Day 8: Lake Fausse Pointe State Park, LA to Matagorda, TX

Good News, Louisiana and Texas follow daylight savings time. No graduate level math required to figure out forecast arrival time.

The day started cold. It was one degree outside. But the campground electricity and our Truma Combi furnace kept us a balmy 18 degrees inside over night. Thanks diesel generators at the campground!

Off for a walk I go. Up and out earlier due to the time change and us wanting to be on the road at a reasonable hour. I wanted to keep it at around 30 minutes so decided to do the A and B trails. Well, sometimes you make a wrong turn. I ended up doing the C trail and got back to the van about an hour and 6.8 km later. It was also a nice trail. I saw one gator head floating low in the water. I assume it was attached to a gator.

We had breakfast and began the quick pack up. I filled (thank you campground water) and then drained the tanks uneventfully! Still not the one covered in feces!

We hit the road among GPS wars, the sequel. Garmin was not happy unless we backtracked on the gravel road to the closed bridge. It did not take it long to give up and accept the better route.

Our goal was Matagorda Beach Jetty Parking lot. A bunch of miles or about 6 hours of driving. We were on the road by 0940 (new DST time) or so. On the drive out of Louisiana we talked about how much we enjoyed Louisiana. We shall have to go back some day.

We planed to stop in Sulphur, LA at Rouse Super Market to provision. We also had to hit Dollar General to pick up a few hard goods like a plate and a basket and some Scooby Doo bandaids. Amy and I hung out in the van while Mrs. Milddogs (we are in Texas now) did the provisioning. I used that opportunity to get weather reports and to upload the posts from the last few days. Sulphur reminded me a lot of Sarnia, ON. Refineries and the fresh smell of looming emphysema in the air.

Then it happened! Mrs. Milddogs came back to the van with more freshly boiled crawdads. After that feast we were back on the road. Gas up at the discount gas station (fingers crossed) and back on highway 10.

We crossed into Texas! Our 12th, 9th, 15th (oh, who knows, I should have kept track) State of the United States of America. Beaumont was big. Houston was bigger. Both reminded me of Sarnia. Except bigger. If only Texas could use this “bigger” concept in its marketing.

Must admit, the drive seemed a little long today. We stopped at a Buc EEs for our second fuel up. Buc EEs is huge, must have been 100 pumps. We did not go in the store as that would require us to go in the store. But gas was cheap at $3.75 USD per US Gallon.

As we neared the end of the trip the GPSs had another disagreement. This one was likely due to how I entered the destination. We got to the parking lot, backed into a spot near a picnic table and boom. Time for dinner.

There is an RV park 100 meters from where we are parked. It looks lovely and has services that we don’t need for a few days. In this parking lot you can stay for free for 3 days. Sure, I might smell a bit bad after a few days, but that keeps the people away!

Mrs Milddogs whipped up some Quesadillas for dinner and then we went for a walk to the beach. Amy was brave but did not like the grated walkway to the jetty.

We saw 2 4X4s stuck in the sand. You are allowed to drive and camp on the beach here. You need a $10 permit to drive on the beach but it is free to camp. I’m extremely hesitant to take our 9000 lb front wheel drive, shitty tired van onto the beach no matter how many people say “you won’t get stuck if you are careful”. I’ll stick with the parking lot and walk to the beach.

That’s about it for now. Time to research tomorrow. Currently tomorrow looks like a stay put day. Definitely plan a long walk on the beach and some Blackstone Griddling on that picnic table right there. Soon we will have to reverse engineer how we get home on time and what that means to this part of the trip. But right now, that feels like a plan. Boo!

I need to stop at a Sonic soon. It will be high on the regret scale, but I have to. Chilli cheese tater tots. Need I say more?

Having fun! Amy is tired and really is upset that she did not get crawfish.