January 29, 2011 Frenchman’s Wilderness CG creepy?

We arrive at Frenchman’s Wilderness CG in the Baton Rouge outskirts in a light drizzle, about 3:30 pm. A disheveled man on a quad meets us before we can get to the office.

Now disheveled is not unusual in these parts. What gets us is the Billy Bob Thorton “Slingblade” voice and manner. He informs us the office is closed and what do we want. We ask for a space and he says to follow him, so we do, to a decent pull-thru spot about as far from the office as you can get. He says the spot is $29, more than a woman had quoted over the phone, but we quickly pay in exact change, no receipt, and do not ask about the woman. That night over dinner we hear a distant gunshot. This is Louisiana, everybody hunts. The campground is fine, just a little primitive and creepy.

January 26 - 28, 2011 - We visit Rosemary and Carlos in Houston...

We camp in Houston at the close-in and nice Lake View RV Park.  Houston downtown looks far more interesting than I remember from 45 years ago, and of course far more developed.  Oil is king here and has been for decades, but medical looks to be coming up fast.

Carlos and Rosemary have done many things in their lives and have enjoyed themselves many ways, currently by traveling tens-of-thousands of miles yearly in their Airstream, customized inside for their comfort.  They have committed to Airstream travel for the next few years so their house is rented out and they live, when in Houston, in a very nice 1-bedroom apartment in a high-rise, with a corner-room view of much of the city.

St Arnold Brewery - Houston.

Who???

Houston from their corner apartment.

We share their taste in fine arts.

A water memorial.

We hosted Carlos and Rosemary on Pasadena and San Diego tours, and it is time to see if they measure up in their town of Houston.

They do.  In two days we get a a grand driving tour of the local colleges, the many famous medical facilities, the housing areas and shopping districts.   They draw on Marcia's services for a paint consultation on their home, and we notice we twice get to see one of their properties - a paint store, viewed in daylight and later in the dark - and curiously not the source of the paints they plan to use on their house.  In their company we also tour the Rothko Chapel, Menil Museum and the Museum of fine Arts, the latter having an excellent and poignant photographic exhibit dealing with the aftermath of Katrina.

Food?  Lunch at an excellent rib joint favored by Carlos (Goode's), dinner at their "second choice" Mexican restaurant Escalante's (the 1st choice was too far away), a microbrewery tour with tasting privileges, then another dinner of take-out from Central Market (a worthy Whole Foods competitor) enjoying the view from their apartment.  We finish the evening at an excellent small-theater play called God of Carnage, returning to our trailer to rest, as we leave Texas tomorrow and that isn't easy.

January 25, 2011 We tour the Johnson Space Center...

We reach Space Center Houston, which is the tourist gateway to the Johnson Space Center, on our way to Houston.

This place is part theme park, part McDonalds play area, and part a nice museum about manned space flight.  It is also the only way you can tour the Johnson Space Center, our main objective.

Mission Control - 1969

We tour by tram and foot, always escorted, as this is still a functioning center for training astronauts and controlling missions.  A highlight is visiting the original mission control room, frozen as it was in 1969, at the time of the first landing on the moon.  Goosebumps.  The room looks surprisingly small and primitive, with green raster monitors, and rotary dial telephones.  I don't know how we did it.

Mock-ups for astronaut training and problem resolution.

Saturn V engines

Oddly, Tesas Longhorn on the premises.  This one worth over $1M.

January 23 - 24, 2011 - Galveston, oh Gal-veess-TONNNN!

The drive through coastal Texas from Corpus Christi to Galveston is interesting but uneventful.  We try to chase down a couple historical markers, but you never know if the marker is on the road or pointing to something miles off the road and we soon give up the chase.

Galveston is at the eastern tip of another barrier island, with nothing protecting it from the gulf storms.  I remember it from my army days as a moldy mess of decaying wood with no appeal, but we enjoy Galveston this time.

There is always someone that wants a crab-cooker house.

Remains of For San Jacinto front a cruise ship leaving Galveston.

We camp about 15 miles southwest of town at the very nice Jamaica Beach RV Park.  As we drive to town we see a lot of recent construction seaward, mostly nice looking 2-3 story places, maybe duplexes or triplexes, with an additional floor at ground level essentially left undeveloped to not provide resistance to storm waters.  All windows are equipped with storm shelters.  Very few people around - again probably the season and the economy.

We drive to the road's end, passing large condo developments and hotels, some quite new, others not old but with damage.  Very few people anywhere and lots of signs of arrested development.  Hurricane Ike and the economy have taken their toll.

At the road's end we watch a cruise ship exit the bay as the winds howl and the skys start to drizzle.  In the foreground is all that remains of Fort San Jacinto, started in the early 1800s and closed in the 1950s.   Several forts have been built on this site, all eventually washed away by changing shorelines and great storms, most recently Hurricane Ike in 2008.  It is dark now and we go back to camp, driving along this enormous seawall that tries to protect Galveston.

Could you possibly put some more poles in this picture?

In the morning with a heavy rain we return and visit the refurbished and elegant 100-year-old Hotel Galvez, looking somewhat like Pasadena's Huntington Hotel with a massive updating.  Galveston was just about wiped out by hurricanes in 1900 that killed 6000 people, and in the 20s and 30s it recovered somewhat with a reputation for anything-goes and bootlegging.  Hoodlums openly hosted parties at the Galvez.

We continue to the old downtown and enjoy the architecture of these old iron-rail buildings, now occupied by chic stores and restaurants.  We notice stumps of large trees in some areas and later learn these were killed by saltwater seepage after Ike.  But this old area seems to have a practiced grip on recovery.

Marcia points to our cafe's high-water-mark from Ike.

The next day clears somewhat and we go back to the city for a tour of a drilling museum built in to a retired 1960s jack-rig, designed for shallow waters.  We learn a lot and a little, as the museum is sponsored by Exon, Chevron, Halliburton, and Schlumberger.

In the afternoon we beach-comb, Marcia finding many shells to her liking and I present her with a gift of one I really like.  That night Marcia discovers the shell is occupied so she pokes at it but the guy won't come out.  She leaves the shell outside overnight, and he is still there in the morning.  We are not feeling right about all this, so on the way out of Galveston we deposit him back on the beach.