One of the main birding destinations for us has always been Portal AZ so when we crossed the border into the state we followed the wooden sign that said Portal.  After about 15 miles the pavement ended and we drove the next 15 on a deserted dirt road with the sun starting to set behind the Chiracahua Mountains.  We persevered with the driver (K) grumbling all the way until we finally reached the town and breathed a big sigh of relief. The restaurant was packed with local residents and visiting campers, mostly birders, and a band was playing as we ate burgers and chicken.  When we left it was so dark we could barely find the van, much less the campgrounds, so we drove less than 200 feet to a pull off spot and spent the night by the side of the road. Got up early and found our way to the national forest where we birded the south fork of Cave Creek and ran into a couple of local guides and master birders who helped us to find the dusky-capped flycatcher and showed us the roost of the whiskered screech owl who has apparently returned to the same nest for over 20 years. On our way in we saw the tail end of a coyote as it disappeared into the woods and a few white tailed deer.

Just down the road was the Southwest Research Station where we had stayed on our last trip to this area.  They happened to be banding hummingbirds and we watched them catch one in a net, transfer it to a small mesh bag, record its band numbers and weigh and measure it.  When they had finished recording the data the lead researcher asked if one of us wanted to be the launch pad for the bird’s release so naturally I volunteered.  She was put onto my hand and rested there for a few seconds before taking flight. She weighed nearly nothing and her heartbeat was incredibly fast against my palm. What a great experience! Later on we went to feeders at the home of Bob Rodrigues whom we had met earlier in the day.  Saw many white crowned sparrows, common here but not at home, some Gambel’s quail, a pyrrhaloxia and green-tailed towhee.  But no Crissal thrasher, a bird Ron has missed every time he has come to this area.

We drove to Bisbee and met up with Doug at the San Ramon, after mistakenly driving up (and down!) some really, really narrow streets lined with stone walls, with cars parked every which way on the side. At one point we came face to face with a pickup truck going up as we were trying to go down.  Needless to say, he had to back down a bit to let us through.  No way I could back the van up!

The hotel is a small boutique inn in the historic district with only six rooms and a self-entry system we mastered on the second or third try. We had a great dinner at Cafe Raku, then spent the next day watching vintage automobiles drive through town as part of their 1000 mile annual rally sponsored by a Lexus dealer in Scottsdale to benefit a Phoenix museum. Every wish list car was represented, from 1950s Jags to every Corvette and MG made.

We visited the historic museum in town and learned a lot about copper mining, the main reason for the town’s existence.  Once the largest (and by far richest) city in Arizona, Bisbee has reinvented itself as a tourist destination with art galleries and antique stores taking the place of the more functional shops the mining families required in the mid-1800s to the beginning to the twentieth century.

We’ve eaten a lot of Mexican food in Texas but the very best meal we’ve had was at a little restaurant – El Patio – in Presidio (pop. App. 2000) on our way from Big Bend to El Paso. I had a fajita burrito which was basically all the fixings for chicken fajitas pre-wrapped in a single flour tortilla.  Since I usually wind up taking half a fajita meal home it was perfect.  Why don’t all Mexican restaurants offer such a logical menu item? Ron had a simple enchilada with beef – both items we’ve had before but these were outstandingly prepared.  And inexpensive, too.

We didn’t quite make it to El Paso in a single run but wound up at a rest stop about 30 miles east for the night. When we did drive in the next day it was to the Holiday Inn right near I10. We got our laundry done and much needed showers and spent the day visiting two terrific museums, the Museum of Art and the Museum of History.  Sent digital post cards from the latter and viewed an exhibit of Chicano art (donated by Cheech Marin) at the former.  Although the hotel was in the business district and there were major banks and insurance companies represented there, we saw very few people on the street and almost no traffic. Lots of cars parked in lots and garages, though, so the workers were there someplace.  Ron woke up the next day feeling a little under the weather so I took the camera and wandered around a bit on my own.  Again, very few people walking even though it was about 9am on a work day.  Every now and then there were groups of two or three with take out bags from one of the few chic lunch spots, but not many.

