Yesterday was our 16th wedding anniversary, so my husband and I took the day off work for a little road trip to commemorate the occasion. We chose to visit the coast at the Texas-Louisiana border, an area whose future is uncertain due to the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a wonderful relaxing trip -- we wanted to get away from the teeming masses of Houston, and that we certainly did! We visited two spots: the Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge, and the beach at the closure point of State road 87.
Our destination was really not what most people would think of as a romantic getaway locale, and we knew that when we set out. Port Arthur, the nearest city, is an economically depressed area, and signs of that were abundant when we drove through. Abandoned buildings outnumber the inhabited ones, and both looked weathered and hurricane-damaged. Only the major chains (the ones that were still operating, at least) looked untouched by misfortune. And as you approach the Gulf, the oil refineries appear, and the coast is dotted with oil rigs, tankers and storage tanks.
We spent most of our time at the beach, entering it at the place were State Road 87 is barricaded because parts of the road have washed out. (And indeed, if you follow this road with Google Maps, you can see in places where the overlay of the road is in the Gulf, rather than on land. I'm not sure this is a mistake: the remains of the road we saw are shockingly close to the water.) Driving on the beach was the norm here, and we took advantage of it to get far away from the handful of fisherman and partiers near the entry point. I've never driven on a beach before, and it seems so wrong ... but it's so much fun! Portugese Man-o-war and seaweed clumps were everywhere, and you could also spot the occasional dead fish, old shoe, or other detritus. But these items are easy to ignore (or in my case, easy to photograph and then ignore) and we enjoyed the peacefulness of having a little spot on Earth entirely to ourselves, for the first time in I don't know how long.
And now I have a whole weekend ahead of me, and I am ready to do some sewing. I have a blouse that I need to finish: I started it before I found about the vintage pattern contest. I don't really "do" UFOs (unfinished objects) -- I either get it done or let it go, so this half-finished top ain't sitting well with me! I also want to sort my patterns by era: I started storing them that way, but at some point as the boxes filled things got kind of random, and now I don't know where to look for anything.
I hope all of you have relaxing weekends to look forward to as well, with time to pursue the hobby of your choice!
My mother and I occasionally go home that way (the scenic route!) when we're in Galveston. Yes, it's a whole lot longer than just going back up 45 to Houston, but sometimes we're in the mood to trade expediency for lack of traffic.
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