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Jan. 24th, 2008 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariJanuary 11th
Emily had wanted to see the coast, and I hadn't been there in a long while, so we decided to get up ULTRA early and head for Aransas Pass and Corpus Christi. The problem? Too early for a Jenn who hadn't had much sleep, but we'll get back to that later.
We made a beeline for our first stop Harwood, via Martindale, Fentress, Prarie Lea, Stairtown, and Luling (citizens of which should be called Lulz) to see some painted oil pumps, down TX80 (stopping once for a picture of an skydiving school whose marquee has a crashed airplane and "No airplane is 100% safe!" sign).
Harwood is a small town on Highway 90, and the northern stop on the Gonzales Railroad, which according to Emily is the most profitable shortline railroad in North America. If you've actually been reading these things instead of skipping over them (there'll be a quiz after class), you'll notice that Emily and I have been hitting a lot of railroad stops. One of her driving interests is railroads and railroad alignements. One of mine is small town Texas. So a lot of these stop feed both our heads. Although I gotta admit, even for smalltown Texas - Harwood doesn't have much. :) Not enough business to be called a community, too much population to be a ghost town.
We tracked the railroad into Gonzales, which is one of the older towns in Texas, and actually still retains it's "Spanish Cross." When Spain laid out a town, they tended to make the towns based on crucifixes, with the center of the cross containing most of the town's business. San Antonio is another good (but not nearly as good) example of Spanish Cross layout (although in San Antonio's case, they used existing cowpaths and trails, which is why downtown is such a mess). In the dead center of the cross is a park of some sort, which Gonzales has, and corresponds to San Antonio's "Plaza de las Islas." One block over you'll have city/county services (San Antonio's city hall is one block off of the plaza, as is Gonzales' county courthouse), another block will be a church (Church Square in Gonzales, San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio), and then the other two blocks were usual a market and more city services (both gone in San Antonio, replaced by Market Square and department stores, while in Gonzales the other squares are a park, fir3e department and librbary). Gonzales also still has the "stem" of the crucifix. San Antonio does as well, although it's not as defined - the "new" Market Square, Plaza de las Armas and county courthouse are in this stem in San Antonio. In Gonzales, nearly the whole stem out for a mile or two is a park, occasionally interrupted by schools, museums and Victorian houses.
On the Emily side of things, Gonzales was the head end of the Gonzales railroiad, and we could see why it was so profitable considering right as you get into town there are tons of limestone quarries, Tyson foods (aka tons of chickens and feed), as well as a smelter. Lots of stuff for a 12 mile haul, even if most of the line on the other town was pulled up ages ago.
From Gonzales, we traveled through Hamon and Hochheim, blips on the road to Cuero. I didn't have much to see in Cuero, and in fact was kinda logy from not having much sleep and waking early. Emily saw some of the tracks and yards in town, but not for long - we moved on pretty quickly, as we were realizing these towns were farther apart on the road than they seemed on a map.
Through Thomaston, Nursery, we made it into the historic town of Victoria. Victoria was going to hold a special place in Emily's heart, as she's from Victoria, BC. Our first order of business was to take a picture of Emily at the city limits for her friends. Little did we know the epic saga that picture would end up being before the day was out. Again, Emily focused more on the rail road parts, while I was looking at the historical stuff (Victoria being stop #2 for the German settlers of the 1840s). We stopped at hte town square to get some pictures, and enjoy a great day's weather at the gazebo. We also got to see Victoria's GOP headquarters being razzed by a car parked nearby with Clinton, Kerry and Hillary bummperstickers. Cute. :D
Before leaving we went on a search for a postcard or two from Victoria to send to, well, Victoria. The first sign of trouble came when Emily wanted to check the Post Office for postcards. One of the big differences between Canada Post and the US Postal Service, is that Canada Post is more of a "Store." You can get postcards, Canada Post related trinkets, all sorts of fun things to mail to your friends. The US Postal Service of more of an office - no trinkets, no postcards, you come in and mail your stuff. If you're lucky the post office will sell you commemorative or (even more rare) quirky stamps (I had a PO Box at the National Philatelic Society in Pennsylvania where I'd buy some of the harder to find neat-looking stamps for postage...the lack of these stamps at every other place I've had a PO box pisses me off).
So from there, we hit every place we could think of that might have postcards - no one, NOT ONE place we went to had Victoria postcards. We figured, they just don't make them. At an HEB, however, we found a Kodak picture maker (the evil archnemesis of the company I work for). So we decided to use Emily's picture of herself at the city limits as it's own postcard. We ordered 2 4x6 prints, which, if you're using our machines, we can print on the spot. No waiting. It would take a total of 2 minutes to make a nice postcard.
"We'll have these ready in two hours, but we're full up with prints, so it may take a bit longer."