On Friday,  after a brief stop at the El Paso Botanic Gardens, we drove north to New Mexico with no clear idea (as usual) of where we would spend the night but a few choices of state parks not too far off the interstate.  Our idea of what’s not too far has changed considerably on this trip. It used to be that anything over a ten-mile round trip was out of the question.  Now we’re willing to stretch that to 100 miles if the destination is appealing enough.  We decided on City of Rocks SP, about 30 miles north of the highway and it was a really interesting place, with campsites scattered among pillars of lava rock up to 40 feet high, formed by a volcanic explosion millions of years ago. We took a short hike in the morning in the Chihuahuan desert and stopped at the visitors center before heading out.  While there we read about the cliff dwellings in the Gila National Wilderness Area about 30 miles north and decided to make another detour.

We were warned that the road to the cliffs was steep and winding and it sure was but Ron conquered his fears and handled them like a real pro. We camped at Lower Scorpion (a really small area with a couple of tent sites and room for about 4-5 vehicles) and chatted with our fellow campers, a couple almost our age from Kentucky who were setting off for a few days of backpacking in the park, another couple with a trailer who are full timers and a man from Tennessee who was also backpacking on his own for a few days.

The next day we headed to the trail that led to the cliff dwellings and started the climb.  While it wasn’t long, it was strenuous because of the altitude (almost 7000 ft. above sea level) and Ron was feeling it. He was also feeling a bit (!) of vertigo but made it all the way to the top where the path narrowed to a couple of feet wide on the edge of a cliff.  The 700 year old cave dwellings were awe inspiring.  It’s hard to imagine how the residents lived but the evidence shows there  was once a thriving community of hunter-gatherers who also raised crops of maize and squashes there for hundreds of years. The Gila River provided water for drinking and irrigation and there was plenty of game. Like other civilizations in the deserts of the west, no one really knows why they moved on.

We would our way back down the mountain and headed for Portal, AZ, to do some serious birding.

Outside the Starbucks in El Paso

History museum

Morning rush hour

Holiday Inn cost a bit more.

Our second day at Kickapoo was quiet and relaxing. We said goodbye to our porcupine and tried once more to catch sight of the golden-cheeked warbler to no avail.   So we drove back to Rte. 90 and had some more Texas BBQ on our way to Big Bend.  We knew it was too far to make before nightfall but weren’t sure where we would stay before that.  Seminole State Park was too close, although I would have liked to see the petroglyphs and cave paintings.  We stopped briefly to take some pictures of the Pecos River as it dug its way toward the Rio Grande and checked out a couple of picnic areas on the sides of the road.  When we reached one just a few miles outside of Marathon (the entry point for Big Bend) we knew we had found the spot. There had been very few cars or trucks on our way there, despite the fact that I90 is a major road, and the desert was beautiful and oh so quiet. We ate at one of the two picnic benches which were sheltered from the hot sun, played our nightly game of Rummy and packed it in, listening to the coyotes call in the distance.  There had been no vehicles at all in either direction for hours at a time and only heard one or two go by all night.

Woke up Easter morning to a stunning pink sky and drove to Marathon for breakfast. The desert scape soon gave way to jagged sky islands with tall mountains appearing in the distance. Marathon proper is a small town only a few hundred feet long but it provided us with fuel for the van and for us –  coffee and delicious scones and muffins. We found ourselves with a brief moment of cell service so we chatted with the Bergerons in Maine and Lawsons and Kuhns at home.

Big Bend is awesome, literally, with the Chisos Mountains winding through from across the Mexican border creating steep cliffs and deep canyons. Our campgrounds is in Chisos Basin, carved out of the rocky foothills of the mountain range. There are more than a couple of hairpin turns on the road down but neither of us flinched.  And we added a couple of birds to our trip list here – the cactus wren,  canyon towhee, Scott’s Oriole, western flycatcher and the Oregon subspecies of the dark-eyed junco.

Took a ride on Monday to the Rio Grande Village and finally spotted a road runner – or five or six, including one that visited our campsite – twice.  Our birding here is complete.

The view from our campsite.

A perfect day in the Chihuahuan desert.

The Chisos grasslands.

That’s the Rio Grande in the background.

We left San Antonio as scheduled and headed west on I 90, towards Amistad NWR where we planned to camp.  There was an antique shop in Uvalde right about where we planned to switch drivers so we stopped and spent an hour browsing.  No doorknobs. Plenty of stuff just like the stuff we just gave away, though.

