Travels with Kirk

We had planned a small road trip, when our daughter could keep an eye on the place, her 87-year-old grandmother, and Grandma’s 87-year old overweight dog, our 19-year old blind cat, and cetera.

The schedule called for a grueling drive to Houston to enjoy supper and breakfast with my wife’s 87-year old aunt and her middle-aged son, followed by a trip down Bayou Lafourche to enjoy Louisiana seafood and gaze at the Gulf of Mexico on the way to the ‘burbs of New Orleans to look in on my brother and sister. On the return trip we would stop in bucolic Tangipahoa Parish to visit friends and pick some tunes, and finally wander back through the Delta and the Ozarks home.

Then Mother Nature and her slow-moving son, Barry, got in our way. The first morning in Houston, a weatherwoman on the hotel lobby tell-a-vision introduced us to “Tropical Disturbance Two,” destined to become a disorganized rain-soaked mess heading for somewhere between New Orleans and Houston. Had we known in advance, we would have just reversed course, ending up in Houston in advance of the storm. But we were already on the first leg of the trip; we’d have to pay attention and adjust circumspectly.

So day one, we picked up Aunt and Cousin for our first tour of Houston. Previously, all we had ever seen on the way to the relatives was gazillions of cars on 12-lane highways. Turns out Cousin knows Houston inside out. He navigated us to BB’s Tex-Orleans Restaurant, which had genu-wine Looziana delicacies – shrimp and grits with collard greens, oyster po-boys, hush puppies, boudin balls. We toured lovely little neighborhoods with historic mansions, art galleries, cafés, cool parks with live oaks and palm trees, and wound up in a homemade ice cream parlor.

Next day we toured more idyllic neighborhoods on the way to the Museum District. Hell of a time parking, but we gawked at Greek friezes, Egyptian sarcophagi, French impressionism, South American protest installations and 20th Century American artists we recognized from Crystal Bridges back home.

Across the street was a modern museum with a special show marking 50 years since Stonewall. After dropping the kinfolks home, we stopped at another authentic bayou seafood joint and lugged several pounds of seafood back to the hotel for late-night gorging.

Next morning, as Louisiana plans were washed out, the Great God of Google led us through back roads to Kilgore, home of the Texas Shakespeare Festival. Who’d a thunk it? An oil boomtown in the Depression, Kilgore recovered from the 1980s oil bust by reinventing itself.

Friday night we saw Born Yesterday, a comedy set in the undrained swamp of Washington, DC, in the ‘40s, perfectly attuned to the capital today. Saturday morning we attended a panel discussion with the lead roles and support members of the festival, and a matinee of Othello. The theater is cozy, the stage large yet intimate, the sets grand and imaginative, the technical aspects superb, the actors outstanding: the entire experience was fabulous.

Leaving Kilgore we followed more back roads to the hidden gem of Jefferson, a sort of flatland Eureka Springs. The downtown historic district had elegant mansions, a hotel where Oscar Wilde had stayed, cobblestone streets and sundry trimmings. We strolled around in the mist but most everything was closed for Sunday.

On to Texarkana. We didn’t see beautiful stuff there, so we found Highway 71 and headed for home, racing a train through the wetlands, winding through the Ouachita Mountains to Mena, another lovely little town we’d never seen. After several hours we landed in Fayetteville, and called our son to meet for dinner.

What’s the point –points – of this meandering travelogue? First, global warming has truly fouled up weather patterns; New Orleans got 10 inches of rain before the storm arrived. Second, a big sprawling city can redeem itself by retaining its history and landscape. So can hick towns – we saw other places that just withered away. Third: it sure is good to get home.

Kirk Ashworth