We
visited our friends Faith and John at their brand-new home in
Nocatee, FL. When I say brand-new, I mean that they had
accepted the house from the contractor 3 days before we
arrived. Things were still somewhat chaotic, but we had a
great time. After Nocatee, we headed west toward Baton
Rouge, LA and then Galveston, TX.
The photos below are what we saw.
A view
of their house with my new 18mm Zeiss lens. Many
landscaping actions remained to be completed including a pool
and deck.
The
neighborhood that they were in still had many undeveloped lots
for sale. We parked across the street in an empty
lot. Note the setting sun through the dense brush and
trees in the distance. This is the indigenous vegetation
for this area.
The
kitchen and family room was massive and beautiful. The quartz
counter was almost 15 feet long.
The
family room is open to the second story providing room for an
impressive fireplace.
Faith
had ordered a new dining room table and it arrived during our
visit. The table was made of reclaimed Russian oak.
The
downstairs bathroom was magnificent. Tile and marble
everywhere.
Behind
the house was a lake, complete with 'gators. The sod will
be replaced with a pool and decking.
After we
completed our visit in Nocatee, we headed north through
Jacksonville on our way west. En-route we passed this cool
bridge.
The
elevated causeway gave us a nice view of the Jacksonville
skyline.
We
traveled to Tallahassee and saw the above sign on the rear of a
crane.
We spent
the night in a Florida state park at Falling Water. This
seemed curious to me as Florida is pretty much flat.
Next to
our campsite we spotted this huge spider. This fellow was
perhaps 2 inches across and the web was at least 3 feet across.
Falling
Waters explained.
The
waterfall is only 73 feet, but apparently highest in the state.
The
falls were essentially dry. Only a trickle came over the
lip.
The
bottom of the sinkhole was quite narrow.
Large
bodies of water demand large bridges. The railroad bridge
ran parallel to the highway across a bay near Mobile, AL.
From the
highway to the east of Mobile we could see the battleship
Alabama, on the left in the photo above, and a WW-II submarine
that were part of a museum.
The
south has huge expanses of dense trees surrounded by swamps.
We spent
the night at Tickfaw State Park to the east of Baton
Rouge. Next morning we continued west and crossed the
Mississippi River. Big water demands big infrastructure.
This was
a huge bridge that spanned the entire Mississippi River.
This
truck was a disaster narrowly avoided. He passed us going
quite fast (relative to our 60mph) and then we saw something
roll into the trees on the right. The rolling object was
his right steering wheel as it separated from the truck and went
into the weeds. He managed to maintain control and got the
truck to the shoulder. Kathleen looked at him as we passed
and reported that his bumper was on the ground on the right
side. This could have ended very differently.
From a
high bridge near Lake Charles, LA we could see the massive
petrochemical plant next to the highway.
We
continued west to Winnie, TX and then headed south to the
Gulf. On the coast highway we saw houses built on stilts
to protect them from storm surge. It was a sobering sight.
We took the ferry
from Port Bolivar to Galveston.
From the ferry we got
a nice view of a passing tanker ship registered in Monrovia
(Liberia).
The ferry landing on
the Galveston side had plenty of infrastructure to prevent the
ferries from moving during loading and unloading. We
visited our 1017 friend Len who took us out to an awesome
dinner on the Galveston waterfront.
Sadly, we could only
stay one night with Len so next morning we headed north.
Along the causeway we passed this railroad bridge in the
elevated position to allow passage of boat traffic.
We traveled north to
Houston and then took the ring road east to bypass downtown
during rush hour. We had to cross a huge bridge that was
tall enough to allow large ships passage underneath.
The approach to the
bridge allowed a clear view of the port infrastructure.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2017, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.