We started getting hungry so started looking for a place to picnic.  The Texas vacation guide pointed out the way to a state park only (!) 22 miles off our route so we turned right and wound our way through the edges of Texas hill country to Kickapoo Cave SP. The narrow road ran along pine canyons and ranch lands dotted with mesquite; I don’t think we saw two other cars in the entire 22 mile drive.  We easily found the picnic area and cooked up beef and chicken fajitas with the leftovers in the fridge. There wasn’t another soul around, but plenty of birds despite the hour.  The first one to visit was a rock wren, followed by a feisty vermillion flycatcher and a chipping sparrow.  No question that this was the place for us; we found the office and booked campsite 6, a wide shaded spot overlooking the mesquite hills.

Before cooking supper I took a short walk and looked up at what appeared to be a large nest in a tree near the path. When I got my bins on it it turned out to be a large mammal – a porcupine was feeding high in the branches, about fifteen feet from the ground! Ran to get Ron and the camera, of course, and to ask the volunteer at headquarters if these critters really climb trees like that. Yup.

Now the reason this is called Kickapoo Cave  SP is that it sits on top of a system of multiple caverns, one of which (Stuart Cave) houses millions of Mexican Tailless bats that emerge each evening to feast on the insects above the agricultural fields in the area.  They are said to feed up to 10,000 feet altitude and range nearly 60 miles from their home. We found out when they were due to go out to eat – about 7:30 – stowed our tuna casserole in the sink and drove to the mouth of the cave.  Almost to the minute they started pouring out by the hundreds, in a steady stream that lasted well over 45 minutes. They formed large swarms like so many gnats, hundreds of feet above us as more and more left the cave. Every now and then a large raptor (hawk? Owl?) would fly through the swarm and snatch a bat mid air. There was only one other couple there and we all took pictures like mad until the camera batteries died. I even got some video.

Woke up the next morning to birdsong like we haven’t heard in weeks so we naturally decided to stay another night. Walked about an hour and a half and heard many good birds and even saw a few, including many more vermillion flycatchers and  a yellow breasted chat.  This campgrounds is definitely one of the top two or three of the whole trip so far, although we hear it will be getting crowded this weekend.  No matter.  We’ll bird the trails in the morning and get back on the road before lunchtime.

Kickapoo SP/ site 8.

On the way out of the park.

Few cars, many sheep.

Pulled into San Antonio just after breakfast (Love’s Truck Stop. Nothing fancy) and parked by Alamo Plaza where we boarded the sightseeing bus.  It was hop on-hop off but we never hopped off.  Visited the Alamo and walked along River Walk, stopping at the County Line for barbecue and grilled salmon.  The city diverted the San Antonio River to make this flowing water loop, lined with hotels, restaurants and some boutiques.  Palm trees and flower beds completed the look and made for a pleasant stroll.

We thought we were going to have to visit the local Roadtrek service center here (before Ron figured out the black water tank problem) and figured we would stay overnight at a hotel for laundry and showers so we had booked the Pear Tree Inn on our way to the city.  Good thing, too. Severe thunderstorms hit the area, setting off flash flood warnings all night.  A couple of inches of rain fell while we were asleep, with another inch coming down over breakfast.  The national weather service predicts many more storms flowing across the area, beginning in the Mexican mountains and heading right across our path of travel.  The weather channel kept showing scary footage of campers being swept away so we booked another night and are staying put for now.

We met a fellow hotel guest, a retired truck driver from Buffalo, NY,  who drives part time for a company that leases golf carts to PGA events all over the country. His plane home was delayed because of the weather so, after chatting for a while, we crossed the road and had dinner together.  In the course of hearing about our travels and the saga of the van, he told Ron he had bought several Sirius portables on ebay and offered us the one he was carrying. Long story short, he called and transferred his service to another radio at home, I got our account transferred to the new equipment and voila! We have satellite radio!!! Thank you, thank you Bob Daly!

