Texas - Days 96 - 98 - Sea Rim and Port Arthur

Sea Rim State Park, Sabine Pass

Sunday, 7 through Tuesday, 9 February 2021

I stayed in this campground for 4 nights, taking a trip back into town on one of the days, and spending the others mostly walking the dogs and watching the birds.

The campground

This is a very small campground with only 15 campsites, sandwiched between the dunes and the road.  They also have what they call "primitive camping areas," which means they've got no services of any kind.  Those are on the beach and aren't separate, designated areas, so I guess people can just set up camp wherever they want, as long as they stay off the dunes.

It sits right on the Gulf of Mexico, and I was surprised that the beach was very narrow here.  I'm used to the much wider beaches of Padre Island and Port Aransas, but here the high tide comes almost up to the sand dunes, and low tide only seems to leave about 20' of beach.

Between the dunes and the paved areas for parking and camping is a series of ponds and marshes which, I'm told, are populated by alligators.  The campground map has, in addition to the usual list of rules (e.g. no public consumption of alcohol; quiet time is 10 PM to 6 AM), a list called "Alligator Ettiquette" [sic] (e.g. "If an alligator goes after a fish you have caught, cut the line and let the alligator have the fish.").  

When I checked in to the campground, the park ranger told me the wildlife they have here is mostly alligators, javelinas and raccoons, but assured me that this time of year the alligators aren't very active.  Neither I nor the dogs ever saw one during our visit, thank goodness.

one of the marshy ponds (very foggy that day) -
the mental image that sign calls up is cringe-worthy

The dogs enjoyed the little area of sand there was - Gracie loves to roll in it and both of them love to wrestle each other in it.  Fortunately for me, the sand fell off them fairly easily before we got back in the RV.

Most of the space in this park is taken up by parking lots which cover almost double the space of the campground.  As far as I can tell from the layout, this park caters mainly to people who come out for the day to fish or to watch birds.

The first 2 days we were here, there was a very strong wind coming off the Gulf.  Some campers I talked to complained about it, but wind doesn't bother me much unless I'm driving in it.  No, the problem began on the 3rd day when the wind died down completely, and we were absolutely mobbed by mosquitoes.  There were so many, and they were so persistent, I nearly had a meltdown.  Over and over I killed 7 or 8 at a time on the inside of the windows, leaving (yuck) little blood trails (and I know where the blood came from).  Because my screens can't keep mosquitos out, I had to close the door and windows and turn on the AC - not that there was any wind to pick up if I'd left them open.  But it started feeling like a siege situation - almost claustrophobic because we were so stuck inside.  Any thoughts I'd had about staying here longer than the 4 nights I'd reserved evaporated.

Trip into town

I hadn't originally intended to leave the campground during this trip, but I found out not long after I checked in that I didn't have a hint of an internet signal.  This was a problem because I didn't have reservations anywhere after my time here was up.  I was, luckily, able to pick up the Beaumont CBS station, so I learned about the snow storm headed for Texas at the end of the week, and that made it even more imperative that I have a place to stay during that event, which meant I needed to find some wifi somewhere.

The campground lies 10 miles west of Sabine Pass, "Your Gateway to the Gulf of Mexico," which is no longer considered a town.  It looks like one, with nice-looking schools and houses.  But I couldn't find anything approaching a grocery store, and the park ranger told me I'd have to drive into town for that.  Since "town" meant Port Arthur, which lies about 12 miles north of Sabine Pass, going to town meant a 50-mile round trip from the park.  

Port Arthur annexed Sabine Pass in 1978, and the smaller place is now considered a "neighborhood" in PA.  The odd thing about that is that the town of Groves sits immediately next to Port Arthur, yet somehow that's a separate town but the one 12 miles down the road is a neighborhood.

There's a highway sign along the road between Sabine Pass and Port Arthur that says, "Watch For Debris On Road Next 3 Miles."  I have no idea what that was referring to, and I never saw anything to suggest just what kind of debris I might see.

