Sea Rim State Park

From Rutherford Beach, we drove west to Cameron, Louisiana. Our intent was to stay at the campground by the jetty to wash up, dump the Brew Hut’s tanks, and hook up to electric for a night. Instead, as we followed google’s directions from Cameron to the jetty, we ended up on a road with serious construction and low hanging electric wires.

A flagman informed me that I was on a restricted road and needed to turn around. He also said that the jetty campground had closed. Yeah, I could have called ahead, should have called ahead but didn’t call ahead. There wasn’t any easy place to turn around, so I executed one of those complicated turnarounds on a two lane, narrow shouldered road with a pickup truck and 16 foot trailer. I got back up to the main highway and crossed the channel on the Cameron Ferry.

I can’t imagine an easier ferry crossing with the Brew Hut. I paid the $1 fee, lined up behind the pickup truck on the right, and drove straight off the front on the other side. I then drove to Port Arthur, Texas. At Port Arthur, I turned south and drove to Sea Rim State Park (after calling ahead).

The daily entry at Sea Rim State Park was $10 and then $13 for partial hookups (electric, water, and dump station privileges). The lady at the front desk told me on the phone that there were three campsites left, and she would hold one of them for me if I arrived in the next two hours. There were still two spots left when I arrived. Site 6 looked too much like gator habitat to me. They do have gators in this park, and some of them are in the ponds around the campsites. I chose Site 15, which wasn’t the prettiest, but it was a nice big site with short grass all around. It was only available for one night, but the nice campground lady told me to check back at 8:30 a.m., and she might have a different site available for the next night.

While Rutherford Beach was very nice, the state park beach was amazing. More than five miles of beach to walk on, and leashed dogs were allowed on the beach. Callie and I had found our Texas happy spot.

Rutherford Beach

I stayed at Rutherford Beach near Creole, Louisiana from Friday until Tuesday. There was a lot to like about Rutherford Beach: free, weekly maintained dumpster and porta-potty, covered pavilion with picnic tables and charcoal grills, Cameron County Sheriff beach patrols, and miles of beach to walk.

As per my custom, Callie and I took long walks early in the morning (5-7 miles), read and lounged in the afternoon, and went to bed at sunset. Most days, I was able to use my solar panel to recharge and top off my battery during the afternoon. We celebrated the end of light each day with a couple of IPA’s, my Kindle, and some Netflix.

We did have a couple of bad things happen. Callie was attacked by an off-leash pit bull. Of course, she didn’t back down to the much bigger dog, and I ended up picking her up and holding her above my chest to keep the dogs from fighting. The pit bull kept spinning around me trying to bite Callie.  The pit bull's owner  was unable to get his dog under control by voice or attaching the leash. While carrying Callie, I walked over to their RV where the middle-aged daughter was able to leash the pit bull. We emerged relatively unscathed except for a long scratch on my leg from the pit bull jumping on me to get at Callie. Julia said that I shouldn’t have wasted good bourbon to clean the scratch, but it was closer than my first aid kit.

The other bad thing that happened is my laptop went on the fritz. It wouldn’t power up at all. When I gave it a rest and it did power up, the touch pad no longer worked. I couldn’t blog or do anything else. On a rainy afternoon, I drove up to Walmart and bought a cheap usb mouse, which did work with the laptop. Then today, when I turned on the laptop, the touchpad began working again. Oh, well.

Walking on the beach, I was struck by the struggle of life and death on the gulf. The life isn’t always easy to see, but death tends to show itself on what washes ashore. This sea turtle was covered with flies. I can only hope that it died from old age. I didn’t see any evidence of injury or trauma.

After the dog attack, it was time to move on to the Texas gulf.

Making Friends

Last night, a long-time friend asked my wife whether or not I would make any new friends on this trip south.  My wife laughed at that and told her that maybe I would talk to some people on the road, but it wasn’t likely I would make new friends. Of course, my wife is right. 

Most people who are out here full-time or even part-time don’t really seem to be out here to make friends.  They might talk a bit about things in common, but then we al move along in whatever direction we are headed.  I met a nice guy named Charlie who has been on the road for a few years.  Originally from Minnesota, he’s headed back take care of doctors’ visits and business.  He is a retired long-distance trucker who lives in a Kia Soul.

I met another unexpected friend on the beach early in the morning while walking Callie. This friend didn’t have much to say so I turned around and headed the other direction.

He/she was about 3-4 feet long.  I asked a fisherman whether gators are rare on the beach.  He said, “Yeah, I never see them here.  Except for the last two weeks, they’ve been showing up, including a dead eight-footer.

This little fellow was alive and had moved off the beach when I walked through a couple of hours later.

You never know what you’re going to see on the beach.

I think I discovered the world’s largest piece of sushi.  It was about two feet long.

I’ve been spending my days taking long walks on the edge of the waves, reading my Kindle, and generally relaxing.  For supper, I had boudin, a Cajun specialty featuring seasoned rice and pork in a sausage casing.  It tasted better than it looked. Ideally, one would heat boudin up in the oven, but the Brew Hut doesn’t feature an oven, so I steamed them in my cast iron skillet.

