Tuesday 22nd October 2019

Before leaving Morgan City, we booked up our hotel for the next two nights. Jools chose Port Arthur. I assumed it was because it was beside the seaside. Or something.

Before hitting the road, we have breakfast, which included the young Jelltex trying to operate the automatic pancake making machine. Two minutes later, two small well cooked pancakes dropped onto a Styrofoam plate, which my plastic knife and fork struggled to cut.

The coffee was good though.

All our dirty laundry is in one case, the clean in the other, meaning we only have to carry one case when we check in now.

We load the car, Jools programs the sat nav, and we set off towards the interstate.

It was a glorious morning, so glorious we managed to work out how to open the sun roof on the car, so that a cool fresh breeze kept us chilly. But we stuck with it, as it nearly November and was sunny. It looked like summer and we were going to enjoy it!

We drove up through fields criss-crossed with ditches and dikes, passing through places like Baldwin, Jeanerette, New Iberia. Passing through identakit towns with strip malls, fast food joints and filling stations all looking the same. Sigh.

And then we join I10. The day was warmer, and carried on heading west, travelling across farmland barely abover the water table, but crops of sugarcane, rice all looking very healthy. Trucks carried away harvested cane for processing. We drove on.

Lake Charles had a very fine lake, called Charles I believe, and a huge bridge which the interstate leapt over yet another canal big enough for ocean-going liners to get up.

And after another half an hour we left Louisiana and entered Texas.

Wish us well.

Not quite sure what happened to the road, but it went from being wide and straight to narrowed laned and twisting and turning. Caught me by surprise, but as traffic was light, my poor lane management caused no issues.

We turned off to go south towards Port Arthur. The road went over yet another canal on a pair of stupidly high bridges, so high, Jools took shots.

A ten minute run down a busy road brought us to our hotel, La Quinta, a chain, but reasonable. Our room wasn't ready. Not surprising at it was only half twelve.

What to do?

I looked at the map, and it showed a nature reserve called Texas Point. I programmed it in, and off we went.

After a while, the road went through the middle of an oil terminal. Very odd indeed, the pipes, pillars and cables reached over and under the road, the air was thick with the smell of chemicals.

Out the other side, and the road ran beside yet another canal, and more oil refineries type places until we were in open country. On the right hand side, reeds stretched out of sight, but again, the water was lapping at the edge of the road.

At the main junction, there was a diner.

We were hungry. Shall we go in?

We shall.

Tammie's diner ran from a caravan, or whatever one is called over here. After the food is cooked, there is a covered area to sit. Food is good, plentiful and cheap.

Grackles wait to hoover up the leftovers. These are the American version of magpies; slightly smaller, all black, but in sunshine their feathers have a blue iridescence. They are smart as heck, later I would watch on go round to the front of cars picking off dead flies to eat, so much protein with little effort.

Ten more miles down the road brought us to Sea Rim State Park.

The air had been thick with dragonflies up to this point, but here there were dozens, hundreds on the wing, feeding (we found out later) on mosquitoes. Now, mosquitoes can smell the blood of a Jelltex from miles off, now here I was in their back garden, it would be messy.

It was about twenty five degrees, a stiff breeze blew, meaning that the dragonflies didn't settle, making photography almost impossible. I tried to snap them on the wing, but the camera was having none of it.

But there were Monarch butterflies about, and snapping one of those is always great.

After a couple of hours, we were done, so drove back to the hotel so we could check in and see what had happened in the world.

The room is large and comfortable, wifi is fairly fast, and there is free coffee in the lobby. Ticks most of the boxes.

Thing about modern America is that walking anywhere is impossible. There are food places around, but you have to cross about six lanes of traffic on three roads to get there.

And then there was boudain.

My friend, John, who lives in Houston told me i had to try boudain when I was here. We had seen the lace he recommended on the way over that morning, but ten was too early for lunch. So, I did a google search, and found a place nearby.

The sat nav took us to a convenience store in the middle of a neighbourhood, we went in but was just a store. We found out the kitchen closed at six, 15 minutes before.

Damn.

I did a search on the sat nav, and there was The Boudain Hut. The other side of town.

We set off.

You know that scene when the Blues Brothers walk into that country and western bar? That was us, in some honky tonk roadhouse on the edge of town.

They were very understanding, I have boudain balls (!) which was rather like Dutch croquets, but OK, not worth hunting round town for an hour for though.

They were setting up for some kind of karaoke, so we paid and left.

Then back to the hotel at dusk, with the colour that you only get in Hollywood movies. All orange on the horizon and dark, dark blue above.

Purdey.

We get some beers on the way back, then once in the room, pop open one each as we listened to the radio.

Days to do, getting few. Thoughts are turning to tasks when we get home. Real life always gets in the way!