Brazoria County, TX

I have wanted to explore the coastal towns and beaches of Texas for several years. Now that Deb and I are in Texas, and our disaster relief commitments in Houston have wound down, 'tis the time it would appear.


We drove into Galveston on Wednesday, October 22nd, a bit over 5 weeks after Hurricane Ike had made landfall.


Let's just say that the boats that were lining the causeway as you come into Galveston are finally being removed.


Eerie.

There's going to be plenty of cleanup and reconstruction in Galveston for years to come.

When we were in Galveston the last time (a few weeks ago) we headed north to the ferry to Ft. Bolivar. At that time the ferry was closed to the general public and it still is. Bodies are reportedly being found, buried under the rubble of the Bolivar Peninsula, almost daily. Residents can now go to Bolivar (until recently it was just the authorities) although tourists and looky lous are being kept out. The curfew was until 2PM; I hear it's been extended to 6PM.

Yeah, things sound grim over on the Bolivar Peninsula.

This time instead of heading north we headed south and drove along the beach strand and the famous Galveston Seawall.

Residences along the highway in southern Galveston were severely damaged. The Red Cross still has a feeding center near the end of the island, and FEMA has an RV with a satellite antenna for communications. Few businesses were open. Debris were piled up (notice the side of the road-you see mile upon mile of stacks of debris).

We then crossed the toll bridge (which was untended and not collecting tolls) at the end of Galveston Island and where you cross over into Brazoria County. Immediately we came to a sign that said that the road was closed. Being the shy types that we are we pushed on.

That roughly 25 mile stretch of coastal road running to the little town of Surfside Beach is pretty much gone for a significant portion of it's existence. There are sections ranging from a lane to a few hundreds of yards that are missing, but at one point the highway vanished completely and we were routed out onto the beach itself. Construction trucks are also using the beach strand as a makeshift highway so things get entertaining when you are on what is essentially one lane of packed sand and meeting a Mack dump truck.

This took up an entire lane. Trust me, you don't want to be driving out here at night:







Notice that the road ends completely and that traffic, such as it is, is being routed to the right. This was fairly intense - we followed a family in a Jeep that decided to turn around, but the local construction guys in their pickups just plowed on.

Finally, the road just ran out and we drove for maybe 5 miles on the beach. Notice the heavy traffic.

Yeah, right.

Also notice how desolate this area is, the trash piled up, and the few standing houses in the background:






Alas, things weren't all fun and games. We did witness one poor schmuck getting his car pulled out with a bulldozer. I hear that once you've turned your Toyota into a salt water submarine then they are never the same:

Enough of the road, which will have to be rebuilt. Take a look at the houses. Notice the lean on this first one, and no, the photographer was neither drunk nor standing with one foot in a hole when the photo was shot:

Here's another one that just don't look quite right:

And this one, which is now accessible primarily by boat:

As bad as those examples are, they are rebuildable. We ran across the following in the otherwise charming seaside village of Surfside Beach, Texas. Notice the pile of rubble where a house once stood:




And finally, this is sad. No amount of polish is going to buff out the damage to this family's home.




Let's keep the good people of coastal Texas in our thoughts.

It's a tough gig, but someone has to do it

We are taking a little bit of a break and fishin' in the general vacinity of Flagler Beach, FL at an RV park that is, as you can see, right on the water.

I know. Tough gig.

I'm a bit sunburnt already and this place isn't nearly as full as we would have expected. I suspect that the fuel crisis and general economic malaise has dropped attendance down a bit. We have been looking into some other ocean-front RV parks and planning to hang out a bit this summer but this place (Beverly Beach RV Resort) is one of our favorites. If they would give us a break on weekly rates we might conduct our Jacksonville-based business from here for the next few months.

We did have an opportunity to drop by and see Mark, a/k/a the Tiki Tender ( http://www.tikitender.com/ ) last night at Flagler's Golden Lion, which is one of the better beachfront bar and restaurants around.

