Zydeco to Big Guns

As the Astros were out of town, we merely did a drive-by.

 As luck would have it, it took us past the G.W. Bush memorial trash can.

We headed South from Lake Charles tuned to the repo man song on KBON (http://kbon.com/ ) Along one of the canals in the wildlife refuge we met up with a woman and her four daughters, busy crabbin’. They’d been at it since 5AM and still seemed pretty happy about it in the early rainy afternoon. Here is how it’s done: You lay a net on a stick into shallow water. Then you toss out a piece of bait (the nastier , the better) on a string and when you feel the bug tuggin’ at it, you slowly coax it in and over the net. Then you yank that net up and toss the mudspider into the cooler. They’d caught a good two hundred already. The lady warned us not to get too close to the reeds on the canal’s margin, ‘cause that’s were them gators like to hang out.

When we reached one of only two beaches ( Holly Beach Louisiana has on the Gulf, it was blowin’ hard from the South and there were a lot of hard rain squalls.

 There are traces of the big storms, but no evidence of the “bubbler”, as the locals put it. The shore was deep in rotting seaweed and thick with shells and other protein fare for the seabirds.

The brown churning water was not exactly inviting. We made the impromptu move to follow the county roads along the coast and passed through the low rent shore of Arcadia. Here the mobile homes are on stilts, but the pickup trucks are usually worth more than the house. Every gas station also sells bait.

As we moved East, the coast becomes industrial; a familiar industry to me. The Louisiana DOT operates a ferry across one of the canals and there we were in the heart of the oil patch.

 Cameron still builds BOP’s and BP’s office flies the corporate flag proudly. I felt right at home, seeing all those liftboats, supply tenders and service company yards. I spoke with a hotshot driver crossing on the ferry with us, and as I suspected from the sustained good oil price; it’s real busy out there in the black gold world, or “balls to the wall”, as we would have said. No one sleeps; you hardly eat, but you’re makin’ money hand over fist.

The oilfield has left a permanent imprint on me. It made me more rude than I should be, harder to please and expecting a lot from others. That’s how that world is and it gets the job of creating wealth from black goo hidden miles underground done.

In Lafayette (seems like a nice town) we splurged on some real good Cajun food. (http://www.prejeans.com/ ) The place features live Zydeco

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zydeco ) Well, the snap beans were pretty good. You could’ve seen us on webcam eatin’ shrimp (ordinary), gator (not bad) and gumbo (excellent). From there we made the good move to head South yet again and met up with “Cajun Jack” (http://www.cajunjack.com/ ) for a swamp tour. The guy is a genuine bon vivant;  played ball for LSU on a championship team ( Ferdinand was in awe ), did his time in the oil patch ( Iliked him then ) and now brags and entertains tourists. He’s got a pretty good thing going. He has a nice house/office by the water,

accepts  cash only and that goes into his pocket ( for tax-purposes, dog )

It’s a good trip

and we saw a bunch of real fine bayou

 and swamp.

We cruised past the homes of some old time swamp residents but saw neither them nor any gators/

.

We thought we could make it to the Zephyrs (http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t588 ) game after the tour, but Cajuns have a vague sense of time and the boat got back late. It was raining pretty hard on the way to New Orleans anyway  and it turns out the game was cancelled.

We stayed in Gulfport, Mississippi ( 34,650 distinguishable permutations of that state name)

and then made haste to Mobile, Alabama (only state where a song made it onto the license plate) Sweet !

At Mobile Bay we visited the USS Alabama

 and  a bunch of other associated killing machinery. Now we have an idea of how wide the Panama canal locks are.

Interesting to note that the dreadnaught was planned in the late 1930’s and her keel laid in 1940. Now, we had a whole bunch of this heavy armament in the pipeline by December 7 1941, so let’s not pretend it was all such a big surprise. There is also a WWII sub you can crawl through

 and a plaque commemorating the 2000+ sailors drowned in the submarine service during the  conflict. ( The Germans lost 20,000 men, or almost 70% of the service )

Down the street from the battleship is a lovely place called Felix’s FishCcamp

( http://www.felixsfishcamp.com/ ) I had the whitefish with some really good collard greens. The service was also interesting. They take the trouble to have an individual waiter/waitress for every person on the table when the food is served and take care to set all the plates down on cue.

Artillery Shells to Missions

In Lordsburg, New Mexico they offered up artillery shells for sale (best selection)

Sounds good, especially if I see another one of those ‘Click it or Ticket” billboards. In Washington state the good fourth of July stuff is sold from Indian roadside stands like “Ill Eagle Fireworks”. In New Mexico and Texas, this appears to be standard fare.