On the way to Falcon SP we made a few birding stops but the heat was intense and the birds probably felt it, too. We heard very few and saw fewer.   Even the signature birds of some areas (meaning they are nearly always spotted in season) were not around. Exhausted, we decided to stay two nights in Falcon and take it easy after addressing a couple of van issues.  Ron got the black water tank (aka toilet liquid) flushed and I defrosted the refrigerator; got rid of a few mystery leftovers, too. Took a couple of short walks and added the brown crested flycatcher, black-throated sparrow and pyrrhuloxia to our trip list. Also a jack rabbit, lots of lizards and a javelina or two. Mostly we read and napped and tried to stay cool.   It was over 90 when we left the following morning so only half-heartedly stopped once or twice on the way to Laredo. Took a short walk around Roma Bluffs to check the outlook over the river and watched the border patrol on boats making their early morning run.

Now the very name Laredo brings to mind the old west so we eagerly looked forward to seeing cowboy movie type streets and buildings. We circled the historic district, following one way streets and making u-turns at dead-ends but to no avail. As an aside, all along our drive on Rte. 83 (which pretty much follows the Rio Grande) we saw signs pointing left saying “Mexico”.  There are many crossings and Ron counted about seven bridges marked on the map in this area alone. So when I turned down a side street with a sign pointing left saying “Mexico” I wasn’t really surprised.  This one, however, meant it.  Less than 50 feet ahead was an honest to goodness international bridge linking Laredo to Nuevo Laredo to the south, complete with armed border officers and metal gates. The guard has probably dealt with errant tourists before so he just picked up his walkie talkie and asked his colleague at the gate to let us through.  Only slightly embarrassed, I made the turn.  The street we landed on was packed with shoppers, Mexicans in Laredo looking for their Easter finery.

Ron had his heart set on a steak dinner after passing all the cattle ranches on Rte. 83, but it was not to be.  We settled for enchiladas and mole and headed to San Antonio, planning to spend the night at a rest stop half way there. This border stuff is obviously foreign to me so when we saw flashing lights I just followed the van in front of me to a checkpoint, manned by (you guessed it) border patrol.  I drove through as if I was at the Goethals Bridge toll plaza, slowly and carefully, until I heard the guard order me to stop! He asked if there was anyone else in the van and if we were US citizens and then motioned us on, saying “Next time, stop!”  You bet I will.

We made an unplanned stop at Casa Blanca SP and drove around the lake to check out the fishing pier and have a light lunch. It was hot, hot, hot! (see below)

Spent the night at the rest stop as planned and met a couple from the Netherlands also “camping” there. They had driven from Uruguay, through Mexico, on the way to Chicago.  They are photographers and writers, working for non-profit organizations at home primarily involved in micro-finance.  They have driven in Africa and all over South and Central America doing impact analysis for their investors. They are headed home for a couple of months when they come back to the US for a while. We invited them to stay with the village on their way through New York.

Camped at Mesquite Campgrounds on North Padre and watched hundreds of pelicans fly north, in groups of 20 – 50 birds.  Decided to head to SPI (South Padre Island, of course.  Seems like every beach town needs its own acronym) to spend a night in a hotel for laundry and a shower.  La Quinta had a good deal so we pulled in and registered for the night.  Should have realized something was happening by all the out of state license plates in the parking area – Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota.  Turns out spring break was still in full swing and the 19 – 20 somethings were all over the place, wearing flip-flops and beads and flirting madly. We did our laundry and tried to settle in for the night but our “neighbors” had other ideas.  Their music was so loud it sounded as if it was coming in via a high def headset.  They finally calmed down around 3:30 am and we slept until 7.

Got to the nature center across the street just as it opened and walked the boardwalk with a couple of volunteers from up north – winter Texans as they are called here.  Saw many good birds including soras, black-bellied whistling ducks and pectoral sandpipers.  But the best birds were the scissor-tailed and vermillion flycatchers that flew into the marsh just as we entered the walk.

Had a nice lunch and scoped out the county park at the tip of the island but the $60 fee seemed way too high so we left SPI and booked two nights at an over 55 resort – at no cost to us.  Sort of like a timeshare for RVs; they gave us the literature but spared us the sales pitch.

We visited Estero Llano Grande SP early the next morning to see if we could tag along on the bus tour they had planned but it was full, so we did the park on our own.  Added the fulvous whistling duck, the green jay and the Audubon oriole to our RGV list and left, hungry and happy, to have lunch at Nana’s Taqueria before going to the Frontera Audubon Sanctuary and adding the clay colored thrush to our list. It’s starting to get really hot.  The temperature reached the mid 80s but luckily there was a strong breeze (wind, actually) blowing at the campgrounds so we didn’t really need to test the air conditioner yet. It’s just a matter of time, though; New Mexico is only about a week away.