Needless to say, we didn't stick around.
We soon realized that we weren't going to be able to make Corpus Christi if we stopped at Port Lavaca and Indianola, so we scratched those and made a pretty straight line to Port Aransas. A very long straight line. WE made for Port Aransas via Vidaurri, Greta (both, simply spots on the road), into Refugio. Emily and I both agreed that this stretch of US 77 (a "new" stretch as it was built int he 40s), was the spitting image of BC 99 between Surrey and Vancouver. Right down to the Amber Waves of Grain [TM], the incredible Spacius Skies [TM] and the lack of Purple Mountains Majesty [TM].
While Refugio is an incredibly historical city, and has rail lines in it, we skipped through town - we had to make Port Aransas and Corpus before the afternoon became twilight. So onward we went, to Bayside, where we got our first glimpse (and for Emily it really WAS a first glimpse) of the Gulf of Mexico. The Sea Salt Air (R) was definately tinging the air as we drove through town, into the confusion that is Aransas Pass. Seems Port Aransas just got a new bypass that's not on any of my maps, wreaking havok with our navigation. Nothing matched any of our maps, and while we found our way through town, the both of us were going WTF?! to most of the town layout.
We finally got on the ferries which were going to take us to Port Aransas and the Texas Coastline. Now, there are a lot of British Columbians readying this journal. And when they think of ferries, they more'n'likely think of BC Ferries ferries. You drive your car into a hold, go up for some breakfast, enjoy a leisurely ride to the mainland or Victoria. Not so here - the ferries, while free, are simply "Throw ten cars on the deck, cross a third of a mile, and get the hell off." You can't even get out of the car thanks to the Terrorists Winning ::grumble::.
ANYWAYS, the trip, even inside the truck, was fun, a grand total of two minutes on the ocean, four ferries flipping back and forth on either side. We didn't really want to see the sights in Port Aransas - we were there for oen thing. The beach. Yeah, it was January. Yeah it was 60. She went in anyway,and proclaimed - It's Warm like Soup. Turns out the gulf at it's coldest is still a heck of a lot warmer than the Pacific Northest ocean at its warmest. She even contemplated a swim, which, later, we realized would have been a Very Bad Idea.
After about an hour of taking pics and enjoying the beach, we decided to drive on the beachhead for a while on our way to Corpus. What we didn't realize about doing this was the access roads taking you to the beach were INCREDIBLY few and far between. We ended up driving halfway to Corpus on the beach - which actually, was really nice. Being cold, there weren't many people here, we had a lot of the beach to ourselves and got a beautiful view of the ocean.
Remember when I said we'd realized that swimming in the ocean was a Very Bad Idea? We got out to take a nice picture of the truck at the beach (which I'll post soon after I photoshop the oil rigs out) Emily called my attention closer to the beach. What was there? Portuguese Man O' Wars. EVERYWHERE. All beached and waiting for the tide to come in and grab them. The more we looked around the more Man O' Wars we saw. Man O' Wars aren't a lot of fun, and considering Emily suffered from ANT BITES that lasted almost two weeks, the Man O' War prolly wouldn't have sat well with her system.
We finally got into Corpus proper in the late afternoon, we still had some light for pictures, but it was starting to dim um. We took a quick sidetrip to see an old railroad alignement that went into the naval base there (she's a brave woman - she walked out on a trestle that hadn't been used in years that had visible signs of corroding ironwork and worn-smooth wood. We then crossed town, nearly became a splotch on the road (You can turn left, or you can turn right, if you're in the middle lane - you're dead in 9 seconds), to see another old railroad anomaly (a wye that seems to go right into the ocean), only to find a beach park next to the USS Lexington Aircraft Carrier (and a black helicopter that had been buzzing us all day).
After a little more beach combing, and the sunset on us dying, we decided to tour Corpus a bit, and have some Really Good Seafood (something I'd been craving since the Red Lobster Incident a few months ago). The Seafood place we'd gone to the last few times we were in Corpus seemed to be gone, so I found another place in line. I was tired, had very little sleep, got up early, stayed up late, hadn't eaten....when I found a seafood restaurant, I looked into the building, saw the line, and my body decided at that point - it was time to shut down.
When I get dissapointed (the line was so long it would have taken us forever to get our food), I usually get a little down. That little down triggered a sleepy feeling, which the lack of food and sleep fed, and suddenly, I could barely keep my eyes open. We ended up running off to the "Whataburger By the Bay" (which was your standard Whataburger (our theme for Emily's visit can be summed up to "Wanna go to Whatabaurger?") turned into a two story beach house) overlooking the gulf for something Very Quick, a quick run to the original location of the first Whataburger, and then the rest of the 200 mile trip you'll have to ask Emily about because I was dead to the world for the next three hours.
