On the Road: Ocean Springs, Mississippi to West Columbia, Texas

This was a long day...

I stayed on Interstate 10 through most of Louisiana, except when bypassing New Orleans on US 12. There is so much water down here. Like crossing the Atchafalaya Basin / River was at least 10 miles, all on an elevated road. There are many amazing bridges over causeways, rivers, swamps, canals, lakes and the Intercoastal Waterway. They are huge, very impressive and marvels of engineering; I could barely conceive of the actual construction. Only occasionally, there was a toll, like across the Choctawatchee Bay.

It was the best day so far for radio music: jazz, zydeco, cajun...One station "on the top of every odd hour" listed all the venues for live jazz for that particular evening, and there were at least 50.

The temperature had dropped. It stayed in the 50s all day with a mostly overcast sky. The landscape went from rather wooded, swampy and scenic to flatter land with rice farms and towns and general American clutter. The truck traffic increased also. Nearly contiguous were the towns of Eunice, Estherwood and Lake Arthur, all in Louisiana.

Finally, 20 miles from Texas, I turned south to Sabine NWR. As always, it was different from expectations. It was mostly a straight road through the lowlands with huge marshes, lakes and canals...lots of water everywhere, with a few turnoffs and a couple of hiking trails. It was a lonely place, although the locals were fishing here and there. I watched one human (I think it was a woman) pedaling a bicycle in low gear very slowly, covered from head to foot in odd loose clothing, with several containers of various sizes about her bike, looking like a serious but very bizarre long-dstance traveler, much more strangely dressed than other cross-country bicyclists I have see.

I stopped at the Blue Goose Trail and walked a short distance trying to ID sparrows, when I felt an itch on my ankle and realized there were a dozen mosquitoes preparing to suck my blood. I hadn't expected this as there have been no bugs so far, and it was cool, in the 50s. Of course, once they found me, they wouldn't leave me alone. I walked back to the car to slather ineffective insect repellant all over but, Maria, they were like that time at the Wastewater...I was hoping to see the Seaside Sparrow which is at this refuge year round in their habitat of salt grasses. I didn't try too hard though, and I think the sparrows I was seeing were Song Sparrows.

There were birds but not in huge numbers: one lone pale pink Roseate Spoonbill, cooperatively feeding close enough for me to easily see the spoon, Snowy Egrets, one Little Blue Heron, flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds, Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Coots, Belted Kingfishes and Kestrels on the wires, and my first prize: Boat-tailed Grackles, which ID I worked at because there are also the very similar Great-tailed Grackles and of course the Common Grackle. The clincher for ID was the Sabine bird list: Boat-tails were common (I saw hundreds) and Great-tails were not.

Nearly every structure (even trailers) are built on pilings, between 10 to 20 feet high. More than once I thought that PEOPLE really shouldn't try to live here. It's not exactly prime human habitat. I drove south to the Gulf and then west to Texas, pulling off to check birds on wires or in the adjacent canal and wet places. And was rewarded by my second life bird of the day: Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, at least two dozen and very close. This is handsome duck with bright pink bills and pinkish feet which I saw clearly.

Always the mosquitoes were ready to get me. Like who would put an RV here, even if it is overlooking the Gulf, and there WERE small conclaves of them.

I saw at least Red-tailed Hawks once I turned west and a couple of Northern Harriers, typically flying low over the land. There were a few small communities and oil rigs on the horizon, looking almost like palm trees in the water from a distance. It was not scenic. I don't know if I was fabricating reality or if the beaches really were kind of gritty and drab with microscopic oil particles. Of course, the sun wasn't shining and the mosquitoes were fierce.

I wasn't entirely sure (maps were less than obvious at times down here) about getting across some of the water. Like I would see signs about bridges being open or ferries running so knew the possibility also existed that they weren't at times. I really did not want to turn around and go back the 50 miles to US10, but the bridge to Texas WAS open. It's funny...looking at the map, I expected a funky little bridge but it was another high-rise bridge surrounded by refineries. Richard would have loved the slight oily aroma in the air.

It starting raining intermittently as I headed south to Galveston, and in order to get there, via the Bolivar Peninsula, I needed to take a ferry. I had intended to research this but didn't so again wasn't absolutely certain I wouldn't have to backtrack. This route goes through High Island, other small beach communities and more stilted vacation homes with the oil-rigged Gulf on the left as I drove south. Obviously this was not the high season though as there was minimal traffic. I started to see signs about the Bolivar Ferry which was reassuring. Again, there was water everywhere, the Gulf on the left and Galveston Bay on the right.

The sky was clearing and it was getting wonderfully scenic, not the Gulf part so much as the marshes and the weird elevated colorful houses, all enhanced by the late afternoon light. Amazingly, I drove right onto the car ferry after waiting about 90 seconds. This free ferry runs 24/7, but I still have no idea what the schedule is; like how long COULD I have had to wait? The ferries are big enough for 20 to 30 vehicles. Laughing Gulls were cacaphonous....ear-splittingly, raucously, noisily, screeching and calling and "laughing." They are handsome, dark-gray-mantled gulls with black hoods, two white arcs framing the eyes and black bills and feet. The ride took 20 minutes and most people stayed in their cars. My window was open and all at once I noticed two significant splashes of gull poop on my door and INSIDE on the arm rest. I hadn't noticed when it happened but it wasn't surprising, given the number of birds. There was an announcement about only feeding the gulls off the stern, so they are accustomed to handout, explaining their crazy-loud begging.

Into the busy working harbor at Galveston in the bright sunshine with huge Coast Guard ships and more large car ferries. I drove off the boat and had yet another question about the road south along the coast. The map was not exactly clear (a faint grey line that was or wasn't a road) about whether I could eventually get to the mainland near Freeport. I stopped at two convenience stores with map in hand and tried to get information from two East Indian ESL gentleman. The second one assured me there was a road, but I wasn't totally convinced and couldn't understand his directions until he repeated them about four times in what I think is a lovely accent.

He directed me to Seawall via Ferry (streets) which is a strip of major tourist attractions facing the Gulf with large hotels and restaurants. I kept driving south into an incredible sunset. The traffic thinned considerably, and there were now only hundreds of homes on pilings (but no tourist stuff). They were generally second homes as few cars were visible which was easy to figure as there are no garages and cars are parked under the homes in between the pilings. This sunset drive was gorgeous. There was a cloud bank lying on the horizon, but it was thin as the sun's light was visible through it...not the sun itself but the whole cloud was lit with a soft purple-rose-pink glow, the marshes were silver and the houses silhouetted against that stunning light. The afterglow lasted just until I reached Freeport over another bridge.

By then, it was full-on dark and I had NO clue where I was, where the roads were, were to find a motel. Texas is so big and populated hereabouts with hundreds of county roads (often called Farm to Market roads with numbers like FM534), that the state map has to compress all the information making it hard to figure out. AND the roads are never at right angles like in most of the Midwest. My iPhone helped until I ended in some oil refinery parking lot. I drove around, getting increasingly frustrated, tired and mildly concerned. Ginny called as I was in another convenience store parking lot trying to figure things out. She insisted I call her back when I was safe and sound "even if it is 2 in the morning."

Of course I did figure it out and found a motel in West Columbia, where I crashed immediately, although I read in bed for an hour. I had half a bottle of Mike's Hard Limeade and the last of a bag of French Onion Sun Chips for dinner.

Maybe today I will see Whooping Cranes.