Sunday, June 19, 2016

6/19/2016  6/11-18/2016

Our trip from Bayou Segnette to Lake Charles, La took us into an area of Louisiana we had never been in before, backroads to I-10 and then I-10 west.  It was an interesting ride, but I-10 is in dire need of some serious road repair...glad we are done with that stretch.  But we drove across miles of bayou on bridges that have been beat to a pulp and will cause slow going both ways if they ever decide to fix them...look for an alternate route if you hear they have started repairs...which could be a long time down the road.  We had filled our fuel tank in Westwego for $2.049, so there is likely not many tax dollars being collected for road maintenance.  But the drive was interesting and a lot of people out fishing in the bayou by the trucks with empty boat trailers sitting at every boat ramp.  It is also obvious that the oil business is alive & well...some areas have refineries one after another for miles.  Their close proximity to each other leads me to believe they are clustered together at the terminus of pipelines, as we didn't see tank trucks everywhere like in North Dakota & Oklahoma.

We arrived at Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles on a Saturday afternoon, so it was mostly full of local families.  The trees cover made satellite TV impossible, so we watched some of Foo Fighters Sonic Highways, ate some dinner and crashed early.  Sunday morning, we are off to Holly Beach on the Gulf of Mexico.  Holly Beach has been wiped off the map at least 2x, In September 2005 Hurricane Rita completely leveled the small beach town. Almost nothing was left but ruins and the water tower. This was the second time Holly Beach was devastated by a hurricane; in 1957 Hurricane Audrey smashed ashore with a 12 foot storm surgeCurrent residents must sign a waiver which allows them to dwell there.  So there is not much there, 25 houses, or so. all built to be re-built and all on stilts, but we love seeing other unique places, so the visit is interesting. There are folks at the beach swimming in what looks almost like chocolate milk...whatever.

On the way back, we head east out of Holly Beach, take a ferry across a piece of the Gulf, come to the town of Cameron and head back north to Lake Charles.  It was a fun day of exploring, seeing how other folks live.  We stopped at the grocery store and went back to the camper.

The whole day has had our thoughts preoccupied by what is happening at home.  On Friday night, June 10, at The Plaza Live, a music venue we have been to dozens of times, a lunatic who drove to Orlando from St Pete, FL, shot & killed a young singer named Christina Grimme, who was signing autographs after her show, for her fans...a motive is unknown, as her brother tackled the shooter and the shooter committed suicide during the scuffle.  RIP Christina!  Roughly 26 hours later, and 2 miles away, a person with an unknown purpose, who had driven to Orlando from Port St Lucie, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol inside a nightclub full of young LGBT revelers.  When the shooting was over, 49 people were dead and another 53 were injured.  The OPD SWAT team killed the shooter,  So in a city that has never had anything like this ever,  in a space of less the 28 hours,50 innocent people were dead and 2 shooters...hard to figure it all out.  Why 2 people from more than 120 miles away thought it necessary to murder innocent folks in a city they didn't even live near...boggles the mind.  Glad we have had the internet to stay connected with all the OFD Brothers & Sisters who were involved with these two grizzly scenes...thanks to all who were there.

The next morning, we are off to the Galveston Island State Park.  We will be in Texas for the next 27 days.  The route our GPS selected was a fun ride, very few Interstate miles and a ferry ride across Galveston Bay...the motor didn't want to start this morning, so we will be checking that out over the next few days. We arrived and set up and made a call to Cummins in Houston...no answer, so I left a message.  Playing phone tag will help no one so we plan to drive up in the morning.  We drove to Jamaica Beach and had a nice dinner.  It was 98 when we arrived, hope we get some relief soon.

We drove to Cummins in Houston and are told it will be 2 weeks before they can look at it, so after some further checking, we decide to check the batteries first, which we can do in Galveston,  So we went to meet Gary Steuernagel, a friend from High School in Red Wing, for lunch at Papasitos, Mexican food that was pretty good.  We had a nice chat, hadn't seen Gary since 1968 or 69...did a little catching up.  Then we drove back to the camper, took the batteries out & took them to get tested,,,3 places gave us 3 different results, which made me come to two conclusions: none of them knew their job and I needed to change the batteries. And of the 3 places, only 1 had two batteries for us to buy, so the decision got easier as we went. So we took the new batteries and installed them and the motor started right away...we will see how it goes.  We have made an appointment to get it looked at while we are in Austin, good to be sure everything is OK before we head out through west Texas and across N Mexico & Arizona.

