We can’t believe our good luck. We’ve been in Winnie for several days now, really enjoying the company of our hosts, Rick and Liz, never mind the delicious meals and air conditioning and wonderful animals they have. We’ll be heading out tomorrow for the Galveston Ferry, and we’ll stay in Galveston for at least four days if we can find accommodations.
So how did we end up in a home with such a nice family, instead of staying at the campground? Let me back up a bit.
More Johnson’s Bayou
First, more on Johnson’s Bayou: When we left on Thursday morning from Don and Faye’s house, Don said, “Look here…looks like y’all had a visitor last night!” Sure enough, clearly visible in the dirt of the driveway, in a trail leading from the barn to the road, was the thin telltale track of an alligator tail with the claw prints spaced apart along the narrow track. We’d had a visitor all right, probably that same gator from the night before seeking more water. We were very glad we hadn’t been camping outside.
The road conditions on the way to Port Arthur were pretty straightforward. The traffic was very light, and the shoulder ranged from having enough to ride on, down to absolutely nothing. Trucks and cars pulled wide for us, especially since the traffic was so light. We saw nothing but marsh the entire way, punctuated only by refineries.
Approaching Port Arthur the refineries became bigger and more numerous, and there was a short section of construction along the causeway – they’re building a whole new causeway bridge. The current bridge is flat so riding it was no problem.
Causeway Pizza
We stayed outside the Causeway Pizza convenience store Thursday night, in the shadow of all the bridge construction. We hadn’t taken into account the incredible noise of the traffic continuing on into to the night (till about 11), nor had we taken into account how early it would start again in the morning (4:30 a.m.), though we should have been smart enough to figure it out when we discovered that Herb opened his store at 5:30 a.m. We didn’t get a lot of sleep on Thursday night.
The upside was that we really enjoyed knowing Herb. Right as we were finishing up our blogs and photos Thursday afternoon, Herb offered us a huge bowl of gumbo, which we eagerly accepted. We also had a few minutes here and there to chat and to get his take on life and on the area.
Herb runs a pretty tight ship – he’s clearly had a chance to figure out his systems. A former Californian, he moved here with his wife and daughter to help out his in-laws some years ago, and ended up staying. The store is clean and spacious; the staff is friendly and efficient.
Not only does he have a few wide circular tables inside, he’s got a series of picnic tables out front where the regulars eat their lunch (bought inside from his little “restaurant”). After work the construction workers from the bridge project come by and buy beer and snacks, hanging out on the front porch till Herb shoos them off at closing time (8 p.m.). He refers to them affectionately as his “porch monkeys”.
While waiting for our laundry to be done, we chatted for a few minutes with three motorcyclists, two from San Francisco, CA and one from San Antonio, Texas, who are riding Harleys over to St. Petersburg FL on a ten-day trip – it’s a big adventure for them. I was really pleased to be able to give them some solid advice and suggestions about what to expect along the upcoming coastline in Louisiana. We feel like locals!
One of our favorite things about being at Causeway Pizza was our beautiful view of Sabine Lake, complete with a cool northeast wind blowing on us. For the first time in many months we pulled out our chairs and sat quietly in the shade for the first hour or so, just enjoying the alone time.
I even took the time to sew up my cycling gloves; they have seen their best days long ago. They are so badly disintegrated that they had completely pulled apart at the side seam, and I ended up with a sunburn on my right hand. What a pleasure it was to sew them up while enjoying the view and the breeze.
To the Port Arthur bridge
We got a late start, and we were tired and a bit cranky from the humidity, heat, and tiredness from the night before. All the deerfly and mosquito bites had become pretty obvious, and it looked like I had at least a hundred on each side of my body from the waist to the ankles (that’s a true number, not an exaggeration…sigh…). Chelsea had a fair number less, but it wasn’t great by any means.
We started out anyway, and what a tough day it was. We had a side and partial head wind much of the day; we had a steady slight uphill from the causeway to the Port Arthur bridge; the traffic was awful – huge trucks roaring by at 65 mph.
We were amazed at the huge ships we saw sailing slowly down the Sabine Ship Channel – we have a photo of a couple of them in the photo gallery. That at least entertained us for a while. The huge oilrigs were impressive too, especially as we got closer to the Port Arthur bridge and the big Chevron refinery there.
We already knew we didn’t want to ride over the Port Arthur bridge, so we needed to find a ride. Don, our host from Johnson’s Bayou, had offered to drive over and take us across, but we didn’t want to inconvenience him so much. We pulled into Jep’s, a small store right at the foot of the bridge, and it didn’t look promising. There were only two trucks, and one was a guy fixing the pump.