Later tonight we hope to see Jim Morris, one of the absolutely best of the tropic rock musicians, play nearby. You can check out Jim at http://www.jim-morris.com/home.htm

The last few weeks have been very exciting, even if I haven't had much of an opportunity to update the blog or otherwise write much online. While we were traveling we incorporated a new business and have been putting a ton of effort into that. In addition, the never-ending upgrades to the venerable Bluebird Wanderlodge continue, with a bizness telephone system and satellite television with multiple LCD monitors being recently installed, and some dents pounded out following a little "clash" that we had in Mississippi. But that last point is classified so let's not talk about that one. The co-pilot claims that the little "oops!" was caused by driver error but the pilot wants to argue that point.

My novel, a tale of lewdness, UFOs, 100-year old Nazis, bars and bar maids, mentally-unstable geriatric Internet stalkers, natural disasters, corporate corruption, , clown-phobic Texans, ex-cons, truckers, life, death, hookers, and the other things that make living worthwhile, continues. I recently noted that a well known author took an advance from his publisher on a novel that he promises to finish within the next 6-7 years. I can relate. For those of you who aspire to write, all that I can say is that you have to start somewhere but it's a frickin' slow project.

There are a number of things from our New Orleans trip that I hope to show y'all in the next few weeks, but, alas, I haven't had an opportunity to organize my photos yet. We took a drive down into Plaquemines Parish, roughly 100 miles south of New Orleans and basically Ground Zero for Hurricane Katrina. As much as I feel that we as a nation have let New Orleans and parts of Mississippi down when we should be helping them to rebuild, the residents of Plaquemines Parish appear to have been totally forgotten while the oil company interests down there are looking awfully healthy. The contrast between the haves and the have nots is stark indeed. In comparison, New Orleans has at least gotten some relief funding.

And then there's the subject of casinos. Ah yes ... casinos. The retirement home for many of us baby boomers. As much fun as I found the casinos in Mississippi to be I still find it strange that I have reached that age when a casino with a good buffet and a nice RV park is looking mighty appealing.

Speaking of buffet(t)s ... for you Parrotheads have you heard that Jimmy Buffett is involved in not one, not two, but now three Margaritaville Casino projects? Count 'em - Biloxi, the Mohegan Casino in Connecticut, and now some group has just announced that they are buying one of Donald Trump's Atlantic City properties and will be redeveloping it in conjunction with Margaritaville, Inc.

What is this world coming to?

Oh, and to totally skip around this planet and to see how quickly things are changing, check out CCTV-9, or English Language Chinese Central Television. We can pick CCTV-9 up on Dish System satellite TV on Channel 265, although I think that you have to request it at no add'l charge. DirectTV surely has it somewhere. Rural China reminds me of rural Mexico or, for that matter, rural Kentucky from the time of my birth - pretty backward. But the major cities - WOW! Very pretty. Very modern. And very much the economic powerhouses of the next generation. I hate to say it, but it kinda makes me think that we here in the USA have been asleep at the wheel (or perhaps our government has been concentrating on the wrong things) when China looks so modern, most of Europe can supply their citizens with retirement and health care and still have a currency that is increasing in value as compared to ours, and Mexico can be building new universities left and right and still have diesel at $2.27/gallon (diesel is about $4.29/gallon here in Floriduh as I write this).

As many of us olde phartes like to point out the Little Johnny of today often cannot read, and here in Florida neither he nor Little Jill seemingly can drive worth a damn, but they do have their rap songs memorized. I am not optimistic with their abilities to compete with the Euro and Chinese kids that I meet who have excellent math skills.

Then again, who from our generation would have ever thought that Jerry Rubin would have gone from being a Yippie to being a yuppie and would have become a big promoter of multi-level marketing, right?

But we do have great bar-b-que, I'll give you that. The USA leads the world in good pork bar-b-que.

And football.

But not Formula 1.

Did anyone watch the race in Monaco last weekend? No traction control on the new cars and it rained - yikes! It was looking like Ferrari was going to run out of body parts for their cars before they stopped the race a few laps short. Now that was exciting, even if the new F1 cars have so many wings and tabs and aerodynamic surfaces that you halfway expect the cars to start flapping and fly away on the start/finish line. NASCAR it ain't.

As I said, times change. Ya gotta roll with the punches, and keep on smiling.

A great billboard slogan that I saw a few months ago: "If you don't have dreams, then all you have in your life are your worries." So true.

