Leg 5 - Adventure with the Fire Department

Padre Island to Matagorda, Texas

I couldn’t stand sitting still any longer at Padre Island.  Sorry, turtle babies, but I must move on.  There is a force further along beckoning to me.

I left Padre Island around 12:30 and just drove generally in the vicinity I wanted to end up.  So far I have tried planning ahead, which didn't work so well. Now I was going to try winging it.

There seem to be many bridges in this land, and they always stretch high into the air, with tiny guardrails on the right-hand side.  It scares the beejeezus out of me every time.  I have to look away.  I crossed many of these on this drive.  This part of the country is full of water inlets.

I drove through Corpus Christi, Portland, Rockport, Tivoli, Port Lavaca and Palacios before landing in Matagorda, Texas.  The last three appear to be shrimper towns.  I felt a little like I was in Forrest Gump country, except wasn’t he in Louisiana…?  I had a shrimp taco in a small restaurant in Palacios.  It was meh.  I’ll have to try one today at a place that someone recommends.

Palacios was very cute.  I took my time and drove through the streets, down to the beach and along the beachfront.  It was a clean town with well-maintained houses.  Lots of families gathered at the waterfront celebrating the 4th of July.  They have the types of lawns I’ve always loved – no fences, so each houses’ lawn becomes the next houses’ lawn, without any demarcation.  The grass seems to carpet the entire town.  And it was all mowed and nicely manicured.  Not fancy, just cared for.

I kept wandering and ended up driving through Matagorda at about 6:30 p.m.  That seemed to be a good time to find a spot to hunker down for the night.  I couldn’t find any places to stay using my Harvest Hosts app, so I went back to my rustry-trusty freecampsites.net app.  That one has helped me many times so far.

It turns out the Matagorda beach is lovely!  It is a long expanse of white sugary sand with dunes right behind the beach and not too much wind.  I tried the main beach first, but the parking was on sand, and the park ranger warned me that my camper van could potentially get stuck.  I have had quite a few experiences on this trip that I may have attempted in my more impulsive younger days that my wiser self now recognizes as something better left alone.  This was one of them.

I drove to the other end of the beach where there was free parking in a paved lot.  Then I walked out to the ocean.  It was perfect.  Not too many people – all the people were at the other end, where all the action was.  That suited me just fine.  I wasn’t there looking for a party. Oh and by the way – this day was the 4th of July.

I sat on the beach, right at the water’s edge, in a beach chair and stared out over the ocean.  I realized that I had never done this at Padre Island, because it was so windy.  But my soul had been craving this.  The water wrapped her arms around me, and I cried.  I cried for John and Mom and Grandma and Grandpa.  I guess it was time for me to cry again.  I think that is why the ocean has been pulling at me.

Her waves and my tears – one and the same.  Both salt water that returns to the earth.  Both a sign of heart.  Not sure how the ocean is a sign of heart.  But I feel my heart better when I’m by the ocean.  She opens my heart up.

And THEN…

At about 1:30 a.m., I was woken up by a sound.  At first I thought it was coyotes.  This was me coming out of sleep and knowing a sound had woken me, but not having enough brain yet to put a name to the sound.  I had shut my windows when I went to bed around 10:00 to block out noise and light.  I realized, at 1:30, that I was sweltering, it was so hot in my little van.  I lifted my head to open the windows and close the screens. 

I heard another sound like the one that woke me.  It was a little squeal.  I turned around to look out the window, and I saw sparks fly and heard another squeal.  I realized the squeal was the sound of a firework going off.  “Someone is STILL lighting fireworks?!”  I thought.  “This is ridiculous, it is 1:30 in the morning!”  I looked longer, and I didn’t see anybody moving by the sparks.  I had a moment of panic, thinking it was a grass fire lit from the fireworks earlier in the evening.  I hesitated for a few minutes, trying to work out in my 1:30 a.m. brain what to do.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep if I didn’t do anything, for fear the fire would light all the grass and shrubs around the beach and take me with it.  I found and called the non-emergency police number and reported it as a grass fire.

As I sat there waiting for the fire department to arrive, I saw someone walking around over there with a flashlight.  “Oh, it’s a campsite!”  Shit.  Now what do I do?!  The fire trucks are coming, and I suspect they will come in force…they have to.  They can’t risk only sending a scout just in case it is a real fire.  But I had confirmed with Allen, the person who first answered my call, that there is a burn ban right now because of the high temperatures.  So I called back and told that person who answered the call that I now see that it is a campsite.  They said that the fire trucks were already enroute, but he would let them know that.

Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, FIVE fire trucks arrived with lights flashing.  Fortunately, they didn’t have their sirens on.  That would have been horrible.  The first two jeeps (with lights flashing) drove out right by the campsite and kept driving.  I was very puzzled.  The big fire truck, one paramedic pickup, and one other official pickup were stopped in the parking lot that I was parked in, idling.  Finally, one of the smaller trucks drove out to the campsite, parked, and walked toward the fire with his flashlight out.  I saw people come out of the tents and one man grabbed a shovel and started shoveling something (I assume sand) on to the fire.  His actions gave the appearance of annoyance. 

Suddenly I realized – I am the only vehicle parked in this parking lot.  These people will know I was the one who called this in.  They are going to come over and bash my lights and windows out once the fire department leaves. Shit.  Shit shit shit.   I hurriedly prepped my van for move.  I ripped the covers down from the windows and started the van.  As the fire engines moved out, so did I.

I drove back to the town of Matagorda at around 2:00 a.m. and drove around, looking for a place to spend the rest of the night.  I was sure someone was going to stop me – I must have looked like some kind of a hoodlum looking to case a joint.  I was puzzled and a little panicked…no idea where to park to sleep at 2 in the morning!  I finally opted for a church parking lot.  I figured if someone was going to do me harm, it would weigh heavily on their conscience to murder someone in a church parking lot.  Plus, people might think a homeless person wouldn’t camp in a church parking lot.

I doubted that I would ever be able to get to sleep, but the next thing I knew it was 6:30 a.m.  I made it!  I survived an eventful night in Matagorda, Texas.