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Austin to Galveston Avoiding Houston

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most days i can avoid houston without even trying. but when i go to galveston, it requires a bit of effort. one might think it shouldn't be that hard, but houston is a vast sprawling city. there are reports that it has reached the edge of dallas, but there are also reports that dallas has sprawled to the edge of houston, so we can't be sure. currently it is possible to get around houston by heading south.

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along the way was a wildlife refuge.

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it looked interesting and the website says it has the highest numbers of birds in april and may.

along the way i stopped and ate at a little barbecue place in eagle lake. it looked pretty serious from the road, so i pulled in.

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they had tons of wood stacked up and ready for smoking.

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here's a shot while waiting in line.

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i had plenty of time. that fellow right in front of me seemed to speak a rare dialect of gibberish. it was like he was mixing a cajun accent, an alabama accent, and a large amount of alcohol to generate his words. the clerks had a heck of a time understanding him. even better, he had a $20 bill, and ordered the food by cost, not weight. (fractions! what are you going to do with fractions! you cant go to the moon with fractions!) so he wanted $10 of sausage, $10 of brisket, and $5 of potato salad. turns out fractions weren't his only mathematical weak spot, he also couldnt add. the kid at the counter explained that that added up to $25, not $20. the guy says, "oh sh!t!" (this was his only comprehensible utterance) and ran outside, returning with another $5.

here i am waiting while they get him exactly $10 work of sausage...

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i ordered a two-meat plate with potato salad and cole slaw.

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the difference between "for here" or "to go" at this place was not clear to me, but they asked, and i told them "for here." i think it became "for here" the instant i opened the box on the premises.

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sadly, the food sucked. i was starving, and still didnt care for it. the sauce they use wrecked it for me, it was too tomato-y. more like gravy for pasta than sauce for bbq. the brisket was good, fairly lean, but the sausage was not that good, and the cole slaw was too bland. i was disappointed, and i can't remember the last time i had lousy bbq in texas. i ate some, and then hopped on the road, eager to get to the nature preserve before it got any hotter. (it was 92 when i was sitting outside eating this. i think it got up to 97 that day. freakin rounder riding, i tell ya!)
 
there were lots of bugs out. i think they were box elder bugs, and they were mating, in midair. an impressive feat, i must say, but the result is i kill two bugs with every impact, and two bugs that are in love.

here are some trophies. notice how they look to be radially oriented, along the streamlines of the flow over my headlight. ahhhh, sweet physics.

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my facemask was nasty, so i used a soaked paper towel to wet the bugs and loosen them up. then it's really easy to wipe them off and reduces the scratching of the faceshield.

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now, i've weighed in on the coffee i like, but no one has asked me about my preferred bottled water. :D it doubles as a very snooty faceshield washing liquid too!

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it's always nice to see the locals on a ride like this. here they are just chilling out.

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and soon i arrived at the refuge. along the way i saw several groups (not enough to be a flock) of egrets flying, a few hawks or eagles, and a big pink flamingo. i was pretty stoked to see hundreds of thousands of waterfowl all hanging out and roosting or whatever they do. i rode a few miles on a really crappy road to get to this shot.

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the road was dirt, but it had tons of large, loose gravel on it, and where there wasnt 2" deep gravel, it was heinously washboarded. the bike's suspension soaked up almost all of it, i was amazed. the beak almost vibrated off, the my hands were steady on the bars. good job BMW.

i ended up riding about 6 miles on dirt while in the refuge. it was fun, i need to get a light dual sport bike and go have some fun somewhere. dirt roads, off the beaten path, are *way* more fun that most roads. (that's a fact, not an opinion, you can look it up.)

the bike looking nice and dusty. and of course a steam shovel. technically not a bird, but it is texas' way of giving the bird to environmentalists.

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it's kind of hard to see, but i took a shot of this huge (24" long) fish in the marshy area. anyone know what it is?

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i finally saw a bird. up till this point i saw about 10 red wing black birds, and that was it.

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maybe they were all at lunch, but i saw a total of maybe 50 birds. it was underwhelming.
 
i looked off in the distance and saw something. it looked like a suspension bridge, right there in the wildlife refuge. weird. so i decided to go check it out.

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but as i got right up to it, i saw it was not a neat bridge, but yet again, the refuge getting the bird. it was a natural gas well. in a f***ing protected wetland! nice.