Pursue your dreams. Whether they involve travel or doing something positive for you, your family, or the planet, pursue your dreams. If there is one thing that isn't in short supply in this universe it's negative people, and that's such a pity since there are indeed "so many nice things happenin' out there," to quote a lyric from a Buffett song.

Sometimes it's just better to be lucky than good.

The bar is the Tir na Nog in Daytona Beach. Read a bit down for the tale. Can we say "free beer?"

Or as those signs in Mexico supposedly often say, "Free beer tomorrow." Those signs stay up for years and no one has ever seen that free beer.

~~~

In a previous post I wrote that our motorhome's LP gas heat wasn't working. Not a major deal here in Florida since we could run the electric heat when staying at an RV park, but that an alternative source of heat would be nice and was an improvement project that I was looking into.
On Saturday Deb was cleaning the bedroom and commented to me that she had accidentally turned something on. Something was making noise and the bedroom was getting hot.

Zounds! The rearmost gas heater was running, and running full bore!

Now, you have to understand that the ol' Wanderlodge has switches, valves, and thermostats scattered in every nook and cranny that you can imagine. And that the owner's manual is more of a suggestion than a Bible - our Bluebird was one of the first rear-engined buses built, and the manual is typewritten (for you youngsters a typewriter was something that came along sometime after stone tablets and just before the word processor). In addition, the previous owners had the bedroom remodeled by a dealer and it doesn't quite conform to what the factory had in mind.

Through sheer good luck we now have all of the safety switches and valves set properly, and have figured out which thermostats operate which gas heaters, and as I write this all three LP gas heaters are capable of doing their thing.

Hallelujah!

Just in time for Spring in Florida and the beginning of our 9 month hot season, right?

~~~

Speaking of Deb and gambling (my life seems to be a gamble every time that I wake up, but I digress) she was able to relieve the Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi of enough green the last time that we were there that it paid our diesel fuel bill for the trip (500 miles each way and 5 miles per gallon, so you do the math).

Consequently, the casino keeps inviting us to return, presumably because they want a shot at getting their money back.

They offered to comp us a room for a couple of nights. So Deb held out for a room plus a pull-through space for the bus and trailer for a couple of days.

This weekend they sent her an email and agreed.

So we are thinking about taking a weeklong trip to Mississippi and New Orleans for sometime mid March or late in March.

That will coincide with the completion of Jimmy Buffett's latest Margaritaville at Panama City.

And any time we get into that area we have to hit some of our other favorites places. Jimmy's sister's place, Lulu's, and one of our favorite dive bars, Drifters over in Mobile.

On a historical note, I am also curious to see if we can find where the remains of Jimmy's grandfather's commercial sailing schooner have been recently found. It should be basically down the road from Drifter's.

So if anyone is in the area and wants to get together for a few drinks and some laughs in the tip of the Florida Panhandle, LA (Lower Alabama), Biloxi (gotta stop in and see the construction of Jimmy's new casino and Margaritaville), Bay St. Louis or New Orleans sometime in March then let me know.

~~~

Speaking of getting together for drinks, last week some of us were shooting the breeze at Buffettworld (http://www.buffettworld.com/) and the political conversation got a bit heated. Well, I told one of the guys that if he was around I'd buy him a beer. Turned out that he was going to be in Daytona Beach but, alas, I couldn't get there on his schedule.

The solution? I told him to print out the thread and head over to the Tir na Nog Irish Pub (http://www.tirnanogpub.com/) and to put one or two on PirateJohn's tab.

They did. And they got their beer.

Scary.

But seriously, if you are in Daytona and want to get away from the crowds and Budweiser of Bike Week or the NASCAR events for a laid back Irish pub with good beer that gets REALLY fun and funky after about 10PM, then drop by the Tir na Nog. It over on Speedway, near the beach, and only a few blocks (but a universe away culturally) from Main Street.

Just be aware that they usually don't open until 5PM.

At any rate, my level of generiosity has been reached, at least for the moment. So don't 40 of y'all run down to the Tir na Nog and try to put a beer or two on my account.

Unless you at least tip the bartender well. ;)




~~~

I was researching some 70's and 80's funk bands and ran across something that both fascinated and horrified me. Remember a band called the Gap Band? They did some great tunes like "You Dropped A Bomb on Me," and "Party Train" that were hits in the early 80's.

