BURRRRRRRRRRRRRR

March 13, the drive to and stay at Palmetto Island State Park.

I thought I was going to freeze to death this morning, while it was windy yesterday, it was warm and almost humid, before we went to bed last night.  The wind started blowing from the northwest and BURRRRRR, by morning stepping outside I thought I was going to turn into a popsicle.

To get in and out of Sea Rim State Park you need to drive through part of Port Arthur TX, it’s all industrial and I’m assuming Natural Gas, the road has all the pipes & stuff going from one side to the other. Port Arthur also has some mighty tall bridges.

Just south of Port Arthur, is a little town called Sabine Pass, it was a fort back in the Civil War, now it’s just a small town, extra small with a 4 way stop downtown, 2 directions are dead ends that lead to the waterfront and businesses, the other one, dead ends not to far past Sea Rim SP, which is about 12 miles from the 4 way stop.

We stopped and checked out the remains of the old fort and watched the ocean ships going up and down the river channel, whatever you want to call it.  Across the Chanel is Louisiana. Let me tell you, I thought I was going to freeze solid!!!!!

The fish is a Red Fish about 25 inches long, better eating about that size, I think they grow up into the 40 inch range.

The ships are massive and it’s impossible to describe how big they are, even from a short distance it’s hard to spot people moving around for they are so small looking.

Once we left Texas and heading east, I started getting a little worried. We left Sea Rim with a big 1/2 tank of gas and we didn’t pass any gas stations in Port Author, so we would just stop some place along the way. The problem was there we no gas stations along the way. Highway 82 in Southern Louisiana must be the loneliest road east of the Mississippi River, there are a few houses and even a couple of small burgs. Ok there are a FEW along the road, the first one was $1 good dollar more a gallon than average so I passed it up, the second one was small and busy.  I’m not sure I could have gotten in without backing up to get lined up with the pump better and there was a pickup already in line. Finally when I thought the reserve light was going to come on we found a station, in reality it wasn’t to big of a concern the reserve light comes on with about 90 miles to empty and we were less than 40 to the campground and civilization.

Recently most of that stretch of road has been wiped out by hurricanes, and some homes and buildings  were being rebuilt, many looked abandoned. The few schools along this route look newer and are also elevated.

The route also had us on a ferry across a river, the ferry ran every 15 minutes and we were 1 of 3 vehicle on the ferry, we also crossed a few draw bridges. For the first part of the trip we were near the coast, then inland with water all around us.

We spent 2 nights in Palmetto Island State Park, I’m sure it’s busy in the summer with some ponds for fishing, the ponds are connected with a channel so that you can canoe or kayak from one to the other. The other big attraction there is the splash pad, I can see where lots of kids and adults would enjoy it in the hot & humid summer.

Palmetto Island State Park

The End