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seeing no more birds, and sweating my nads off, i opted to head back out the rough road, and continue on my way.

here is an old derelict oil platform moored near a jetty at the west end of galveston island. at least i think it is derelict, but i dont know why it is there. the thing was pretty dang big.

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looking back up the channel that leads to the intercoastal waterway and one of the myriad of natural gas depots, oil refineries, etc. this part of the coast is some of the prettiest, and scariest in texas. these are the places that blow up and kill dudes and shatter windows miles away. one of those dangerous but necessary things i guess, like motorcycles. ;)

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that's it. we kayaked in the ocean this morning, strolled on the beach, and all that, but i didnt have the camera, sorry. i slabbed it back so no interesting photos there.
 
That would be Houston expanding to the edge of Dallas. Dallas doesn't care about heading south but is exploding northward and should be annexing Oklahoma City any day now.
 
Nice pics, thanks for the post.

The long fish in one of the pics looks like a garfish. We used to call them alligator gar where I grew up in SW Louisiana. It's a tribal symbol of the Coushatta Indians and has prehistoric roots. The fish has a very tough skin (actuallly a hide) that was used for shoes and clothing. The meat can be the main ingredient for Coushatta Garfish Stew or Garfish Courtbuillon (KOO-be-yon), the latter being a roux based, tomato infused stew.

Your trip report brought back a lot of memories from my days in Lake Charles, Looouisiana. Thanks again.

Bob Randolph
Ann Arbor, MI
'98 R1100RT

"Ride safe to ride again..."
 
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Looks like a gar to me in that picture. They do have tough hide and their scales are like armor. Nice pictures and great report. Guess I will have to do a ride report soon and show the amish spreading manure on the fields, the major attraction here right now.
 
BradfordBenn said:
Why were you riding South?

Nice pics and report though.

visiting family in galveston. it's nice to smell the sea on a hot day like that, and be at the beach for a bit. next weekend i get to drive a bulldozer on a ranch (can that be a ride report?) and the weekend after that we're headed west to leakey again. that'll result in a real ride report. :D
 
username said:
...next weekend i get to drive a bulldozer on a ranch (can that be a ride report?) ...

Many, many days of my life has been spent on a bulldozer, building golf courses.

nothing gives you a sense of indominatable power like a dozer... except maybe a GS. :)

Great report... thanks. I really liked the pics of the Barnard area. Was there any good camping there?

Ian
 
Visian said:
Was there any good camping there?

Ian

none that i saw, but i wasnt looking too hard. being a wetland, it was buggy as all get out. huge, loudly buzzing things that looked like they were carrying spears kept flying all around me. frogs were everywhere as well, telling me they had plenty to eat. if one were to camp in a wetland like that, in that dense marsh, one would need thick skin.
 
Username,

I was all ready to ask where the BBQ place was. But then you opened the
box :)

Why not swing by Rudy's? Sit in the back 40 and enjoy some nice filling
station BBQ :thumb

Nice way around too! Thanks for sharing.

Ian
 
ian408 said:
Why not swing by Rudy's? Sit in the back 40 and enjoy some nice filling
station BBQ :thumb

Ian

two reasons. one, i eat there during the week. my office about 1.5 miles from one of their stores. good stuff! two, i was nowhere near a rudy's at lunch time!

glad you enjoyed it.
 
username said:
two reasons. one, i eat there during the week. my office about 1.5 miles from one of their stores. good stuff! two, i was nowhere near a rudy's at lunch time!

glad you enjoyed it.

Mmmmm! Tasty. Chuy's is good too. But for a different kind of food.

Ian
 
ian408 said:
Mmmmm! Tasty. Chuy's is good too. But for a different kind of food.

Ian

dude, are you coming to my town and eating my food and not meeting me for a beer and a handshake?

i might just have to start talking about the places i like to eat in the bay area!
 
Meat and Bones in San antonio has some awesome Texas Barbecue! I love their stuff. It seems the tackier the establishment, the better the eats down there. But you have found an exception to the rule on your ride username.

Bone daddy's house of smoke in Dallas was pretty good, and the waitresses there were, ahem, very easy on the eyes.
 
username said:
dude, are you coming to my town and eating my food and not meeting me for a beer and a handshake?

i might just have to start talking about the places i like to eat in the bay area!

The past couple of trips have been breeze in breeze out sort of things. But
don't worry, I'll be back.

Ian

P.S. our offices are over on 360.
 
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