Texas bayou

We leave the texas rest stop, just barely west of Houston, by 6am, still having to drive 80 miles to Jess’s home. Jess is REALLY wanting to get home.

After dropping Jess off at Home Depot, where her beautiful & very young-looking Mom picks her & her stuff up - as Jess doesn’t want her friends to know she has returned to Houston - I try to connect again with the Tar Sands folks.

I have gotten another email from them finally, asking me who I am & how I’ve heard of them. Hmmmm. This is confusing as they have a website, where I got their email address from, and this action has been on the news all over the country, at least those who read Common Dreams and listen to Amy Goodman, Democracy Now.

I write back with much too much detail about who I am, I’m sure, and let them know I will hook up with them in a month or so.

I finish “Saving Grace” as I drive, and begin another amazing book on cd “Plague of Doves”.

By noon, I see the Anahuac Wildlife Reserve & decide to visit. I get a map from the nice rangers who have the thickest southern accents but fall over themselves trying to be polite to me.

I spend the rest of the day exploring the Reserve, where I do get rare & extremely quick glimpses of alligators, but only the tips of their noses and bulging eyes before they sink under the water again never to reappear within my eye site.

I am glad I read recently the truth about alligators, that they, like the California Black Bears, do not attack humans (unless of course they are being provoked or aggressively attacked themselves)

I follow the map & hike several of the trails through the bayous & marvel at the strange trees, slurping waters, and hundreds of egrets, ducks, other water fowl I can’t name.

The wind caresses the tall reeds sticking up from the shallow water ways and sways the thin branches of low bushes and the occasional tall clump of trees. Insects add their own melody and the absence of man-made sound is so resoundingly beautiful.

And then of course, standing really still and listening carefully, I hear the occasional gurgling splash of an alligator slipping into the water.

The skies are the brightest blues with fluffy clouds swelling to spot the horizon.

And I feel so very fortunate to bask in the Texas bayou country!