Start – 5673.0 km
Finish – 5854.5 km
—————-
181.5 km or 108.9 mi
I remember crossing the San Jacinto River. I looked down over the bridge into a muddy brown water below. On the next bridge, I would see Houston in the distance through the haze.
This wasn’t yesterday. This was three days ago. But there are moments on this trip that I want to remember and I forget at times to write them down. Back to the trip…
As I left Rosenberg yesterday, I decided I would stake my claim on the freeway; big rigs, pickups, Chevrolet Caprices be damned. The ride was smooth. The ride was fast. The lane was mine. I reached Wharton in no time where I stopped for lunch.
I can now say that I’ve eaten at a Jack in the Box. Maybe I have before. But this time, it was a deliberate choice. An option available to me which I selected. Jack in the Box. Check. I nearly have Bingo.
I got back on the road and, from the time I had left Rosenberg, a gratefulness came to me whenever and 18-wheeler would pass; for a brief moment, the vacuum of air behind them would boost my speed one or two miles per hour. Not that I was in a rush; just the rush of gaining speed. The rush of going over 45mph, fully loaded, on flat land.
Most drivers are sensible about others on the road, I’ve found. Most are. I spend a great deal of my driving time looking in the rear-view mirror, making sure I don’t have to dart into the emergency land. Early in this trip, I became comfortable with the ride and somewhat less concerned but after the short drive of the day before, I exercised more caution when I got on the road yesterday.
I will readily admit to one moment of panic yesterday. Traffic was relatively light on Highway 59 with occasional groups of cars, trucks, and big rig passing. On the approach to Wharton, a run-down white Buick approached from behind rather fast. The driver then moved the car into the emergency lane to apparently take the upcoming right. Not a big problem, except right behind him was one of the larger 18-wheelers. (Spend enough time watching 18-wheelers in your rear-view mirror and you begin to size up which ones will kill you versus which ones will simply leave you paralyzed or in a coma.) The truck was bearing down fast. Car in the left lane. I had nowhere to go.
Thankfully, the truck slowed down as did the car in the emergency lane and all was fine.
My plan yesterday was to go to Ganado, take Highway 172 to Point comfort and then west on Highway 35 to Port Lavaca where I would stay at a park/bird sanctuary; the park where I was to stay the day before. Looking at the map while in Houston, I decided I would detour and go see Lolita.
“She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”
“What the hell are you doin’ here,” asks the fellow in the pickup.
“I had to see Lolita.”
“I didn’t even know we was on the map,” comes the reply.
“Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea.”
I left. I drove to Point Comfort and took the long bridge across to Port Lavaca before arriving at Lighthouse Beach and Bird Sanctuary. The host, a much older man than I, was full of information about the town, the area. Let me back up, though…
The drive on Highway 172 was fairly desolate. The drive to Lolita from La Ward was barren. On that five miles of road, not a single car passed me. This part of Texas is nothing but these massive, massive tracts of land… farm land… hundreds if not thousands of acres in size. And all these little towns – population 200, population 500, etc – all of these little towns dot the land. But as you drive through the area, where there is nothing for miles, you find yourself suddenly looking at plants of almost impossible size. Gargantuan facilities with train cars behind them and you wonder where all of those people are that work there.
Anyway, Port Lavaca… done. Town of 12,000+. Interesting campsite in that a large number of the people living there in campers are contractors for some of these large facilities. Last night, as I sat with light on reading, I noticed a family drive into the campground, stay at the showers until everyone had a turn, and then leave. I wondered about them. Do they live like this every night? Do they live in that van? Is another family coming? Are they here for the work? Lives I do not know.
I read some more and passed out. Today, I go farther south into Texas. I’m on a detour and I hope it doesn’t hurt me in terms of my timeline.
Photos here.
Scott’s roadtrip across America is proudly sponsored by Miami Tour Company. For info on the best tours in Miami, visit MiamiTourCompany.com.
