Hello everyone, I hope y’all are having a nice week out there wherever you are. March is upon us and I’m loving the warmer weather and longer days. Flowers are popping up, the clouds are clearing and spring is definitely in the air here in Texas. This week has brought me through some fascinating parts of East Texas as I begin my exploration of the Lone Star State.
After I signed off last week, I did indeed make my way out to Rutherford Beach in far southwest Louisiana. It’s not a beautiful beach, but the waves are nice to listen to, it’s quiet and nobody bothers you out there. The camping is free and you can stay as long as you want. I’ve been there before and was really looking forward to a day on the beach to relax, read, plan and give Shadow Catcher a good cleaning. It was definitely a wonderful place to be for a couple of nights and I left feeling refreshed and ready to go. Rutherford Beach is also as far west as this journey has taken me so far so it was a good place to sit and reflect back on the last couple of years and prepare to set off in a new direction: west to the Pacific.
I headed into Texas on Thursday morning and made my first stop in Port Arthur. I spent a couple of hours at the interesting Museum of the Gulf Coast, learning about the history of the area from the earliest known Native Americans to the present. I also learned a lot about the 1901 oil strike at Spindletop in nearby Beaumont and how the oil industry changed the region, the country and the world from that point forward. The museum’s second floor was dedicated to famous and influential people from the area including Port Arthur’s most famous daughter Janis Joplin. I also found out that Texas music legend Tex Ritter was the father of Three’s Company actor John Ritter. It was a good museum and a nice introduction to the state.
One other important thing I learned in the museum was that Port Arthur’s population is 10% Vietnamese, so I set out in search of some good Vietnamese food, and found some at nearby Uyen’s Restaurant. I had a really nice lunch there and then headed back into town. I made a few stops at the Queen of Peace Shrine, the Buddhist Temple and Lamar State College and then headed out of town. I moved on to Beaumont where I had some time to walk around the downtown area and take some photos before the sun went down. It was a beautiful, sunny evening and I enjoyed my walk very much. That evening I went to see a theater production of Blithe Spirit put on by the Beaumont Community Players. It was a fun show and I really enjoyed my evening.
Friday morning I had a lot of errands to run, and Beaumont was a good place to do it. I spent the afternoon at the Gladys City Boomtown Museum on the campus of Lamar University. This is a cute little museum which recreates some of the businesses which sprung up after the discovery of oil in 1901. Each of the buildings was sponsored by a local business which recreated what was happening in the area a little over a century ago. I especially enjoyed the photography studio (obviously), the grocer and the print shop.
From there I headed back downtown to take some more photos in the evening light. Downtown Beaumont is a quiet place with very little going on. It seems like they’ve done most of the things that towns do to rejuvenate their downtown areas, from a nightlife district on Crockett Street to the beautifully restored Jefferson Theater, but nothing seems to have taken hold. I guess the biggest thing you need is a population which is interested in coming back downtown and I think Beaumont is more interested in their suburban lifestyle. It’s a shame, but it’s their town. After sunset I stopped into the Texas Rose for a quick Lone Star beer and then went to the Logon Cafe for what seemed to be the only live music in town on a Friday night. As an East Texas oil town, I was expecting a rowdy night with Cajun roughnecks ready to party, but that is apparently far in the past in sleepy Beaumont. While the Logon was a nice place, and the musicians were talented, the music was more aimed at the majority septuagenarian crowd and soon had me feeling tired and ready for bed.
Saturday I headed out first thing to Big Thicket National Preserve just north of Beaumont, to enjoy the nice weather and get a little hiking in. I stopped off at the Visitor Center and then went for a nice 2.5 mile hike on the nearby Kirby Nature Trail. This was a short but beautiful trail which took me through cypress sloughs and wooded areas teeming with life. It was nice and quiet along the trail and I stopped often to enjoy the sounds of the forest. From there I headed out along the 943 to the 1276, following the route of the Big Sandy Creek into Polk County.
When I got back to a main road, Texas 190, I headed east to the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation. Once two separate tribes the Alabama and Coushatta have embraced their similar backgrounds and banded together to try and maintain their culture in their relocated home in East Texas. They have resisted the logging industry advances on their land and opened a casino to try and boost their tribal economy. It was a pretty busy place on a Saturday afternoon with plenty of people traveling from Houston to dance with lady luck on the reservation. I did not gamble, but instead enjoyed some of the displays on their native basket weaving and culture. I loved their creation myth which tells the story of Crawfish digging his way up from under the water and pushing land up in a vast mud chimney, and then Buzzard flapping his wings to create the mountains and valleys of our planet.
