.

It turned out that this town was the home of the famous King Ranch, now one of the largest ranching corporations in the world. The patriarch Capt. King started off as a stowaway from New England, then ran steamboats on the Rio Grande supporting the Mexican-American war before turning his hand to cattle ranching. We drove out to have a look at the ranch on the outskirts of town and before we knew it we were on a small bus tour while Jake stayed behind in the air-conditioned comfort of the gift shop working as a meeter-greeter. Very kind of them, and he survived the day without getting branded. On the tour we learned all about the ranch's fascinating history and current operations. Apart from one or two really bad days, these cows lead a very pleasant life. Before today, I'd only known King Ranch as an upmarket model of pickup truck. Texas, you know....

Underway again, we had time to stop for some RV parts on the edge of Corpus Christi then continued out to Padre Island, North this time. We found a state park just behind the beach and a bit sheltered from the fine salt spray coming off the beach. Although there was plenty of space, the ranger put us between the only other Canadians there, two Quebecker who didn't take kindly to the fact that Jake couldn't speak French beyond elementary collie-college level. Oh well, he did have a good frisbee game on the beach as the sun set behind us. Mist and fog greeted us in the morning as we made our way to the north end of the island where we took a free ferry ride across to the mainland. Yes, free! Texas considers the few short ferry crossings in the state to be part of the highways system and it is So Much Nicer than what we have in BC, at least for the users. Once again, making plans as we went, we stopped to see a historic mansion in Rockport, where they were getting ready for the local oyster festival. They had set up retailers' and beer tents and amusement rides, all presumably to put the local oysters in a festive mood. We had a look at the local boats in the marina then carried on to the next before-dark stop, exotic Port Lavaka. Well, it might once have been a thriving fish-processing port, but not anymore, and once again we see the decay of reduced prosperity. We are noticing that small closed-up businesses like defunct gas stations and small shops are seldom re-occupied or demolished, and still sport their faded signs and peeling paint after decades of vacancy. We see lots of small modern shopping malls where only a few lights are on, but this current downturn is not the first time people have boarded up their shops and walked away. In this unlikely town, we did make a wonderful discovery of the Beijing Buffet which fed us to bursting with delicious seafood. Sometimes there are gems in the dust.

Next morning we found water under the sink so had to get some plumbing parts and make repairs before continuing on to Galveston. We arrived in late afternoon and met some like-minded travellers from California and Ontario sharing a grassy patch at the waterfront Walmart. Jake hung out with their two dogs while we swapped tips on where we had each been, and since we were going in opposite directions, it was beneficial to all. They encouraged us to visit the Houston Space Centre, so next morning we were well into the infamous traffic and then found a bit of shade for the camper. It is always a worry leaving Jake locked up, but the camper stays much cooler than the truck and the temperatures were moderate that day, so he didn't overheat. We always get this “How could you?” look when we have to leave him alone, but we're learning to steel ourselves to his withering glare.

The Space Centre was amazing, in spite of it having to appeal to all ages. It was a Sunday so kids were rampant and the complex of many individual buildings was largely vacant. They're working on a Mars vehicle these days but it seems even rocket scientists get weekends off, which was too bad because I really wanted to meet one and ask him some tough questions! We saw the control room that directed the first moon landing, preserved for posterity with all the 1960s equipment still there. We saw space station movies, space suits, a shuttle nose mock-up, but the most impressive of all was the Saturn V rocket. These incredible giant machines sent the boys to the moon and this restored example is lying on its side in its own special building. It is enormous and you gasp when you first see it. The cowlings between the stages were removed so that you could see the rocket motors and their supporting wiring and plumbing in each section, and topping it all is the moon vehicle. During a time over 40 years ago when I was programming computers with punched cards, these guys had created this amazingly complex machine with a million parts that had to work right first time. The astronauts must have had a lot of faith in the engineers to sit on top of that tower of explosives. We were glad we saw it, and Jake was glad we came back to rescue him once again from his debilitating loneliness. I had to remind him of the sacrifice made by Laika, the first space-dog who overheated and died alone while in orbit, and that seemed to put his temporary discomfort into proper perspective. We ended the day back at the same luxurious Galveston parking lot with its nearby Sonic drive-in restaurant complete with roller-skating waitresses. Yes, it really was a retro day.

Galveston is a beautiful town that occupies a small island close to its monster neighbour, Houston. In spite of periodic hurricanes that have taken their toll over the years, it still maintains its old charm as many houses built in the 1800s still survive, at least those not right on the seaward shore. After a devastating storm in 1900, a 17' seawall was begun that now extends 10 miles, but this too was not enough to keep Ike from topping it in 2008, flooding the town. It would make a pleasant walking 'malecon' were it not for the noisy road right beside it, and much of the beach close to the wall has giant granite blocks to stop the erosion, but other parts are good for sun-worship and swimming. The view to seaward is speckled with oil rigs, but hey, you can't have everything! We visited the floating oil drilling rig Ocean Star that had been retired and converted to an oil industry museum and info centre. We learned a lot about why we pay so much at the pump – its a damn complicated business, getting oil from miles beneath the surface and keeping it from going where it is unwelcome. Apart from the drilling and pumping platforms that you see on the surface, there is a complex maze of pipelines that have been laid just beneath the sea floor that transport the black gold to refineries on shore. Texas and Louisiana are the big producers and the Gulf undersea field is enormous. We later saw many huge refinery complexes and the concept of piping our Canadian crude down to them makes sense (at least for the US) if the Gulf's oil production is falling off. It does strike me as odd though that we send crude from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico only to have it refined there and sent back to Canada for our consumption. One can only hope there will be an early end to this weird oily chapter of the world's history!

Next came another free ferry ride! The ride to the north shore allowed us to bypass busy Houston and our skipper tangled with tanker traffic while watching the cruise ships cast off. It was nice to be at sea again, if only briefly. On the northern shore, houses seemed to wobble on their stilts while awaiting the next big one. It makes for rather odd architecture when you can see under the houses, and not much beauty was applied to the floor joists. And just how high is enough to keep your feet dry without being toppled over by the wind? We spent our last night in Texas at the southeast corner at Port Arthur surrounded by several oil refineries – not too charming, but our thirsty truck and our personal quest for seeing other places are the real reasons they are there. Racked with guilt about our contribution to global warming, we quickly got over it and looked back on our 25 days in Texas fondly. The people are very approachable and unique, and it would be easy to imagine Texas being a separate nation. The cities are tidy and folks work hard. Some parts of the West are dreadful, and nowhere did we find much of a ecological mindset. Recycling? What's that! Good manners seem to prevail and being guests in their state and country, we avoided bringing up controversial issues with the locals. Besides, they're all armed, so you really don't want to annoy them. I think we'll go back for a closer look one day. In the meantime, please join us for the next phase – Louisiana and Alabama.