Got to Santa Ana NWR the next morning for the 8:30 guided bird walk with volunteers (and winter Texans) Sue and John.  Saw white faced ibis and least grebe, two trip birds.  We left the walk half way to catch the afternoon tram around the park – a welcome respite from walking as the temperatures climbed through the 80s to near 90. At one point we disembarked from the tram and took a trail to the banks of the Rio Grande, only a stone’s throw from Mexico.  Our guides warned the group that surveillance cameras were all along the border pointing towards the river and picking up everything, so if anyone needed to relieve themselves in the woods, they should sure to stand on the south side of a bush facing the Rio.

Walmart keeps showing up as a place to “camp” in our travel guides and apps so we decided it was time to try one.  There was a Supercenter on our way to Falcon SP and we needed a few things so off we went. Walmart is becoming a go-to destination for us this trip.  They are outside of every populous area on every major road. They carry everything! We’ve bought dishes and washcloths, peanut butter and milk, velcro and charging cables, sunglasses and gallons and gallons of spring water.  After using their rest rooms to get ready for bed, we video -called home from the parking lot  and had a nice virtual visit with everyone at Jen’s for pizza and Allie’s haircutting before pulling the shades and calling it a night.

Great Blue welcoming us to the nature center

Estero Llano Grande SP

Chachalacas at Estero

We returned to Houston after a nice week spent with family and friends.  Highlights were the kids shows (Audrey as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Susana in Hairspray and Allie and Margot in rehearsal for the PS 45 talent show).  Hyatt Place had taken good care of the van and good care of us.  Their shuttle picked us up from the airport even though we were only guests of the hotel for one night a week ago.

Drove south to Galveston knowing that there wasn’t any way we would find space at the state park – it’s spring break after all, and families were camping up and down the coast.  We did find a space at Jamaica Beach RV Park, though, not far away.  It was filled with monster rigs, no more than six feet between them, not a tree in sight.  We couldn’t wait to leave the next morning and continued south, stopping along the way for a short walk near the bay, where we were greeted by meadow larks and interesting shore birds (yellow legs, dowitcher’s, willets, sandpipers)  including a plover-like individual with un-plover like coloring.  Still trying to figure out what it was.

Hoping to get to Victoria City Park before dark, we drove on.  We would have made it, too, but the driver (K) got really tired and we stopped at a rest stop to make the switch.  It was a pleasant area so after much discussion, some internet checking and confirmation from a truck driver that it was legal to spend the night at a rest stop in Texas, we settled in. Lesson learned: huge semis also sleep at rest areas and they don’t turn off their engines for the night.  They also seem to check air brakes periodically.  Little sleep was had that night so at daybreak we left for Aransas NWR under cloudy skies and without breakfast.

We are having a bit of trouble with our “sanitation system” so made arrangements to stop at a service center in Rockport, just south of the park. Just a few miles before we reached Rockport we stopped at what the GPS said was a coffee shop.  Turns out it was a BBQ place that also roasted coffee. Coffee was great and it was the first time either of us had brisket for breakfast! We picked up a brochure there that advertised boat rides to see the whooping cranes – our reason for coming to Aransas. Couldn’t pass that up so as soon as we left Camper Clinic we went in search of the marina. Found it just in time to board the 1:00 cruise and it was fabulous.  The weather had cleared, the bay was pretty calm and the cranes were clearly visible in groups of two and threes.  This is the only place in the US they winter and they are only here from November until March, when they fly 2400 miles north to Wood Buffalo NP in Canada to nest.  The crane population was nearly decimated (down to 15 individual birds in the 1940s) when they were declared an endangered species and  efforts began to increase their numbers.  Currently there are only two migratory flocks in the US, this one (consisting of about 400 birds) and a Florida/Wisconsin flock that was artificially established by the Patuxent Wildlife Research group by rearing young hatched from wild laid eggs and teaching them to migrate using ultralight aircraft (as seen in the movie Winged Migration).

After a nice dinner near the marina, we found a city park on the bay and tucked in for the night.