That evening I went to a wonderful community event in the tribe’s Multi-Use Building. A precursor to their big Pow-Wow in June, they gathered together to raise money, practice their singing and dancing and enjoy an evening of friendship and fellowship. The program started with a traditional Gourd Dance which opens many of their gatherings on the reservation. Then they proceeded into inter-tribal dances with some people in beautiful traditional regalia performing dances from other Native American tribes. All the while, a group of drummers and chanters sat in the middle of the circle, keeping the beat and providing the musical accompaniment. I enjoyed an Indian Taco on some delicious fry-bread in between dances. There were also auctions, raffles and community announcements. In all, it was a wonderful evening and I was so happy to be a part of it and catch the tiniest glance into their tribal culture. I was only sad that less than a mile down the road were hundreds of people sitting in the casino and maybe only a half-dozen visitors at this wonderful cultural event. I was just glad I was one of them.
I was there for a few hours and left as things were winding down, making my way out to Livingston for the night. When I got up on Sunday, I decided to stop in for a couple of donuts, having seen that donuts seem to be pretty popular in East Texas, and I chose the highly rated and very busy Shipley Donuts. Their donuts were good, but not great. I drove around downtown for a few minutes, trying to decide whether to hop out with my camera or not. I think I’m going to have to get used to a very different kind of town here in Texas than I’ve been used to further east. Things seem to be spread out more, and there seem to be less old buildings around. It was a nice enough place, but didn’t really grab me, so I headed down the road towards Houston.
Sunday afternoon I met my friend Lindsay and her husband at a great little outdoor restaurant called Cedar Creek on 20th St. in Houston. I met Lindsay back when I moved to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands in 2012 and we’ve been friends since. She’s originally from Greenwood, Mississippi, and has always been one of my best sources on where to go in the Delta, and it was really great to catch up with her here in Houston. We had a few beers there and then a few more down the road at the even cooler Shady Acres Saloon. Then they invited me to come back to their place for dinner and to spend the night in their guest room, an offer I gladly accepted. We had fun catching up and I really loved their view of downtown from their balcony.
Monday morning they were off to work early, so we said our goodbyes and I went across the street to their highly recommended local diner the Yale Street Grill for some breakfast. This was a great recommendation and I had a delicious plate of Huevos Rancheros for breakfast, one of many signs that I’m definitely moving into a different region of the country. I posted a photo of Lindsay and I on Facebook and a few minutes later I got a message from my friend Christian telling me he was also in Houston. I’ve known Christian for about 20 years and we worked together at the same tour company for most of that time. He and his wife had bought a house in Houston several years ago when they moved from California to be closer to their families. Now they’re moving to Austin to open some walking tour companies in Texas and they have decided to sell their Houston house and are preparing it for that sale. I asked if they needed help, and they said that would be great so I headed over to spend the day doing some yard work and spot painting and catching up. The payoff for this work (not that I needed one), was to spend a couple of nights at Christain’s mom’s house in nearby Pasadena.
Christian was born towards the end of the Vietnam War just north of Saigon. His family fled the country and ended up in Pennsylvania, where his dad found work in a machine shop. They eventually moved to Texas where he put these skills to work building and fixing things for the fishermen there. When the oil boom hit, they began producing machines for oil drills and Christian’s mom is still working in their shop today. Having grown up in the Lone Star State, Christian is definitely a true and proud Texan who loves his barbecue and cowboy boots, but he’s also Vietnamese and it was awesome to meet his mom and see this side of him as well.
Yesterday morning I headed out to check out the museum and monument at the battlefield at San Jacinto. The battle which took place there was the decisive battle in the fight for Texas independence. The Tejano forces, led by Sam Houston, killed over 600 Mexicans under the leadership of President Antonio López de Santa Anna while losing only 2 of their own men (7 more would later die from their injuries). The battle lasted 17 minutes. I have been trying to get to San Jacinto for years, and was really happy to finally see this museum and memorial. The memorial itself is a 567 foot tall column topped with a massive Texas star. I enjoyed the film and museum and learned a lot of Texas history there. I also learned that I had been mispronouncing the battle for years as Jacinto is pronounced with a hard “J” like jump, not a soft “J” like San Juan or San Jose. Right next to the battlefield rests the Battleship Texas, a veteran of both World Wars now open to visitors. I didn’t have time to tour the ship, but did wander around and take some photos of it.
Last night I met Christian and his family at a Vietnamese restaurant for some amazing Vietnamese fondue and spring rolls. After dinner we went out and had a few beers at the Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company, a massive three-story brewery with good beers and an awesome view of the downtown skyline.
When I’m finished writing this post, I hope to have time to go visit the Buffalo Soldiers Museum in the Museum District. Then I have Houston Rodeo tickets for tonight which I’m really looking forward to. Tomorrow I’m headed down the way to Galveston and then I’ll start making my way down the Texas Gulf Coast. I’m looking forward to a few days of beach time, some cool little beach towns and some fresh seafood. I’m also hoping to check out the King Ranch, the largest ranch in the state (and bigger than all of Rhode Island), and the battlefield at Palo Alto. By this time next week I may be as far south as Brownsville at the very bottom tip of the state. I hope you’ll come back and see how it goes. Until then, enjoy the longer days and warmer weather and get out there and do some exploring of your own this week. Thanks as always for reading.
-Mike