My brother says Texas is in dire financial straights, but the tourist point of entry at El Paso

 is nothing less than lavish and amply staffed by folks just waiting around to empty the trash.

The border patrol, too, has a lot of young faces and plenty of brand new 4-wheel drive trucks. We’ve gone through 5 ‘checkpoints’ so far where  these self-important guys, all armed, always with  a German shepherd on hand, improve our homeland security by asking us if we are US citizens. Reminds me a lot of crossing into East Germany. These cool dudes like to wear Terminator sunglasses, ride along frontage roads, dragging old tires so they can later find footprints. Yeah, real clever. Untold millions are being spent here in a successful effort to bolster the federal employee union rolls. The maids at the motels no hablan ingles.

It’s a long, hot drive down to the big bend in the Rio Grande. Some of the roadside attractions are better than others.

Texas gets the roadside rest areas right. There are lots of them. They have shade roofs, most have BBQ grills and they are called picnic areas.

No one in their right mind visits Big Bend National Park during the summer. Cottonwood campground

 had only one other customer; a couple of guys who made the mistake to think it’d be neat to kayak down the river. Cottonwood is nice, shady and green. We batted and pitched the bucket of balls a few times. There is also has a native mob of Javelina (wild pigs)

that have made it their home. Unlike the random horse or the roaming cattle, the park service will not chase them out. In fact, the picnic tables all have warnings not to confront them and to be neat with food. They did not seem to mind the long fly balls.

A windmill still pumps water at the old adobe homestead of the Nail family.

. Some pecan trees and a fig attest to the valiant efforts of these tough folks. The Simpson sheep herder house is even more remote.

.

A woman named Nina is buried by the side of the road. She died in childbirth and asked to be laid to rest overlooking the shaded spring where she read to her other children so often. The grave is cared for. Someone put up a new marker and there are some recent plastic flowers. The original marker is hidden behind the new one. It is a plain rock, cemented into the ground and only her name and 1911 are scratched into the concrete. One has to wonder if one of the kids that was read to under those cottonwoods still lives nearby.

 These people are all but forgotten. They pitted their wits and strength against a harsh land. Their mark is soon erased and I have to wonder; did they win or loose? Certainly they did more in their lives than most of us. Just as certainly, they would  be lost and outcast in our world today, but we would die from thirst, hunger and exposure in theirs.

The Rio Grande is not the grande.

It is a silty rivulet marking the frontier. You wouldn’t get your back wet crossing that, but getting down the cliffs might be a trick.

The Pecos is more impressive.

 but it took three washed out bridges before the folks figured out that a high bridge was needed.

 This bridge is featured in some movie, but I forget which one.

In Del Rio we turned in for some steak and shrimp at a Chilis. When it came time to pay, the waiter informed us that an anonymous benefactor had picked up our tab. He said the person was in the habit of doing this for someone randomly as a family tradition. Wow ! Texas is friendly, but this beats all.

The Alamo

 is dwarfed by a bunch of urban mushrooming

surrounded by a network of green water canals

and supports the usual menagerie of bums, crazies, druggies and hobos generally attracted to free taxpayer subsidized urban planning projects.

It was 104 degrees and we tried to stay in the shade.

Even the sidewalks are stamped so as not to forget the Alamo

The San Antonio Missions are a farm team of the San Diego Padres. They’re doing very well at 47:20. Even though it was father’s day, the game was poorly attended.

The concessions were lousy and the game started slow and hot.

 A few beers later it got better. They played “Why I like beer…” between innings and did some very funny and clever video clips. There was also some fine heckling of some hapless Midland player.

Despite the strong wind blowing in from the outfield, we saw a grand slam and their mascots are good and goofy: Henry the slammin’ puffy taco (could be a bit risqué)

and the Balopena.

The pitching was rotated starting in the 5^th inning. I’ve heard the commentators bemoan the fact that pitchers are coming up from the minors without the stamina to last a full game. The Nolan Ryan days of 200+ pitches are gone. The Missions won 8:3. Maybe the Padres should send some of their boys back to the Mission.

It is becoming impossible to get block ice. Has anyone noticed? On the other hand, we got coupons for 6+6 chicken wings, good at any San Antonio Buffalo Wings restaurant, because the  team scored 6+ runs. We’re giving them away to locals; paying it forward (a wee bit).

Near the motel was a Salvadorean restaurant (http://sanantonio.citysearch.com/profile/10100557/san_antonio_tx/la_playa_seafood.html ). Ferdinand was not amused by the exotic fare. I thought both the ceviche and the frog legs were bland, but the fish was good.