I still want that seafood, dammit.
Emily had wanted to see the coast, and I hadn't been there in a long while, so we decided to get up ULTRA early and head for Aransas Pass and Corpus Christi. The problem? Too early for a Jenn who hadn't had much sleep, but we'll get back to that later.
We made a beeline for our first stop Harwood, via Martindale, Fentress, Prarie Lea, Stairtown, and Luling (citizens of which should be called Lulz) to see some painted oil pumps, down TX80 (stopping once for a picture of an skydiving school whose marquee has a crashed airplane and "No airplane is 100% safe!" sign).
Harwood is a small town on Highway 90, and the northern stop on the Gonzales Railroad, which according to Emily is the most profitable shortline railroad in North America. If you've actually been reading these things instead of skipping over them (there'll be a quiz after class), you'll notice that Emily and I have been hitting a lot of railroad stops. One of her driving interests is railroads and railroad alignements. One of mine is small town Texas. So a lot of these stop feed both our heads. Although I gotta admit, even for smalltown Texas - Harwood doesn't have much. :) Not enough business to be called a community, too much population to be a ghost town.
We tracked the railroad into Gonzales, which is one of the older towns in Texas, and actually still retains it's "Spanish Cross." When Spain laid out a town, they tended to make the towns based on crucifixes, with the center of the cross containing most of the town's business. San Antonio is another good (but not nearly as good) example of Spanish Cross layout (although in San Antonio's case, they used existing cowpaths and trails, which is why downtown is such a mess). In the dead center of the cross is a park of some sort, which Gonzales has, and corresponds to San Antonio's "Plaza de las Islas." One block over you'll have city/county services (San Antonio's city hall is one block off of the plaza, as is Gonzales' county courthouse), another block will be a church (Church Square in Gonzales, San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio), and then the other two blocks were usual a market and more city services (both gone in San Antonio, replaced by Market Square and department stores, while in Gonzales the other squares are a park, fir3e department and librbary). Gonzales also still has the "stem" of the crucifix. San Antonio does as well, although it's not as defined - the "new" Market Square, Plaza de las Armas and county courthouse are in this stem in San Antonio. In Gonzales, nearly the whole stem out for a mile or two is a park, occasionally interrupted by schools, museums and Victorian houses.
On the Emily side of things, Gonzales was the head end of the Gonzales railroiad, and we could see why it was so profitable considering right as you get into town there are tons of limestone quarries, Tyson foods (aka tons of chickens and feed), as well as a smelter. Lots of stuff for a 12 mile haul, even if most of the line on the other town was pulled up ages ago.
From Gonzales, we traveled through Hamon and Hochheim, blips on the road to Cuero. I didn't have much to see in Cuero, and in fact was kinda logy from not having much sleep and waking early. Emily saw some of the tracks and yards in town, but not for long - we moved on pretty quickly, as we were realizing these towns were farther apart on the road than they seemed on a map.
Through Thomaston, Nursery, we made it into the historic town of Victoria. Victoria was going to hold a special place in Emily's heart, as she's from Victoria, BC. Our first order of business was to take a picture of Emily at the city limits for her friends. Little did we know the epic saga that picture would end up being before the day was out. Again, Emily focused more on the rail road parts, while I was looking at the historical stuff (Victoria being stop #2 for the German settlers of the 1840s). We stopped at hte town square to get some pictures, and enjoy a great day's weather at the gazebo. We also got to see Victoria's GOP headquarters being razzed by a car parked nearby with Clinton, Kerry and Hillary bummperstickers. Cute. :D
Before leaving we went on a search for a postcard or two from Victoria to send to, well, Victoria. The first sign of trouble came when Emily wanted to check the Post Office for postcards. One of the big differences between Canada Post and the US Postal Service, is that Canada Post is more of a "Store." You can get postcards, Canada Post related trinkets, all sorts of fun things to mail to your friends. The US Postal Service of more of an office - no trinkets, no postcards, you come in and mail your stuff. If you're lucky the post office will sell you commemorative or (even more rare) quirky stamps (I had a PO Box at the National Philatelic Society in Pennsylvania where I'd buy some of the harder to find neat-looking stamps for postage...the lack of these stamps at every other place I've had a PO box pisses me off).
So from there, we hit every place we could think of that might have postcards - no one, NOT ONE place we went to had Victoria postcards. We figured, they just don't make them. At an HEB, however, we found a Kodak picture maker (the evil archnemesis of the company I work for). So we decided to use Emily's picture of herself at the city limits as it's own postcard. We ordered 2 4x6 prints, which, if you're using our machines, we can print on the spot. No waiting. It would take a total of 2 minutes to make a nice postcard.
"We'll have these ready in two hours, but we're full up with prints, so it may take a bit longer."
Needless to say, we didn't stick around.