Got up the next morning and drove up the coast to Goose Island SP to see if we could find a site for the night.  All along Fulton Beach we could see the signs of devastation caused by hurricane Harvey last October.  Piles of debris, wrecked fishing piers,  boarded up windows and closed shops lined the road. This time we got to the BBQ place just before it closed so we ordered some brisket and sausages to go.  We’ll have dinner for the next two nights wherever we land.

Goose Island was a bit of a disappointment.  There was still ample evidence of what the hurricane had done; lots of tree branches littering the sites, some broken picnic tables and washed roads.  But it was quiet and the bathrooms were clean, if buggy, and three deer greeted us on the way back to the campsite that night. We visited the “Big Tree” while we were there – a live oak said to be over a thousand years old, 85 feet across the canopy with limbs as thick as most trees.  The afternoon brought us to Aransas NWR, where we drove the 16 mile auto loop and stopped at a few observation points, including one that climbed almost 100 feet above the ground.  To Ron it seemed more like 500 but he made it to the top without complaint. At the Jones Pond overlook we spotted dozens of coots, a couple of pied billed grebes and at least four wild pigs.  At the visitors center we saw bluebirds and yellow throated and black and white warblers. Along the drive we found a racoon, little and great blue herons and the usual egrets.

We turned south again, passing mountains of hurricane carnage over 50 feet tall – household items, store signs, sheet rock, concrete slabs – all awaiting the dump trucks that will take it to use as fill somewhere else.  Maybe our descendants will dig up the refuse and wonder what kind of civilization threw away so much stuff. Oh, wait.  They will probably think that about Fresh Kills, too.

The birding trail brochure led us to another city park that was supposed to have free camping but when we got there it was in an iffy neighborhood and looked abandoned.  Another victim of Harvey? Who knows, but we didn’t feel comfortable staying.  There were a few people playing disc golf (look it up! apparently a pretty big thing in the south but nothing we had ever heard of before) and a photographer waiting for his clients to show up.  We asked about camping there but he thought the park closed at dusk and told us that RVs often pulled over on the hard packed sand at the shore of the bay just before the ferry crossing to Port Aransas.  So that’s what we did.

Woke up to a blustery, foggy morning and took the ferry, hoping to find breakfast and a bathroom asap. As the skies cleared we decided to check out Padre Island National Seashore which turned out to be absolutely beautiful. The meadowlarks were singing as we walked the nature trail and the swallows, mostly tree, flew overhead.  The dunes are majestic, tall and covered with goat’s foot morning glory and grasses. We decided to stay the night and backed into site 14 right on the Gulf beach. Made some pb&j sandwiches for lunch and plotted our next move.

Palmetto Island was one of the very best campgrounds we’ve visited so far, in any state.  It had spacious, mostly wooded sites, a lot of morning bird song and a laundry facility – free! The park even had wifi. We decided to stay two nights and relaxed mostly, with only a quick trip to Dollar General for water and charcoal.  Fellow campers were heading for Sam Houston Jones SP near Lake Charles so we tried to book a site also but got tangled up in reserveamerica.com’s convoluted system and gave up.

When we we left we headed west along the coast and did a little birding, including a lunch stop on a dike in Rockefeller WMR where we watched the alligators watching us and viewed (from a safe distance) a controlled burn at the end of the road. There were many (seedy) RV camps along the road but we chose to cross the border into the first park we saw in Port Arthur, Texas, a facility right under the causeway and on the Sabine River. It was a large paved area with a view of a Cheniere LNG plant,  a huge oil refinery and empty tankers coming down the intracoastal waterway. When I checked email again, a confirmation had come in from Sam Houston Jones SP so we reluctantly headed back into Louisiana in the morning.

The road back provided us with some really good birding.  A flock of terns on the beach – Fosters, Caspian and Royal – were close by, a flock of small peeps (probably western sandpipers). A stop at Paveto Audubon Sanctuary gave us a nice early morning walk even though there weren’t too many birds.  As we drove north we were treated to the brief appearance (up and back into the ditch) of a large rail and more than a few glossy and white ibis, egrets, shorebirds, especially willets, and one unidentified sandpiper. We walked the boardwalk at Sabine NWR with some nice people from nearby Louisiana and gave them a tour of the van before heading to the campground.