The band is doing fine as far as I know. But the story behind their name amazed me. Guess that I don't get out much because I had never heard the tale.

The band was originally called the Greenwood, Archer, and Pine Street Band until that name was shorted to Gap.

Greenwood, Archer, and Pine Streets were, in the early 1900's, called the Black Wall Street. It was a thriving business district in oil-rich Tulsa, Oklahoma until a riot in 1921 left the area a smouldering ruin.

Officially 39 deaths occurred, of which 10 were white folks. Unoffically the community contends that more like 300 black folks lost their lives and were secretly buried in mass graves, which would make this the worst race riot in US history.

I had never heard of this episode and am frankly amazed that it's not more widely taught in our schools.

For more details I would invite the reader to check out the Wiki article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_Race_Riot

This may have occurred roughly 90 years ago but if I were a black member of the Tulsa community (which the members of the Gap Band were) I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone to forget this one either.

A very sad chapter in the history of this nation.

~~~

As I was writing this post I got word that another one of my favorite barkeeps had passed on. Cactus Jack, the unofficial Mayor of Salt Springs, Florida has left the room.

Jack was a nice guy, and quite willing to pose for some photos when I wrote my book on Northeastern Florida a few years back. He was like many of us; he had done the corporate gig for many years and decided to retire. The wonderfully restored old Ford in the photo was his, incidentally, and Jack and his Ford fit in well on the outskirts of Salt Springs, which is a sleepy little rural crossroads on the edge of the Ocala National Forest.

And as they like to point out in these parts, Jack was always good to bikers and other wanderers who happened to stumble in.

Sail on Jack!

Man, time flies when you are having fun!

When I started this blog I promised myself that I would try to post something every week. Last weekend I started to write that at least two weeks had past since my last post. Now ... shoot ... at least three weeks have gone by.

Isn't life just like that? One week it seems like you are in high school. And the next week you are looking at walking canes and thinking ... y'know ... those don't look bad at all.

OK, so that's a slight exaggeration but you know why I mean.

I am not a super fan of the new country and western music, but I am often reminded of the sage lyrics of a Van Zant (brothers Johnny and Donnie Van Zant, with family ties right here in Jacksonville) tune that goes:

"And if you wanna hear God laugh, tell Him your plans."

Very sage words.

Surely their older brother Ronnie and his friends Cassie and Steve Gaines never expected their careers to come to a halt that fateful day when Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane came crashing to the ground in the woods of Mississippi.

So one needs to roll with the punches. Because as long as we are above ground, today is destined to be a good day, even if today doesn't quite live up to the expectations of previous or future days.

Or something like that.

~~~

I haven't written for several weeks for a variety of reasons.

For one, Deb and I both came down with The Crud. The Crud is some sort of bronchitis has been going around and it lingered with us for about 3 weeks. It hit my office pretty hard and is starting to make the second round. I jokingly call it Lovingood disease after a pal of mine who had it at our company Christmas party and, sure enough, I had it a few days later. Coughing, phlem, loss of voice, lack of energy, and a generally crappy attitude are all part of the symptoms.

When you have The Crud you don't feel like writing. And everything that you write comes out sounding like "poor me ... I ain't got no energy" and no one wants to hear that.

Secondly, I got a promotion at The Day Job. Now, I realize that for many of you who know me either through my writings or in The Real World it's hard to imagine that I would get promoted, much less hold down A Real Job (tm). But it's true. Moving upward and onward to better things.

We hope.

Or at least I am busier right at the moment and haven't had the opportunities to write lately, let's put things that-a-way.