The concept of a breadless burger leaves fast food joints perplexed around here. On the plus side, there are BBQ breakfast places and BBQ drive-through places. As the billboards for Lone Star Beer point out; there really is no reason to leave the state. Nonetheless we plan to do just that and head for Beaumont, TX and then the Big Easy.

Redlands to Hot Wings

The trip is on. We headed East on I-10 past the entrance to the Orocopia Wilderness

( http://www.blm.gov/ca/pa/wilderness/wa/areas/orocopia_mountains.html  )

where I have some firewood stashed (just behind the red truck in the picture). At  Desert Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Center,_California ) the old Greyhound stop has been razed and the Eagle Mountain Mine never got its LA-LA trash.

We turned North on SR 177. At the junction of 177 and 62 I left a steaming gift for the buzzards behind a pile of highway rocks; marking the territory.

Speaking of which, Needles (http://www.cityofneedles.com/ ) was a quick stop on US 95. In Mojave, it’s called “ʼAha Kuloh  “, which in Portuguese translates into, “Aha, the anus” Ferdinand drily noted that the city’s name is too obvious; then again, the old Indian name might impede tourism.

Ferdinand was impressed by Hoover dam.

 I impressed on him the importance of recognizing that Crowe (http://www.1st100.com/part1/crowe.html ) and Ayers (https://engineering.purdue.edu/EAA/Honors/Notable/notable-discipline ) are important men. Ayers is so forgotten that his own alma mater (Purdue) mismatched his credentials with some ‘Inventive Heart Healer”. Nonetheless, both were Atlases. These are the people that move the world, as Ron Paul, correctly observes. (http://www.dailypaul.com/162335/atlas-shrugged ).  

We saw the powerhouse

 and I enjoyed the art-deco statues.

The new bridge adds to the grandeur of the place.

 The ludicrous homeland ‘security’ (http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-482990.html ) does not.

We bunked down in St. George, Utah (http://www.sgcity.org/ ); seems like a nice town. There is a "Chuck-O-Rama" restaurant; something to check out, no doubt
(http://www.chuck-a-rama.com/locations/locations.htm ) Maybe another time.. I had never been through the Virgin River gorge, though; pretty amazing.

 The approach to the North Rim (http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/directions_n_rim.htm ) is long, but scenic.

The Coconino County sheriff is pretty vigilant too; my first ticket for over 7 years!

Other than the lodge on the South Rim, the other side is surely a better thing. You hardly ever get to see the river, but the views into the canyon are overwhelming. Naturally, my camera ran out of film just as we were getting ready to pose on top of Angel’s Window.

, but here is a Panoramio link with the snaps.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/54541954  (follow the ‘More Photos’ slide show)

 We camped just outside the park and at almost 9000 feet elevation. It was nice and crispy at night.

Route 89 South to Phoenix had so many construction delays that we got to the motel so late in the afternoon and burned from the drive, we decided to wait it out another day, and see the Diamondbacks the following evening.

The Motel6 is conveniently located next to the Sky Harbor main runway, a railroad main line and an adult bookstore; then again, there is a pool

and it’s a short walk to the metro line that will take us to CHASE field. I had a haircut in a shop recently run into by a car. That morning the outside wall was wide open. The barber told me how his dad tied him up for a week in the garage because he wanted to quit school. Margarete would be happy. While I was still pondering the pedagogical benefits of this parental lesson, the guy proceeded to trim my eyebrows. Now water runs into my eyes.

We found a real road trip place: Long Wong’s Famous Wings on Thomas Street.

The temperature reached 110 and after those damn hot wings I felt like the guy in the Tabasco commercial (http://www.tabasco.com/arts_pavilion/tv_ads/tabasco_mosquito_ad.cfm ).

 

We got to the Diamondback field during batting practice and Ferdinand went down to the right outfield wall to try and snag one. Can you spot him?

 He’s just above the F

It’s a nice stadium. They had the roof closed when the game started and the whole place was air conditioned ! While I was getting some refreshment and wondering about the caloric energy cost of this, they opened it up. The sun was just going down. It was still pretty hot, but it had more of the feel of a baseball game. Now, if they’d only replace that horrible carpet.

The stadium boasts a pool and jaccuzi!

 A little less cheesy than the faux waterfall in Anaheim, but who goes to a baseball game to soak in a tub? Isn’t getting soaked in beer good enough?

There was a whole row of kids in the upper deck, moving one seat to the left in unison at every pitch. Pretty neat routine. They almost made it to the good seats by the end of the game.

The D-Backs lost to the Giants, 5:3

I still have hot wing sauce on my fingers.