We spent the next 2 days at the beach & exploring the area, including Galveston Island Brewing, the harbor and trying to get a sunset picture, which proved to be a difficult task. There is a huge bay, but buildings, lack of ways to get close to the western shoreline, traffic and clouds made it rough.  But we have enjoyed our time in Galveston.  We weren't sure what to expect after Ike raised so much of a ruckus in 2008, but it appears that while it is changed, they are recovering just fine, and the tourists are here in droves.  We are on our way south in the morning.

The next morning, the motor home started 1st try, so we are happy.  We follow the GPS out of town and drive south on SR 35 through farm country for 200 miles, lots of small towns and what seemed like 100 traffic lights, all red...lol. At Port Aransas, we get in a long line of cars to load onto yet another Ferry, this time across a 500 yard section of Corpus Christi Bay.  When we went to unload from the ferry, the motor wouldn't start...ugh!!  I walked back & the wingnuts were not as tight as I had made them when I installed the new batteries so I tightened them as tight as I could with my fingers and it started,  We drove off the ferry and to Mustang Island State Park...first thing I did was tighten every connection on the batteries as tight as possible with tools.  I hope this fixes it.

Yesterday, we spent the day visiting the beach here at the State Park, drove to Padre Island NP, then to downtown Corpus Christi and back to Mustang Island SP with a stop at Doc's on Corpus Christi Bay. Doc's has a great location but that leads to being very busy on a Sat afternoon.  We stayed about 45 minutes & left to go back to the camper.  We may stop by on Monday & try again.  Corpus Christi is a pretty city but we decided it is not where we would want to be if there was a storm...it is our first time here.  Today is Father's Day, and we woke up to rain.  So, we decided we would just hang out and relax, catch up on this and enjoy the day,  The rain has stopped and the park has emptied out, the weekend is over for most...place was almost full last night, probably 10% now.  

We were going to go visit a couple places today in Corpus Christi, but I did some research this morning and all of them were closed...Monday.  Must be the new Sabbath, the day of rest.  We see that a lot as we move around.  So, we did some planning & changed a couple of  reservations.  We also discovered that GW Bush charges $5/car & $0.75/1/2 hour to park your car to look at his library in Dallas...must expect no one will want to stay too long...lol.

We are headed to Austin in the morning...2 weeks of music & visiting Dallas & maybe San Antonio...bought tickets to the Willie Nelson 4th of July Picnic last night...lots coming up.

Steve & Barb Larson


One of the many bridges between New Orleans & Lake Charles

Swimming in chocolate milk at the "Cajun Riviera'
Holly Beach


Only the Fire Station is not on stilts


Some cool cars that were  waiting for their friends to get off the ferry
Even the school was on stilts


My cute travel companion
On the Ferry


I-10 over the Sabine River which is the division between Texas & Louisiana
880 miles to New Mexico at El Paso



Another monstrous bridge

Oil refineries everywhere


The road to Galveston


The Ferry across Galveston Bay





Our campsite at Galveston Island State Park

Only restaurant in Jamaica Beach



At East end of Galveston Island





The Beach at Galveston Island State Park



At Historic Downtown Galveston


Sunset off Galveston Island
From Galveston Island State Park


The route to Corpus Christi




a drilling rig in for maintenance
On the Ferry to Mustang Island


Sunset from our campsite on Mustang Island
3 days from the full moon


Mustang Island State Park campground
Mustang Island Beach is a popular place




Padre Island NP Beach...over 50 miles long



On the causeway into Corpus Christi

the sea wall in downtown Corpus Christi
USS Lexington is there to tour



A strange cloud was visible across the bay

Tried to do dinner here but they were too busy


The view out the back of Doc's
the Galveston Island Brewery


which had quite an assortment
Woody's had no food and thus very few customers









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