Chelsea and I debated a minute about whether we should stay and hang out a while, waiting for someone to show up who might be a possibility, or whether we should just go right over to the bottom of the bridge and dig out our “cross bridge” sign. One thing we’ve learned over time is to not wait on things that are a possibility, so we decided instantly to approach the one remaining guy at the gas pump.
He was just a doll. Tall and slender, with a pleasant face and easy smile, Lawson looked to be in his late thirties, and he’s recently tossed over the fast-paced life he’d been living in Arizona, deciding to come back home to his roots near Port Arthur. He’d been working here, but just got laid off, and he’s enjoying the heck out of it. He’s applied for a teaching position at a small high school south of Port Arthur, and hopes he gets it, but he’s got the faith that everything will work out, no matter what happens.
When we met him, he’d decided to take a drive out along the Sabine River, and seeing the crabbers, made up his mind on the spot to go get some bait and catch himself some crabs for a fresh crab dinner. We packed our bikes and trailers into the back of his much-loved old blue pickup truck, and in five minutes we were unloading on the other side.
Lawson was very interested in our story, saying he’d love to do something like that some day, but ended his thoughts by saying, “You know, I’m still doing what I want to do, just like you are, and that’s what it’s really all about anyway”.
Headed to Winnie
The rest of our ride was tough. We had horrible traffic, and though we had a nice wide shoulder, it was littered with debris – primarily shredded tires (horrible for us because of the thin wires – think ‘flat tires’) and debris from the cleanup work after hurricane Ike. We rode about 38 miles altogether, with 18-wheelers screaming by us at high rates of speed. Since the speed limit was 70 mph, we know it was at least that fast, probably more, only about five feet away from us.
We had one awful section of about ten miles where the shoulder was scraped as if in preparation for paving, but had not yet been paved. We jolted and bounced our way along that section, just trying to keep a good attitude and hoping it went away soon!
The weather was really hot, the humidity was high, and we did have long stretches of slight uphill, combined with several higher overpasses and one bridge. The good news was that we got lots of cheerful honks and waves. That cheered us up. We also appreciated the cloudiness; the air temps felt a lot cooler with the overcast.
Earlier in the day we’d gone quite a distance without a break so we stopped at the only little store we had seen, about 10-12 miles into our ride. I went in first. I looked for the facilities, and asked the owner where they were. I was then subjected to the most awful diatribe I’d had in many a year. This older woman reminded of an apple doll, without the cheerful personality.
The essence of the bitter verbal blast was that I had to pay if I was going to use the bathroom. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I finally interrupted her and said, “I’ll check with my riding partner”, even though she was already getting up to get me the key, assuming I was going to be like the rest of the nasty horrible people who come in her store and stiff her by “using her clean bathroom without paying her in any way for it”. (I hadn’t had a chance to say a word yet.)
I went out and told Chelsea what was up, and told her I didn’t want to use those facilities under any circumstances, so we rode on. We ended up not finding any facilities for the entire rest of the miles until the park in Winnie. Sigh…pride is a stupid thing… I realized later that I should have simply accepted the key, cheerfully saying “All right! You are awesome! Thank you so much!” It was clear that it wasn’t just a speech for me – she had been practicing that one for years!
We did finally make it to Winnie and to the park about 3:30. We stopped at a small building which housed the Chamber of Commerce and an Ag Museum, staffed by an extremely charming and friendly woman. We asked about the park, so she called the commissioner’s office for us.
We found out that the maintenance man had been alerted to our stay, and within minutes he was at the office, letting us know the lay of the land.
We had a wonderful cement slab on which we could pitch our tent under a metal pavilion, on the backside of the park behind the playground, within walking distance of two sets of bathrooms. The grounds were well mowed; the area was really peaceful; and mosquitoes and flies were at a minimum.
The maintenance man was set to check on us twice a day, and the local sheriff’s deputy was alerted to do at least 3-4 drive-bys during the night. We felt very safe. The downside was that the bathrooms weren’t in too great a shape. There was no privacy, and there were lots of mosquitoes in the bathrooms. We weren’t about to sit on the toilet seats, so that left a lot of mosquito exposure!
We did take a cold washcloth bath, despite the lack of privacy (we kept lookout for each other) and that felt wonderful after all those hot hours in the saddle. With the tent set up and Chelsea cooking dinner while I did other tasks, we looked like we were set for a nice peaceful evening.
To read about how we ended up in a wonderful home, you’ll have to read the next installment. 🙂
Signing off from Winnie TX