Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

We put Orange behind us this morning. It was a satisfying visit, and just long enough.

Then

Now 

Then

Now

Aunt Mary Ann Ellis Bland  (this will be on the exam)

Cousin Dale

Cousin Judy

Cousin Von

These are the nice cousins who were happy to see me.  The cousins who refused to see me can lick a vulture's leg (thanks, Judy!  I knew that trivia would come in handy!).

My cousins were born here, grew up here, and have never gone anywhere else.  But, ducks gotta fly!

We're on our way to Anahuac Wildlife Refuge to meet Judy and Emma!  We've been pronouncing it anna HUACK! and we'll continue to do that until Judy educates us.  We need to hurry.  

McKnight at the Museum

If you are languishing in Orange, Texas, you might start looking for culture or barbeque.  We found culture first, and wandered into the Stark Museum of Art.  Getting Annie to an art museum is like talking your six-year-old into kissing Aunt Hildegard before she's plucked the hirsute moles.  Look, Hon, it's free!  [FLUMP]  It's Southwestern! [MEGAFLUMP]  You know you like Remingtons!  [becomes boneless.]  Hon, don't lay on the parking lot like that.  Annie, please, you've got gravel stuck in your face.   I don't like to pry, but I know she was frightened by art as a child.

She relents, and we get our free tickets.  One parasol, she growls, and the jig is up.  The place is empty.  It it ours!  The pictures are stunning and realistically representational, thankfully.   No impressionism, no water lilies, no long gowns, and no parasols.  But, a guard follows us and we are always in his line of sight.  At one point, I experiment and stay behind in one room while Annie moves to the next.  BOOM!  Two guards!  They are cloning themselves faster than you can say "asexual reproduction."  I'm sympathetic, and I begin putting my hands behind my back in a reassuring sign that I honest-to-God won't touch ANYTHING, officers.  We start moving through rooms quickly.  Ah, great use of color and light - RUN!  

Finally, one guard says Can I ask you a question?  

Yeah!

When you look at this painting, what do you notice?

It looks 3-D?

Look at the faces.

Oh!  They're all the same face!

Right.  He used the same model for all of them.  [We all pause to look at the painting again.]

Have you seen our ghost?  It's over here.  This is a self-portrait.  And, Ufer's painting this painting.

He's painting himself painting a painting of a painting?

Right!

And so, he became our personal docent, showing us things he knew we hadn't noticed.  He said, "You remember that case with two small pads?  You didn't even stop to look, and that broke my heart."  Then he told us how Paul Kane had been a Cavalry artist, commissioned to paint what he saw.  But, without a point-and-shoot Canon, how was he going to capture what he saw on the run?  So he made notes, and later painted incredible scenes from them.  Yes, we went back to look.

 I'm bad.  And good.

His name is Michael McKnight, and he's from Rochester, NY.  He told us how he grew up near the Eastman Museum, but didn't go in until he was in the military.  One visit, and he knew he wanted to work in a museum one day.  He described specific bigotry and overt discrimination he has experienced here in east Texas, but says he loves this place and wouldn't go anywhere else.

Come over here.  You see you can't take a picture of this painting.  [There is a sign forbidding photography of this painting only.]

Oh, Georgia O'Keeffe!

You've heard of her, then?  Can you tell me something?  Why do ladies come in here and get so mad over this painting? Whenever I ask them why they're mad, they just say it should be taken down.  What do you see??

[...painful silence...]

[...three extra beats of painful silence...]

"It looks pretty genital to me."

He looked at the painting so long I thought I had gotten the answer wrong again.


I see that!  Well, I'm not going to ask that question anymore!  I'm not going to look at that anymore, either!


Throughout the rest of our tour, he'd occasionally shake his head, remembering O'Keeffe, and marveling that he never saw that.  I told him he'd see it every time he looked at an O'Keeffe now, and he assured me he would NOT be looking at any.  You have certainly educated me!