Louisiana Gulf

Today,  I had a bit more excitement during the travel day that I would have liked.  The drive to the gulf from Indian Creek was only about two hours.  About half-way there,google maps sent me down a road that was not a major highway (short cut).  Unfortunately, there was high water on the road, and a waiting deputy sheriff advised that I go back. 

Now, if I was in a car, that would be no problem to turn around.However, there was water on both high water on both sides of the road, and turning around the Scamp just wasn’t possible.  I needed to back up about a mile to get to a spot to turn around.  Fortunately, there was no traffic or people to laugh at my long distance backing.

Even on the major highways, there was high water on both sides, but the road itself was dry.

We made a big circle around the flooded roads and eventually made it to the free beach. The weather was cloudy, but it was comfortable for beach walking.  The second adventure came when I decided to let Callie off-leash.  She has always stayed close to me at home, but we aren’t home.  Callie decided that it would be fun to play keep-away from me and would jump away every time I got close enough to try to put the leash back on her.

Eventually, and fortunately, she had to stop for number two, and I swooped in and attached the leash.  Callie let me know that she didn’t think that was fair, but at that point, all was fair.  We had a nice afternoon of sitting outside the Scamp. I read a book and drank a Lagunitas IPA, while Callie captured flies in the air and ate them.

It’s raining again, which projects to be a frequent occurrence over the next week.  No matter, I can hear the waves and see the gulf out my back window.  We’re going to hang here for a few days unless something changes.

Indian Creek Recreational Area

The thunderstorms started after I fell asleep and continued all night long.  Callie and I took a short walk along the river after the sun came up, but the North Little Rock neighborhood outside the rv park was a bit sketchy; I don’t run as fast as I used to, although I would hope that Callie would serve as a deterrent to anyone with bad motives.  When a dog terrorizes women and small children, you would hope that she would come through for a real bad guy.  I considered walking across the Clinton Park (metal) bridge, but that seemed to be a bad idea with thunder and lightning in the immediate area.

We took off south about 8 a.m. and followed Hwy 167 through periods of torrential rain and some small hail.  There were a few road signs that caught my eye.  One attorney advertised:  “One call, y’all.”  There’s a guy in Milwaukee with tv ads that say “One call, that’s all.”  Tickled my funny bone but I have a former attorney’s sense of humor.

A sign outside a rural church proclaimed:  “People use duct tape to fix everything; God uses welds.”

Eventually, we made it to Indian Creek Recreational Area, southeast of Woodworth Recreational Area.  The park employee said she had plenty of openings on a Thursday night and hooked me up with a beautiful waterfront campsite for $25 (10% over 50 discount).

This is the view from my back window:

The park employee did warn me to be careful about going out after dark near the water.  We have entered alligator country.  With more rain expected, I will probably be tucked in by sunset.

I’ll use this opportunity with electrical hook-ups to recharge everything, dump my tanks and prepare for some free camping without hook-ups on the Gulf of Mexico.

Illinois to Arkansas

I’ve made some miles over the last couple of days, moving from the edge of heating season to the edge of cooling season.  On Tuesday, I drove from central Illinois to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The original plan was to camp at Trail of Tears State Park, north of town.  After driving 13 miles out of the way, I found out that the road to the campground was closed due to flooding of the Mississippi River.  So I jumped on the Campendium app and found Cape Camping and RV park ($36 dollars with 55+ discount).

The showers and bathrooms were nice.  There was a view of some kind of pond or drainage area.  The best part was a city paved path that went for miles and miles. Callie and I hiked until sunset.  We had quite a struggle over all of the bicycles on the path.  Callie does not like to share.  Some of the babies and small children must have looked like sheep to herd, because she wasn’t crazy about those little people either.  In the morning, the path was much quieter, and she managed to let a few bikers by without giving chase.  Small steps.

Today, we drove through rural America.  I set google maps to avoid highways and headed into what my daughter calls hillbilly country.  I passed towns like Possum Knob.  As I drove through, I saw lots of white poverty: people not living well with lots of trash in the yard and homes in need of major repair. I found myself wondering what these people seek in presidential leadership, who they voted for (if they voted) and why.

By late afternoon, I made it to the Downtown Riverside RV park in North Little Rock, Arkansas. I called around 2 p.m. and reserved the last spot in the campground.  There were many beautiful spots along the river.  There were also nice spots across from the riverfront sites.

Because I reserved the last spot, my site was special and away from all of the others.  Nevertheless, I was grateful to get a campsite and it actually provided me with more privacy than any other site.  Plus, the price was right, ($13 with Passport America discount). I’m tucked into the upper right corner of the photograph.

From the rv park, I literally walked across the Clinton Park Bridge to the William Clinton Presidential Library.

From there, Callie and I walked along the river and up through downtown Little Rock and then back across the bridge to the rv park.  There’s still a little daylight at 7:50 p.m; the windows are open in the Scamp; and it’s quite comfortable.