Free Ferries

Monday, Feb 27…  

Pleasure Pier

Long drive ahead, so we are on the road by 9am. We had entered Galveston from the NW and were exiting due east, which meant we passed through a section of the city (and beach) that we hadn’t seen yet. Two grand hotels on the left; to our right loomed the Pleasure Pier (which we’d seen signs for but hadn’t checked out – the name has a potentially seedy connotation). Turns out the Pier is Galveston’s answer to Coney Island.  

The Galvez Hotel was built as a luxury resort to bring folks back to Galveston after Hurricane Isaac. The architecture is a mix of 
Mission & Spanish Revival styles. The hotel 
catered to the wealthy and powerful and was frequently referred to as "the playground of the southwest." Today it is managed by Wyndham, but still popular for high-class social affairs. Emerald by the Sea is actually a condominium complex - imposing but lovely. Many (maybe most?) of the units are available for vacation rental. 

Hotel Galvez & Spa (built 1911)

Emerald by the Sea (built 2006)

Leaving the city meant crossing water again, and the city was kind enough to provide a FREE ferry (quite a treat - it costs $75 to take the MH to Kingston). The ride was short, and the scenery vastly different from the San Juan Islands. Like Seattle, Galveston is a port city. We weren’t in the cruise/container terminal area, but the city’s commercial significance was obvious (no pleasure boats in sight).

Driving on (and the arrows are
backwards because...?)

Sister ferry on return trip.

Oil... and more oil.

Looking for cargo?

We’ve been advised that I-10 is in bad shape through Louisiana. Unless we’ve got a time crunch, we prefer local highways anyway, so it’s north on Texas 124, then east on 73 to Port Arthur, cross the tail of Sabine Lake and follow La 82 along the Gulf Coast and eventually north to Abbeville. (Abbeville, you say? Who’s ever heard of Abbeville? Not me, for sure, but it’s halfway between Galveston and New Orleans, where Greg is working a race next weekend. Enough said.) So… we’ve got the route planned, I’ve got a real map on my lap – what could possibly go wrong?

Enter Garmi *(GPS). Greg has been hurling profanities at this device since we left California. Still, he can’t bring himself to drive w/o it (as in, trust me to read the map). On the map, Rte 124 leads directly to Rte 73. A few miles before this very straightforward intersection, Garmi indicates a left turn onto a side road leading to I-10 (which we’re trying to avoid). I tell Greg to stay straight, but technology rules. Ten minutes (and profanity) later, we’ve driven 2 sides of a triangle that brings us back to the intersection I’d planned. OK, I’ll cut him some slack this time. [I’ve just deleted 2 paragraphs detailing similar incidents, the last one bringing us into Abbeville on – you guessed it – I-10 (with profanities). What is it with men and technology?]  *Greg's nickname for Garmin.

Leaving the ferry dock

At some point we boarded our 2^nd free ferry – much smaller, but able to take us if we unhook the car. Picture the ferry as a matchbox with the striking edge facing you and a raisin sitting on the middle of the top.  I drive on from the left side of the striking edge, turn right past the raisin and continue around ‘til I’m facing the last entering car. Five cars surround the raisin, then Greg drives the MH straight on… and the ferry dips a couple feet until he stops. Five minutes later, I follow him off and we hook up again.

Money is tight in this area; we figure it’s cheaper to maintain this simple ferry than construct a bridge high enough to accommodate freighters. (I doubt there's enough traffic to justify a bridge.)

Gulf coast - we followed this for a long time.
Not many folks live down here, and we didn't
pass anything big enough to call a real town.

Freighter portside.

Water - and bridges - everywhere. The Gulf always to the south, large lakes (Sabine, Calcasieu, Grand, and White), rivers, marshes, bayous, ditches, the intracoastal waterway, and flooded fields (more on those later).

Big bridges, little bridges...

Ditches...

Water levels have all been high.

Once 82 turned north we began to pass through lots of farmland, some of which seemed intentionally flooded and some that just seemed overly wet. We decided rice was a likely crop. Later, enjoying crawfish in a local eatery, we talked to some of the locals and discovered that after the rice (we were right!) is harvested, the stubbly fields are flooded from the ditches. Tiny crawfish live in that water, and they thrive on the bacteria from the decaying rice. So... in Texas they rotate cotton & peanuts; in Louisiana it's rice and crawfish! (Crawfish are a big deal around here!)

BlogThoughts...  Today has been one long World Book moment - here are just a few of the things I learned:
∎ By definition, a bayou is a sluggish river (not a swamp, as I thought). However, on the     map, Johnson Bayou (which we drove through for close to an hour) is not a blue line - it's a white (land) area dotted with tiny blue (water) blotches.

∎ The city of Port Arthur may have begun as conjoined twins, but now the healthier (larger) twin lives ten miles or so north of the smaller one, though both reside on Rte 82. (This oddity led to confusion when I told Greg to turn north to PA, then realized a few minutes later the PA he needed to go through was to the south.)

∎ There are 7 wildlife sanctuaries within maybe a 100 miles along the Gulf coast.

∎ Building homes on stilts makes perfect sense down here. But when a long, skinny mfg'd

home sits on sticks 10' above ground, it looks pretty silly.

∎ Not all islands are surrounded by water. Lots of little towns here have names like Cow Island or Forked Island (really). A little research explained that these towns are built on cheniers (it's French) - long sandy ridges that can be up to 100 meters wide and rise as much as 6 meters above intervening mud flats or marsh. So the little towns looked like they were on islands. 

∎ One last thought regarding the smaller Port Arthur. When you reach the southernmost 
point of Rte 82, you have an unobstructed 180° view of everything oil. It's mind boggling.