Michael talked about growing up, about his kids, about Texas in general, and about finding God here.   He likes to tell kids stories about the art they're seeing, and he doesn't mind telling adults stories, either.  I can see him making the difference between a kid looking at buffalo and a kid seeing art.  He did that for us.

I didn't expect this kind of resource in Orange, either the Stark Museum or Michael.  I can't recommend the town the way he does, but I can recommend the museum.  Look around for him and then act clueless.  He'll take it from there.

A bad case of Blue Elbow.

Texas Welcome Center, Orange, Texas.  Texas has bayous, too.

We stayed overnight here.  It was fine.  Really.  I said it was fine.  Kind of loud, very crowded, but we felt safe and slept fairly well.  

We New York Ducks aren't used to rest areas being interesting or pretty.  We're satisfied if the toilets flush.  This is why we keep going Oooh, what a pretty potty break this was!  Such a beautiful truck stop!  New York State has set the bar for public interstate bathrooms so low that other states cannot help but excel.  You can't spend the night there, and the upside is, you don't want to.

Squee!  Texas has nice necessaries!

Blue Elbow Swamp

I swear to you there is a bird in this picture.  I just can't find it.

Can you see the alligator?

Annie spotted him first.

My first feral alligator!  RAWR!
(I didn't mean to scare you)

When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.

We are also not tortoises, please.

The three of us are also not tortoises, too.

Never drop a toaster into the swamp.

This is a chicken.

We've settled into a longish-term RV park here in Orange.  People seem to be living here;  it's a working-class neighborhood in the middle of a ranch.  Boondocking opportunities here around Orange are abysmal.    We'll stay a few days, see about seeing relatives, then head on to greener pastures ... literally.

Atchafalaya Welcome Center - two wings up.

We start looking for nesting sites by 4PM, and yesterday that landed us at Atchafalaya Welcome Center,  exit 121 off I-10, if you're taking notes.  We parked in the truck lot and went over to ask permission to stay overnight.  Louisiana policy is that parking is limited to two hours, and Louisiana policy is to ignore that policy.  The staff treated us like we were walking in to register at the Walduck-Astoria.  They encouraged us to come park in their RV-only section (oo-la-la!) away from the noisy turnover of the big rigs.  Free wi-fi, coffee in the morning, 24 hour restrooms, and an all-night security guard.

If you don't want to stay the night, stop in anyway, especially if you're traveling with children.  There are some nicely-done displays, a Country Bear Jamboree gone Cajun, and a short movie in a theater.  BONUS FOR PARENTS:  there is nothing to buy!  Your backseat bandits can't even hit you up for a candy bar here.

My name is not Louisiana Coffee.  

No, you cannot have me.

Jennings, LA, on the other hand, seemed downright RV-unfriendly.  We just wanted a quick stop, and the Walmart had one of those unwelcoming steel low-clearance warnings.  Yes, I see there's a low clearance because you put it there.  That's not very Walmartish, and so we blame Jennings.  RV parks often put pressure on local politicians, and then legislation is passed forbidding parking anywhere besides a privately-owned campground.  So, when you see Exit 64 beckoning you to the Jennings Walmart Superstore, clench a little tighter and drive on by.  

We've made it to Orange, Texas, my ancestral stomping, hunting, and coffee grounds.  I have dozens of cousins in these parts, and possibly one or two may want to meet me.  Literal, all around.  The ones who want to see us will have us, the ones who don't will have their piety.  Everyone wins!  No one leaves empty-handed!  This is also the stop where I leave my father's ashes behind.  He wouldn't let me do anything for him while he was alive, and this is about all I can think to do for him now.

WHOA!  RETROACTIVE BUMMER ALERT!

We might want to stay a few days, and would love to find some green boondocking site, but we're coming up empty.  Thirty to 45 minute radius from Orange would be wonderful.  Does anyone have a secret spot they'd share, just this once?