When we first started thinking about this trip, Ron bought Guy Fieri’s Diners Drive-ins and Dives and talked about all the road food we would eat.  Except for a few notable meals (beignets at TCoons,  the boudin at M&S Deli) it hasn’t really turned out that way.   We’ve had some upscale meals, a couple of fast food type stops and more than a few campground meals based on leftovers. But on the road to the SP we spotted a place called Sausage Link so we had to make a u-turn and pull over.  It was the real deal (as Guy would say) filled with local working folks and people picking up meats to bring home for dinner. I had the oyster burger (fried oysters on a hamburger bun) and Ron had their famous smoked sausage.  We split an order of boudin balls (really good) and, happy as oysters, finished our drive to the park.

Sam Houston was a big disappointment. It was crowded and the site we had was short, crumbling and backed onto the playground. But we tucked in and made the best of it. The next day we took a long walk in the woods and tried to decide how to spend the rest of the day. There are many casinos in Lake Charles (all those local oil workers with time on their hands and money to burn) so we thought we’d pick one and have a Saturday night’s entertainment. We decided it would be more fun to go to the one with the racetrack; slot machines are boring and poker machines, well, been there done that. So off we went.  It wasn’t until we were nearly there that we realized we were more than halfway back to Texas. So after a delightful dinner at trackside, and after watching (and betting on) nine races, we spent another night in a casino parking lot. As an aside, we wagered about $30 (mostly on horses with “CAT” in their names; thanks for the system, Jen) and won exactly $30.20.  Came out ahead again. Barely.  It was getting cold so we watched the ninth race on TV from the casino. The horse we would have picked, CatWhoDat, (20-1 shot) charged out of the gate and led the pack for 9/10 of the mile before fading to sixth.  Our hearts nearly stopped. We would not have been happy had he won.

Drove the rest of the way into Texas and spent the night in Village Creek SP, a park nearly devastated by last fall’s hurricanes.  Tomorrow we drive to Houston for a night in a hotel and a Tuesday flight home. I’ll pick up the blog in a little over a week.

There are a lot of historic sites and museums celebrating southern Louisiana life, past and present.  We picked out a couple of places to see before we leave this part of the country and decided to stay an extra day or two as many of them are closed on Sundays. The first place was Vermillion Village with restored (sort of) houses, a one room school and a small restaurant. Similar to Richmondtown but easier to get around. Bonus: we met a couple in the parking lot on the way in that said we were going to love the band that was playing that day.  Band? My ears perked up.  Turns out the meeting house in the village  hosts a local band every Sunday and it was just about to start playing. The dance floor was packed and the zydeco beat was irresistibile.  We hung around for a while,  then went next door for a buffet of authentic dishes including andouille sausage and excellent gumbo before browsing through the buildings.  The couple we had met in the parking lot are spending a week in Lafayette and had done a ton of research on points of interest and eating spots, much of which they shared with us.

The next day we started off looking for some of the missing items on our culinary tour.  Started the day with beignets at TCoons and ended it with broiled oysters and crawfish etouffee at Randol’s.    In between we visited another historic site, the LARC Acadian Village.  More restored houses, including that of the first doctor to practice in the parish, another school and winding bayou.  On the blackboard of the school had been written “I will not speak French” 100 times, a reminder of the efforts of the state of Louisiana to obliterate the Acadian culture at the turn of the last century.  We ran into our friends from the day before, Glenn and Colleen, who invited us to come to their air b’n’b for wine but (afraid of getting lost in the dark again!) we regretfully declined and continued to Randol’s for dinner. There was a Cajun band playing – much tamer than the zydeco we heard the day before – so  right after dinner we found our way back to KOA and called it a night.

On Tuesday we found our last remaining cultural target, the Jean Lafitte/ Acadian Cultural Center in Beaver Park. The center is one of the NPS historic sites and was interesting and beautifully kept.  The ranger ran a video for us depicting the forced exodus of the French settlers from Acadian Canada by the British and the winding path that took them to southern Louisiana. We always thought they had followed the Mississippi river down to New Orleans but most of the displaced persons were packed onto ships and sent out into the Atlantic Ocean with no final destination. Survivors wound up in Charleston, Savannah and the West Indies.  Some made their way to France and eventually sailed across the Atlantic again to Louisiana, then governed by the Spanish, where they were finally welcomed.

Picked up a CD of zydeco and a copy of Longfellow’s epic poem  Evangeline while we there and headed to Palmetto Island SP for the night.