port arthur

bronte on the levee at port arthur

replica of janis joplin's porche

old main street of port arthur

me on the levee/boardwalk

janis joplins home where she grew up

the bridges leading out of port arthur

raised roadway goes for 13 miles

water everywhere

Wednesday 5th October 2011

Today we awoke at Beaumont and we were heading to Port Arthur which was about 30km to the south, basically on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.  Port Arthur has a canal that was dug which is part of their levee and port system.  Thats about as technical as I get on that topic.  The town once had the largest oil refinery in the world.  Now, the main street that was, looks like a ghost town, with all the shops and buildings empty and in ruins.  It seems like the city has moved from where it use to be to further on the outskirts.

The one main tourist attraction is Port Arthur's Museum of the Gulf Coast.  The museum has a large amount of anything that is famous to the area including people who grew up and who were local to the area.  Janis Joplin was one of those who was born and raised here and there was a fair amount of memorabilia attached to her.  We also visited her house where she lived as a young girl.  Jimmy Johnson was also born here, he was a competitor on Survivor and was the coach the Dallas Cowboys football team from 1996 to 1999.  If you watched Survivor Nicaragua in 2010 you will know who he is.

We got some lunch at Subway and then started to head to Baton Rouge in Louisiana which is just a little west of New Orleans.  We headed out of Port Arthur and over one of two massive bridges taking us to Bridge City.  As we travelled closer to Baton Rouge the road had a section for about 15 miles that was elevated, consisting of 2 individual roads, one each direction with a large gap in between.  You can see in the photo above the water in between.  It was kind of weird driving on a bridge for so long.

We arrived to where our motel was meant to be on the GPS and we could not find it.  We drove around for 1 hour as the motel was right near 4 main roadways with a number of exits leading onto and off the main roads.  The traffic was stupidly busy as well to make it worse.  As it tuns out the GPS got it right in the start and the motel had just changed its name and not changed over the sign yet.  What a waste of time looking for our motel that was right there!

We went to Applebees for dinner and then into Walmart for a look around.  I bought a Casio calculator watch straight from the 80's which is very cool.  I looked at them in Melbourne before we left and they were $50, here only $18, bargain.

Tomorrow we drive to New Orleans where we will spend two nights.