Tela's Travels: November 2020 - Florida, Louisiana, & the Texas coast

From the panhandle of Florida to the very southern tip of Texas, November was full of awesome sights.

Yes, that is THEE Starship SN8 (right) just a few days before launch!

When it comes to the Florida panhandle area, Wilderness Landing Park might be our favorite free campsite. It's spacious with hot showers, a nice private beach area, & great nature trails! Now that we've been on the road a year, we know how hard it is to find a place with all of that, so we appreciated it even more on our second visit. It's also in a great location, only an hour from Pensacola.

Once we wrapped up our errands, we moved west to Louisiana. Our long-term goal for this month was the Texas coast, and eventually getting down to the southern tip near Boca Chica to see SpaceX's launch facility. There was a historical launch of Starship coming up, and we were hoping to catch it in person.

In Louisiana, we stopped for a few days at Atchafalaya NWR near Sherburn Shooting range. If you have a LA fishing or hunting license, it's free to camp. Otherwise, an online pass is $2 per day. This campsite is right next to multiple shooting ranges and not quiet at all. But it's great if you don't mind (or kind of like) the sound of gunfire from 645am - 7pm. As usual, due to Covid concerns, we kept our distance from the people who came there. But, it was neat to listen to what they were shooting. The large camping area had a small pond, picnic tables, a dumpster, and a pit toilet. Overall it was comfortable and a good place to explore from.

We kayaked the lake nearby and took in the swampy scenery, complete with mangroves and a persimmon tree.

There were a few houses that were only accessible by these floating bridges.

While checking out the local area on Google maps, we saw two really weird looking lakes. After research, we found out they were sinkholes! Underground salt domes (caverns formed when salt deposits are mined) are sometimes used by oil companies as storage reservoirs for crude oil. When that dome collapses (or gets drilled into on accident) it can cause a massive disaster.

The first we visited was Bayou Corne.

In June of 2012, Bayou Corne residents noticed the ground shaking and bubbles rising in the water. Seismic activity was reported by US Geological Survey, but no source or cause could be found. By August, town residents reported smells of crude oil, which led to an investigation and found the outer wall of one of the salt domes beneath the lake had collapsed! This meant the sediment and water from the bayou was draining down into the cavern a mile below the surface, and being replaced by oil and gas. The sinkhole, located in northern Assumption Parish, Louisiana, was already 2.5 acres when found, and has now swallowed over 29 acres! Residents have seen whole trees disappear into the sinkhole, and watched it burp up other debris. 350 residents were advised to evacuate due to the escaping methane gas, an order that could last for years. Texas Brine Company (responsible for managing the sinkhole) has burned off 25 million cubic feet of gas in an attempt to deplete the escaping reserves, but this environmental disaster will take years to recover from.

Check out this video about it.

As crazy as that is, there was an even bigger sinkhole close by.

In 1980, at Lake Peigneur, a triangulation error of just 400 feet caused a Texaco oil rig to drill a hole through the roof of a massive under-lake salt mine. The water rushed down into the mine with 10x the force of a fire hydrant, dissolving more and more salt along the way. Just 90 minutes later, the 150ft oil derrick disappeared into a lake that was less than 10 feet deep. 1300 feet below, the miners (who had not been alerted to the emergency) noticed water coming in and rushed to evacuate. Amazingly, due to the heroics of several miners, all 55 people down there made it out alive. As 2.5 billion gallons of lake water continued to drain into the massive caverns beneath, 11 heavy barges and a tugboat were pulled into the whirlpool and swallowed by the sinkhole. One boater narrowly escaped the waters pull, then watched from shore as the sinkhole swallowed both his boat, and the tree he'd tied it to. Before evening, 65 acres of land would be sucked down into the mine. The intense sucking power actually caused the nearby river to temporarily reverse directions for two days! Saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico rushed in to fill the void, which resulted in a 150 foot waterfall, the tallest in Louisiana. The building pressure below ground even caused a 400 foot geyser nearby. After the mine finally filled up, 9 out of 11 barges resurfaced. The lake water is now brackish, with a completely changed ecosystem.

Here's the video for Lake Peigneur.

This was taken nearby, about as close as we were able to get to the Lake Peigneur sinkhole.

On the drive back to camp we saw a bunch of model planes zipping around together and stopped to watch. We learned people of all ages gather at this field (Aeromodelers of Acadiana) every Saturday to fly their mini biplanes, jets, and helicopters.

We also learned that in Louisiana, most graves are above ground due to a high water table. I'd never seen that before so it was really interesting.

Sandbags along the side of the road

We'd camped near the beach a few times in Florida. But we hadn't got the total 'drive on the sand' beach camping experience. While researching options for TX, we found a beach that we could pull the camper on and camp right near the dunes for free! On the 24th, we made the 5 hour drive to Brazoria county beach near Surfside Beach, TX.

Contrary to what the sign says, that white truck cut us off shortly after this picture.

It was perfect!! The truck had no problems rolling along through the sand, which was mostly hard packed. Other campers were well spaced out, so it was quiet and felt pretty private. Falling asleep to the crashing waves, and opening our front door to an ocean view was amazing. The girls had a great time playing on the beach and searching for crabs at night.