We soon realized that we weren't going to be able to make Corpus Christi if we stopped at Port Lavaca and Indianola, so we scratched those and made a pretty straight line to Port Aransas. A very long straight line. WE made for Port Aransas via Vidaurri, Greta (both, simply spots on the road), into Refugio. Emily and I both agreed that this stretch of US 77 (a "new" stretch as it was built int he 40s), was the spitting image of BC 99 between Surrey and Vancouver. Right down to the Amber Waves of Grain [TM], the incredible Spacius Skies [TM] and the lack of Purple Mountains Majesty [TM].
While Refugio is an incredibly historical city, and has rail lines in it, we skipped through town - we had to make Port Aransas and Corpus before the afternoon became twilight. So onward we went, to Bayside, where we got our first glimpse (and for Emily it really WAS a first glimpse) of the Gulf of Mexico. The Sea Salt Air (R) was definately tinging the air as we drove through town, into the confusion that is Aransas Pass. Seems Port Aransas just got a new bypass that's not on any of my maps, wreaking havok with our navigation. Nothing matched any of our maps, and while we found our way through town, the both of us were going WTF?! to most of the town layout.
We finally got on the ferries which were going to take us to Port Aransas and the Texas Coastline. Now, there are a lot of British Columbians readying this journal. And when they think of ferries, they more'n'likely think of BC Ferries ferries. You drive your car into a hold, go up for some breakfast, enjoy a leisurely ride to the mainland or Victoria. Not so here - the ferries, while free, are simply "Throw ten cars on the deck, cross a third of a mile, and get the hell off." You can't even get out of the car thanks to the Terrorists Winning ::grumble::.
ANYWAYS, the trip, even inside the truck, was fun, a grand total of two minutes on the ocean, four ferries flipping back and forth on either side. We didn't really want to see the sights in Port Aransas - we were there for oen thing. The beach. Yeah, it was January. Yeah it was 60. She went in anyway,and proclaimed - It's Warm like Soup. Turns out the gulf at it's coldest is still a heck of a lot warmer than the Pacific Northest ocean at its warmest. She even contemplated a swim, which, later, we realized would have been a Very Bad Idea.
After about an hour of taking pics and enjoying the beach, we decided to drive on the beachhead for a while on our way to Corpus. What we didn't realize about doing this was the access roads taking you to the beach were INCREDIBLY few and far between. We ended up driving halfway to Corpus on the beach - which actually, was really nice. Being cold, there weren't many people here, we had a lot of the beach to ourselves and got a beautiful view of the ocean.
Remember when I said we'd realized that swimming in the ocean was a Very Bad Idea? We got out to take a nice picture of the truck at the beach (which I'll post soon after I photoshop the oil rigs out) Emily called my attention closer to the beach. What was there? Portuguese Man O' Wars. EVERYWHERE. All beached and waiting for the tide to come in and grab them. The more we looked around the more Man O' Wars we saw. Man O' Wars aren't a lot of fun, and considering Emily suffered from ANT BITES that lasted almost two weeks, the Man O' War prolly wouldn't have sat well with her system.
We finally got into Corpus proper in the late afternoon, we still had some light for pictures, but it was starting to dim um. We took a quick sidetrip to see an old railroad alignement that went into the naval base there (she's a brave woman - she walked out on a trestle that hadn't been used in years that had visible signs of corroding ironwork and worn-smooth wood. We then crossed town, nearly became a splotch on the road (You can turn left, or you can turn right, if you're in the middle lane - you're dead in 9 seconds), to see another old railroad anomaly (a wye that seems to go right into the ocean), only to find a beach park next to the USS Lexington Aircraft Carrier (and a black helicopter that had been buzzing us all day).
After a little more beach combing, and the sunset on us dying, we decided to tour Corpus a bit, and have some Really Good Seafood (something I'd been craving since the Red Lobster Incident a few months ago). The Seafood place we'd gone to the last few times we were in Corpus seemed to be gone, so I found another place in line. I was tired, had very little sleep, got up early, stayed up late, hadn't eaten....when I found a seafood restaurant, I looked into the building, saw the line, and my body decided at that point - it was time to shut down.
When I get dissapointed (the line was so long it would have taken us forever to get our food), I usually get a little down. That little down triggered a sleepy feeling, which the lack of food and sleep fed, and suddenly, I could barely keep my eyes open. We ended up running off to the "Whataburger By the Bay" (which was your standard Whataburger (our theme for Emily's visit can be summed up to "Wanna go to Whatabaurger?") turned into a two story beach house) overlooking the gulf for something Very Quick, a quick run to the original location of the first Whataburger, and then the rest of the 200 mile trip you'll have to ask Emily about because I was dead to the world for the next three hours.
I still want that seafood, dammit.