Besides that sign that I couldn't figure out, I saw others along that one fairly short stretch of road that didn't apply to reality: "Water Over Road" (maybe sometimes but not when I was there), "Sweeper Car" and "Patrol Car" (don't know what these are and didn't see them), and "Road Work Ahead" (not a sign of it, besides the sign of course).

That road also goes across the Intercoastal Waterway, an inland waterway that runs from Boston (MA) around Florida and down to Brownsville (TX).  Three thousand miles.  Since it's used by some sailing ships, the bridge I crossed went seriously high into the air so, once again, I just gritted my teeth and got over it.  By the time I'm done with this trip, I might have gotten so good at crossing bridges I could even go back to those that terrified me so horribly in Maryland and Michigan.  Anything's possible.

I saw a billboard for a law firm saying they handle claims from Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta (last year was a seriously active year for hurricane damage in this area).

Janis Joplin was from Port Arthur, a fact the town advertises for an exhibit at its Museum of the Gulf Coast called "Jurassic to Joplin."  She's been quoted as saying:

Texas is OK if you want to settle down and do your own thing quietly, but it's not for outrageous people, and I was always outrageous. 

Sounds about right to me.

Over the last couple of days, I came up with a plan to start traveling again.  I've felt like I've been spinning my wheels (so to speak) for the best part of a year (except for the 3 months I spent in CO, KS and OK), and still people don't seem to be acting any more sensibly about the virus than they were a year ago and, besides, the vaccines are starting to roll out.  If I waited for this thing to be fully under control, I'd still be hanging around another year from now, as far as I can tell.  Knowing if I did that, I'd have a mental breakdown, I decided to spend March in Missouri and head north from there.  

I first thought of trying to get my spot back at Village Creek, and waiting out the snowstorm there.  I found a grocery store in Port Arthur, then found a park where I could walk the dogs and sit for a while with an internet signal, but then I learned I could only get 2 nights at Village Creek. 

So Plan B was to finish out February first at Cedar Hill State Park in the DFW area, where I could dump my recycling and pick up my mail, and then at Mt. Pleasant KOA, where I'd be closer to Missouri.  Cedar Hill is too far for a 1-day drive (for me) from Village Creek, so I made a reservation for this weekend at Martin Creek Lake State Park, one of the few I haven't been to.

On the drive back to Sea Rim campground, I heard on the radio some medical expert saying we're likely to be living with the coronavirus the rest of our lives, because all the new variants  - like the one from South Africa - don't appear to be addressed by the vaccines that have been developed.  I'd find this thought depressing except that I'd heard earlier that this virus, which after all is a relative of the flu, might need an annual shot - just like many of us get for the flu - to keep it under control.  That's something I think we can all live with.

Wildlife
This state park is right in between several pieces of the Chenier Plain Refuges Complex I mentioned yesterday: immediately north is the Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge, and immediately to the south is the McFaddin NWR and then the Anahuac NWR.  The birds don't check boundary lines for these wildlife refuges, so the state park is visited by quite a range.

Without even trying I saw Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons, a Kingfisher, assorted hawks, massive numbers of Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds, a Brown Pelican and a raft of ducks - maybe Scaup.  I also saw quite a few shorebirds, including some Willets, I think.

Willet

At least, that's my best guess.  They're about the right size, and the bird book says they can be at this location year-round, and I definitely saw that big white stripe on their wings when they flew - and they seem to be the only species that fits these requirements.

I decided while I was here that the Grackle should replace the Mockingbird as the state bird of Texas: it's loud, rude, aggressive, noisy, and annoying.  Just like the majority of Texas's elected officials.  (Not having internet access leaves me lots of time with my own thoughts.)

part of a sign in the park

I didn't see any of the animals or fish I was told were here, other than a javelina that had been killed on the road near Sabine Pass.  Just plenty of birds.

And mosquitoes.  If it hadn't been for that invasion of mosquitoes the last 2 days we were here, I'd have had pleasant memories of this place.  As it is, I feel some of the revulsion I experienced from our stay at Black Mesa State Park in Oklahoma, the place where all the stickers and biting flies drove us out.  A real shame.