Khaleesi had a BLAST

Wind & waves

The sand was the perfect consistency for digging and building

Last sunset on Brazoria

We'd been tracking progress on SpaceX's Starship build for months. Starship Serial Number 8 was almost finished and getting ready for a test flight. Besides short hops, this would be the first real launch and first test of their insane belly-flop landing maneuver. Elon himself only gave it a 1/3 chance of landing in one piece, so not only were we excited to see it fly and try the maneuver, but we'd likely get to witness an epic explosion.

We were constantly checking the Cameron County Road Closure page for potential launch dates, and watching live feeds of the launch facility to stay up-to-date on progress. When we saw the action ramping up, and flight restrictions go into place, we knew it was time to move closer. After consulting the exclusion zone map, we found Isla Blanca Park on the tip of South Padre Island would be the closest viewing point for the launch. IBP is also a campground, but on freecampsites.net we found "free" (with $12 permit) camping on South Beach, only 20 minutes down the road.

We left Brazoria County Beach and headed 6 hours down the coast aiming for the very southern tip of Texas. We crossed the 2.5 mile long Queen Isabella Causeway bridge from the mainland out to South Padre Island, taking in the epic views.

South Beach had two entrances on the map. We found out the first (and only paved entrance) had a pay gate that charged $12 per night to camp on the beach. A few minutes down the road, there was an entrance (Beach Access #6) that had no gate, but much deeper sand. There was actually a group of men parked at the end of the entrance waiting for people to get stuck in the sand so they could pull them out for a fee. Kyle asked one of the guys how much they charge people, and his response was "whatever your little heart desires."

We could have made it through the deep sand if we floored it, but we were not about to pay to get pulled out. We turned around and went back to the pay gate, & the man in the booth said if we wanted to wait and come back that it would be free after 6pm since he was going home. It was only an hour before 6, we decided to wait it out and save the money. We parked on the side of the road, made a snack, and climbed over the dunes to get a look at the beach. The beach was a little narrower than the last, which brought traffic closer to the camping area. It was busier too, with more of a party crowd than the last.

The sun was setting as we finally pulled the camper onto the sand. We had no problem finding an open spot near the dunes, and settled in for the night. The next morning we woke to music and saw ice cream trucks, elote (corn in a cup) trucks, and this floatie van driving along on the beach!

Weather wasn't the best during our stay on SPI. We dealt with high winds blowing sand everywhere, and many gray, rainy days.

South Beach stretches over 60 miles, much of which is only accessible by 4WD. One afternoon, we drove north to explore the quiet and empty beach.

I counted over 30 Portuguese man o' war along the drive. Though they look like jellyfish and sting like jellyfish, they're actually siphonophores which are way cooler.

From the Wiki page: "The Portuguese man o' war differs from single organisms like jellyfish as they are siphonophores, a colonial organism made up of many specialized, though genetically distinct, parts called zooids. These zooids are attached to one another and are physiologically integrated to such an extent that they cannot survive independently. The assemblage of zooids works together to function as an individual animal." "They have no means of propulsion, and move passively, driven by the winds, currents, and tides."

"The stinging, venom-filled nematocysts in the tentacles of the Portuguese man o' war can paralyze small fish and other prey. Detached tentacles and dead specimens (including those that wash up on shore) can sting just as painfully as the live organism in the water, and may remain potent for days after the death of the organism or the detachment of the tentacle." "Stings are often extremely painful and can result in long, thin, open wounds that resemble those caused by a whip. These are not caused by any impact or cutting action, but by irritating urticariogenic substances in the tentacles."

As painful as that sounds, it doesn't stop them from being a main food source of loggerhead turtles. "The turtle's skin, including that of its tongue and throat, is too thick for the stings to penetrate." And, the blanket octopus is not only immune to their venom, but actually "carry broken man o' war tentacles, presumably for offensive and/or defensive purposes."!!

We stopped to check out a few big items that had washed up on the beach.

The beach ended at a long rocky jetty where many locals were fishing. One told us he was trying to catch skipjack & spanish mackerel. We even saw a little sea turtle bobbing around in the waves.

While exploring the jetty, we saw a troop of trucks trying to help one older SUV get out of the sand. Locals said they'd been at it all night. The 2WD SUV had driven really far into the deep sand, and was STUCK stuck. It had bottomed out and the tires were spinning in place. Sand was flying everywhere, including into the open windows of the SUV. Even with two of the helper trucks hooked up to it, they were really struggling to get it out. Finally they reached the packed sand and everyone cheered. You could tell they were all exhausted and relieved. The SUV looked to be in pretty bad shape, and the entire thing was caked in sand. We could barely make out the big sticker on the rear window with the name "Sanchez". We waved and cheered with them as the SUV and his group of helpers headed back down the beach.

Starship SN8's test flight was coming up in just a few days, and we wanted to see it close up while it was still in one piece. We'd be watching the launch from Isla Blanca Park, which is only 5 miles from the launch pad over water, but by land (including that long bridge) it was an hour drive to the facility.

We'd seen countless pictures and videos of the launch facility, but I was still shocked that we were able to get so close! The launch site itself is not open to the public, but the road running right in front of the launch site is, and it's the only way to access Boca Chica Beach.