After another wonderful trek around the lovely Big Easy, it was time to head East down the coast before the heat came in and trapped us in a mucky, murky hell. We made haste towards Texas, hugging the coast when possible and avoiding highway 10, because it’s frankly more fun and gave us the opportunities to stop by places that provided atmosphere to match the kind of food we wanted to eat.
And by that, I of course mean fresh seafood.
Oh yes, more shrimp and sushi grade fish. We could eat that everyday and never complain. Once we arrived in Texas, we discovered that you can camp on the Bolivar Peninsula outside of Houston really easily. Camping is allowed anywhere on the beach so long as you buy a pass for $10, a pass that is valid for an entire year. Yes, please, and thank you!
I’m sure that during high season the place is a zoo, but as summer was still a ways away, we essentially had the place to ourselves. So we set up camp, enjoyed an afternoon at the beach, and ate another wonderful meal of some of the freshest shrimp (it was no Joe Patti’s but now nothing ever is).
And then we discovered why no one else was camping that night: the storm.
We had checked the weather and saw that it would rain and be windy that evening, but we’re from the Northwest and were wholly unprepared for the fear that we would experience. I’ve lived through North Carolina storms and Tokyo typhoons, but we slept on the top bunk right next to the Gulf of Mexico of this in a Texas thunderstorm.
Gorgeous view, night of terror. Shiz and I essentially slept in a tent while bedlam tore around us, with winds so strong that I was scared a couple of times that the Westy would blow over. The rain came down so hard and the thunder was so loud that I kept expecting a flood or thunderstrike (I know, rubber tires, but that didn’t make me any less scared in the moment). I was over 50% sure that nothing like that would happen, but doubt is doubt and sleep was scarce.
Somehow, Fin slept through the whole thing.
The next day, after making sure that we hadn’t died and heaven actually is a beach in Texas, we packed up, rode the ferry away from the peninsula, and bought some donuts.
All in all, I’m glad it happened (though only because I’m alive now to type this), but the whole things was like eating deep-fried spider: good to experience once, but not something I’d choose to do again.
We also learned why people there build vacation houses like this:
