Fun, travel and adventure on Texas’ Gulf Coast
April 8, 2005

I recently returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast (slogan: “Come for the tarballs, stay for the medical waste!”) with my wife. She’s writing a book on historic hotels of Texas, and the object of this trip was research. “Research” is, of course, Latin for “tax-deductible. “

This “research” thing is great; it gives us a good excuse to stay in nice old hotels. And the best thing about staying in the nice hotels was that it keeps us from staying in others that are not so nice. And by “not so nice,” I mean truly frightening.

One of the scarier places we visited would need a total facelift to qualify as a flophouse. The owner told us about a hurricane that had come through a few years earlier and caused millions of dollars worth of damage around town. I asked him when he thought he would finish the repairs to his place, and he told me the hurricane had missed him entirely.  This place had a great view of a petrochemical plant -- and that was one of its few good points. 

We spent two nights in the Tarpon Inn in Port Aransas. The lobby of the hotel features an autographed photo of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The hotel has a swanky suite named for him but, ironically, he wouldn’t have been able to stay there since it’s on the second story and the hotel was built before the passage of the Presidents with Disabilities Act.

One of our hosts at the Tarpon also runs a charter fishing boat, and he offered to take me fishing. He said there’s no experience like wrestling with something that outweighs you by more than a hundred pounds. I declined his kind offer, as his description reminded me of several dates I had in college  (For the record, I met my wife long after I had graduated so this is not a reference to you, dear).

While we were in Port A (as the locals call it), we took a walk along the waterfront and admired the many beautiful boats there. One of the boats obviously had a dog – apparently a very large dog -- on board and my wife pointed out that the pooch had relieved himself topside. I guess that’s why that part of the ship is called the poop deck.

The research thing has also put us in contact with people we would not have otherwise met, and some of those people are pretty charming. By far, the most charming people we met was known as Mizz Ruth to the folks in her small community. Mizz Ruth is witty, charming, and old. Extremely old. In fact, she is so old that she claims to remember a time when people could drive cars without talking on their cell phones. However, I think this is just her age playing tricks on her.

My wife and I love to travel. We have found that it’s a great way to meet new people, see fascinating new things, and explore new dimensions in cholesterol. This last phenomenon is the result of bad dietary habits.  Travel is supposed to be a broadening experience and given the way we eat when we’re traveling, the broadening is as literal as it is figurative.

We also visited Fulton, which hosts an oyster festival every year. One ofthe highlights of the festival is the men’s oyster-eating contest. The winner had women lining up for his phone number.

The festival included a small carnival and several rides apparently designed to make you lose your lunch. If you plan to ride one of these things, it’s important to eat right. Your pre-trip meal should be something that’s not going to taste a lot worse coming up than it did going down. Here, the obvious choice is oysters, which could not possibly be any nastier the second time around. One thing you do want to avoid is alcohol; however, if you haven’t been drinking you probably aren’t contemplating one of these rides anyway.

As much as I love to travel, it’s always great to get home to Austin. I knew I was getting close to town when I saw a bumper sticker that said “Ask Me About My Aura.”