A Terribly Texas Round-Up
Don't mess with SOME parts of Texas...
I know that the quippy threat, “Don’t Mess with Texas” is about showing how beat up you will get should you decide to try and change its ways, but if we are to take the phrasal verb a different direction, then mess with can also be taken to mean “this thing is pretty good, so don’t try and change it”. Tacking into that particular wind, I would definitely agree that there are some places in that behemoth of a state that near on perfection.
All together, we spent three weeks in Texas, mostly in the southern areas. After you enter in the northwest, it takes a good many hours to clear the horror show that is the obviously imperfect part of the state. Stretches of nothing but barren oil fields, the scent of flaring gases burping out across a land scarred by myopic human vision. And finding a place to camp in this stretch? Good luck to you! You will be sleeping aside an eon-beaten derrick clovered with blooms of Property of Chevron, Valero, etc signs; you will doze off surrounded by sun-bleached beer cans and a feeling that trespassers are truly without welcome. If you are lucky, you may find a loud pullout but ten yards off the freeway and overlooking hundreds of miles of the Devil’s perineum, dotted sparsely with a creosote here, a saltbush there. It is an inauspicious entry, but if you can push through this region with mind intact, you will be rewarded in both aces and spades.
The Ferry already clued you in on the Texas Hill Country a couple of posts back, but to refresh: the whole region, particularly after crossing the sad-scape of the northwest, seems to rise like the Emerald City. We still cannot believe how overwhelmed with peace the soul became, suddenly surrounded by flowers and birdsong. But this was only the beginning.
The south of Texas is well, well known —for very good reason— to be a utopia for birders and nature nerds. In the past, we had made some half-hearted, and one near full-hearted attempt to visit, but had been deflected by various life happenings.
The Blazer ate up the road, and we, in turn, chomped at the tropical paradise. But, as we have been told, every paradise has a serpent. In this one, are there incomprehensible bumper stickers stuck to unbelievably unnecessary monster trucks? Are there a disturbingly many women wearing “Drunk Wives Matter” shirts? How about an ambulance chaser billboard for “El Gallo de la Ley”, the “Law Cock”, in not even remotely loose translation? Yes, on all. But there are also drive-thru tortillerías, businesses called “Bright Minds Daycare and Pool Sales” and “Gladiator Salads”, because clearly leafy greens were important for a slave getting ready to take on a tiger. And for every sign touting “Over 7000 Guns in Stock!” you seem to find its balancing companion of Dolly Parton asking people to “Choose Kindness”.
In between noting the cultural emblems and fireshows, you, of a sudden, stop to pause. You are surrounded by the tropics. Spanish dominates the air; the warm humid breezes smell heavy with Sweet Acacia, aka Huisache trees (Varchellia farnesiana); the common birds are exotic.
The State Park System, itself, is also something to shine on about. Every park was well managed and staffed by volunteers and rangers all clearly caring for their surrounds on a profound level. Falcon State Park gave us our first encounters with Common Pauraques (Nyctidromus albicollis), an insect-eating night-flyer that calls constantly as the sun begins to dip and again as it dawns, come morning. Calls of Kiskadees roll across fields and down to the lake. Just beyond is Mexico.
Showing the influence of birdwatching in this region, each state park comes with a bird-specific camp host. At Falcon, it was a gentle Hunter S. Thompson clone relatively blown-out from psych drugs. During Vietnam, and at the rough-and-not-nearly-ready age of nineteen, this peaceful soul was put in charge of nuclear weaponry. He came around on his four-wheeler to methodically talk birds and life. Telling us about his experiences hosting across the US, he reminisced, “I once booked a spot that sounded very cool, but then they told me it was a nudist camp.” His face appeared to go dire. I expected him to say, “so I couldn’t stay there with the naked freaks.” Instead, he continued with “well, I thought to myself, I never done that before, so I told them to put me down for two months.” Turns out playing backgammon with nude strangers is pretty fun. As we chatted, Northern Bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) shuffled through the grass; the pair of Vermillion Flycatchers that spent three days in the trees above our tent fed from the branches.
Heading further south we made it to Benson State Park, where we would spend a week, using it as a base to explore the Rio Grande Valley and surrounds. Among other things, we spent two separate nights watching the resident Elf Owl (Micrathene whitneyi), seeing many Couch’s Kingbirds (Tyrannus couchii) hawking insects from treetops, and tracking down the rare Crimson-collared Grosbeak (Periporphyrus celaeno) at a nature center a few miles down the road. It would take a lot more than a few weeks to see it all down here, so obviously we missed some things, but always better to cherish what you have rather than lament what you don’t.
For the final week, or so, we made our way from South Padre Island to the crossing into Louisiana. We decided, due to storms moving in, to hunker down at the Port Isla Inn for a few nights. The hotel, while being on the economic side, is a bit of a gem. Many might find it dumpy, but it had a kitchenette which allowed us to do more in the kitchen than can be done on our camp stove. Like eat take and bake pizza doctored up with fresh-cut pineapple, gorgonzola cheese and arugula.
A ten-minute drive from Port Isabel is South Padre Island, where drunken tourists show off their Sonic the Hedgehog tattoos by shirtlessly renting six-person peddle bikes. They ride around yelling “yeaaaaaaaahhh bro!" at no one in particular, and afterwards buy tee-shirts with inebriated crabs on them from shops where you enter via a gigantic shark mouth. Culturally, South Padre is about as useful as a roll of wet toilet paper, but birding in the marshes on the island is undoubtedly worth the effort. The Birding and Nature Center is a particularly pleasant place to stroll the boardwalks and spot rails, egrets and herons.
The coastal drive from the island up through Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, Aransas NWR and eventually Anahuac NWR added more great camping, more beautiful views and more ponderous moments spent wondering if we would actually enjoy living down south.
So, in summary: just as with people, Texas can be many things. It can make you feel like the only person on the planet who owns a reusable shopping bag; it can make you enraptured by the extreme intricacies of an insect’s wing; it can push you to bring to the surface ever ounce of grace you have to understand what white men are so angry about; and it can show you how deep is our capacity for community and friendship. What a wonderfully confusing place…
Hi Travelers
We all miss you here, but looks like you’re having a great time ❤️❤️❤️
Thanks again for my vicarious travel adventure.
I really enjoy your insight.