But fear not. I'm optimistic that I'm going to allocate time to write a bit. It's all a matter of will power, right?

~~~

The promotion came at a funny time because Deb and I had been openly telling our friends that we were going to fire up the RV and move on down the road, most likely right after January 1st. Deb is a realtor and the Florida real estate market, for those of you who haven't heard, has ground to a complete halt by all accounts. And we had a strong sense that after 6 years with my employer that it was time to move on to more exciting pastures anyway.

So we had told most of our friends that we were moving to Tampa.

But I wanted to take some classes and they weren't offered in Tampa, and that put a crimp on things.

Then we decided that, realistically, we had at least 1, if not 2, years worth of work and upgrades to do on our motorhome, motorcycles, and other vehicles before we could do what we REALLY want to do, which is to move further westward and explore a bit.

So consequently when my employer started ramping up to develop a separate mechanical contracting company, and I was offered a promotion here in Jacksonville, it was like ... well ... deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra was so classically quoted as saying once.

That, and lately Ms. Deborah's real estate business has come roaring back pretty dramatically. She has found a niche in negotiating mortgages down with the mortgage companies and getting otherwise unsellable properties sold in this really lousy market. The past year was tough on us financially (the biggest casualty was that we couldn't take a planned motorhome trip into Mexico this December) but lately things have been pretty good, as evidenced by the gently used 7-series BMW sedan that she's been driving lately. It's been sitting here for the last week and now has permanent license plates on it, so I guess that she intends to keep it.

"And if you wanna hear God laugh, tell Him your plans."

~~~

Along those lines, we moved the motorhome to our workshop. We have been leasing a nice garage-type building in an industrial part of town for the last year or so. Our landlord was kind enough to have cement poured and to make some improvements for us, including a dedicated 50 amp power circuit for the RV. When his primary tenant, a mortgage broker, moved out (and those naysayers think that the real estate market can't be THAT bad down here) we offered to move in temporarily, at least until he gets a new tenant that needs the space.

We have really been enjoying this living because it puts us on top of what must be the only little hill in Jacksonville, in a fenced-in compound, and right next to our tools, vehicles, supplies, and so forth that are in storage. From the street you really can't see that we are there although the RV looms above the fence. There are actually some nice restaurants and shopping nearby along with one of my favorite neighborhood biker bars (you know that you have reached a certain point in life when your local biker bar lets you drink for free and feeds you because you spend so much time with their website, computers, and so forth).

The other "interesting" thing about this part of town is that, well ... how can I say this nicely. "Industrial" is a euphamism for "rough." Oh, there are certainly some little enclaves of fancy living near here (after all, we are near water and you know how waterfront property is) but many of our neighbors aren't exactly part of the country club set. We have met some friendly folks over here but every so often we get entertained by the cops rousting the crackheads and the street walkers.

This is also an area with a large immigrant population and while it's great learning Spanish at the local Mexican and Honduran restaurants seeing this side of Jacksonville must be eye opening for many of those folks.

Welcome to America.

Our workshop:

~~~

One downside to living at the workshop is that we are discovering that our holding tanks are completely full within 6 days, and then we have to run to a nearby RV park and dump them. This is turning out to be something for us to take a hard look at as we contemplate future disaster relief work.

On the other hand at least one of our cats has finally gotten to be brave enough that she doesn't run and hide when we start driving the RV. Coyote has decided that the view is better when she is sitting on the dashboard rather than hiding underneath the couch, like her compatriot usually does.

~~~

We were having lunch at the local Bennigan's last weekend when one of these came by:



It's an Earthroamer. All wheel drive and build on a Ford F550 chassis, this is an RV for some serious off road adventuring.

But better bring your large wallet. Or evidence of your trust fund. 'cause prices start at $200,000 and while that's not too bad as RV's go it's a bit steep considering the somewhat limited space inside one of those things.

Still, they show all the signs of being very well thought out and well constructed. And being the perfect truck for those Alaskan or Baja fishing adventures. As long as the Significant Other doesn't take up as much space as most guy's fishin' gear.

http://www.earthroamer.com/

if you want more info on the Earthroamer.


~~~

Several folks have asked me about the down and out neighbors that lived near our workshop, and who had no heat just as the weather here got cold. I am saddened to report that they seem to have moved out. I made several trips over there looking for them when we were living in an RV park and now that we have been at the workshop for almost 2 weeks their house is vacant and we haven't seen them.

Things are certainly tough when you are poor.

Another house near here caught fire last week and as I was riding to work several members of the family that were living there were standing on the curb, in the cold, as the fire department rolled up their hoses and prepared to pull away. Now that house is boarded up. The local news reported that the family was in the process of buying that house and were two days away from closing on the sale when the fire occurred.

Very sad.

"And if you wanna hear God laugh, tell Him your plans."