Lake Charles is not famous as a tourist destination but it can brag at least one well-run travellers’ hotel which turns an overnighter into resort stop. Thus, with excellent free breakfast and a gorgeous swim in an open-air pool where an exquisite little green frog dwells in the towel box, we left the Marriott Courtyard in our loaded car and hit the road in fine fettle and high spirits, full of curiosity about what next we will find on the road.
We’ve been going for four of our six months. We are not a bit tired of the adventure. It has been endlessly surprising and enriching, the cross-country drives far more entertaining than we ever could have imagined.
And, despite the dire warnings of certain of our friends about the perils of being confined in a car for all these weeks on end, we are still smiling. Truly.
Lake Charles has struck us as a serene, uncluttered city until we head for the amazing inverted V-shaped bridge whereupon a broken-down truck has caused a massive traffic jam.
As we crawl up the steep bridge, we get a good look at the scale of activity around Lake Charles and it is simply staggering. Empires of petroleum refineries stretch out beyond the bridge. Oh, my. Oh, my. It takes the breath away. Immense does not begin to describe the vista of steaming chimneys, pipes and tanks.
Somehow, I am not surprised to see an exit sign pointing to a place called Sulphur.
The route through this industrial heartland is heavily populated. Endless chain hotels. Then more chain hotels. Petroleum must attract a lot of visitors or temporary workers.
We’re not at the Texas border yet according to Google Maps. It is about 2 miles away. But a big, cheeky sign predicts: We love Texas.
The official Texas state line comes in the middle of the bridge over the Sabine River. Siri Google chips in and bids us an Aussie-accented welcome to Texas. We cheer and welcome each other.
The road is awful. Rough and messy. Lots of roadworks. Jostling traffic. Trucks, trucks. Good grief, this complete white-knuckle chaos is called the Martin Luther King Junior Drive.
As the road improves, it becomes a wonderland of tall pole advertisements. They are a cultural revelation in themselves:
A Little Big Gaudy Boutique
Crane & Rigger Certificates
Dentures $395
Hurt in a Truck Accident? We have a lawyer.
Here’s a newie.
Jackpot. Sell us your car. (Texasdirectoauto.com)
No Bluffing. Sell us your car (Texasdirectoauto.com)
Every mile, another one.
When the Chips are Down. Sell us your car. (Texasdirectoauto.com)
Talk about a hard sell, er, buy. We ponder various scenarios of people deciding to sell their car while hurtling down a highway. We decide we could never hitch-hike with all our luggage - and anyway our fabulous car renters, Alamo, might just want their olive green Rogue back.
In between car signs and amid scrubby forests and grassy fields, other odd signs line the road.
Keep Texas Beaverish. Huh?
Texas is Whataburger state. Hmm. OK.
We pass Cow Bayou and the town of Vidor and, er, are you kidding, Truckville?
It’s a nasty pale road and the traffic is growing yet more intense and fierce. We get stuck behind a rubbish truck putting out such a rank and putrid wake of stench that we gag. Get past it. Get past it. Not so easy. It is barrelling along at 70mph.
So we dip off at a services exit, breathe deeply, open the windows, breathe some more, and find a Cracker Barrel family restaurant and store for lunch.
Soothingly, it has rocking chairs on a long porch. It is full of quirky memorabilia. I find myself sitting beside a 1924 class photo of commercial studies graduates. Look at all those perfect marcel waves.
The waiter is a gruff old guy who should have retired years ago. Kids are screaming.
The menu is down home. So is the clientele. We order clam chowder and salad. They are delicious.
Siri Google guides us neatly around a detour back to 10W.
The sky is big and cloudy over what is now a rural landscape. It’s 91 deg. F outside.
The road improves as we pass Beaumont, Texas. Flat landscape, ploughed fields, young crops.
10-acre ranchettes for sale.
Hay fields.
Scruffy grassland.
Plains. Rice fields, scruffy grass, trees. Turtle Bayou, Crawfish Ranch Restaurant. Gator Junction. A row of portaloos at the roadside. Hmm. Lovely.
We’re stuck behind a truck towing a smallish tank. Bruce says the small tank means it is carrying a heavy liquid. He suggests sulphuric acid, carbon tetrachloride, or bromine. We check the placard number. Sulphuric acid, eeek. Put your foot down, Bruce. As we pull away Bruce remarks rather proudly that the production and use of sulphuric acid is an excellent single measure of the industrial capacity of a nation.
Trinity River. Huge, glorious swamplands, great expanses of swamp with grazing birds and then over the Lost and Old River. What a name. We allow our imaginations to play with it.
We swing onto Texas 146 south and are heading past big, ugly commercial stretches with churches and liquor stores side-by-side, and into the burbs of mighty Houston.
The skyline is all oil refineries.
Traffic lights stop us. Bright, white rings of light flash around the red stop lights. Very fancy.
Of course we pass mini storage. It would not be America without punctuation marks of mini storage. I love it. Why can’t I ever get a good snap of one?
There’s a Masonic lodge and a sprawl of downmarket sandy-brown coloured suburbs. The road is now big and wide. The Rogue ratchets along its expansion joints. It’s an uncomfortable percussion which goes through the body. Oh, how I hate the expansion joint roads.
Slightly classier brown suburbs emerge and oh, here comes an utterly fabulous bridge.
And all around us now are oil refineries.
We’ve come to the Port of Houston. Cranes and more refineries. Refineries as far as the eye can see. I am gasping at the scale of this. I can’t believe it.
A long, long, long tanker train sits on the rail lines parallel to the road out there.
Hotels are dotted down the highway.
Suddenly, tucked behind a line of huge posturing high-voltage power pylons, there’s a very salubrious, nay positively posh suburb lush with palm trees. What incongruity. My jaw has dropped.
Roadside sign: Guns and Porn.
Another one: Bed Bug Kits. What the..? Yes I did not read it wrong. Truly. They’re offering DIY Bed Bugs kits. They kill roaches, too.
And now, amid Wells Fargo, the Snow Cone Express, One-stop Smokes Shop and Jet Ski Rentals, we are stuck in a traffic jam. Ah, busy America.
That is Texas City over there, says Bruce. That is the site of the worst industrial accident in American history. It was in 1947. A French ship carrying ammonium nitrate fertiliser exploded after the cargo had become too hot on the dock. The explosion killed all the crew and wiped out everything in the vicinity and had a domino effect on other ships loaded with ammonium nitrate. The explosions went on. The place was pretty much flattened. Hundreds were killed and thousands injured. Texas City looks as if it is powering away today.
And here’s another magnificent
Beyond it are more and yet more oil refineries and who knows what they all are. The intensive industry stretches as far as the eye can see. It is gob-smacking.
Heavens. now we pass a roadside golf course. And next to it, wasteland.
We follow them.
They cross canals and salt marshes. We become aware of the lovely scent of petrochemicals.
But here is the sea.
There are fancy homes on the shore. And here we go over another mighty, beautifully designed and engineered bridge. A whopper. More holiday homes lining the shores on the other side which turns out to be Galveston Island - a very long and thin island of sand hills and marshes and a very important port.
Galveston, oh, Galveston. You are our chosen destination.
Glad you are enjoying it. If you like hanging out together in general then spending weeks and months driving around is just more fun. Living out of suitcases is the test but I am sure all worth it. What a great adventure.
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