Brazoria County, TX

Heading east on Farm to Market 2004. 

The mouth of Chocolate Bayou. 

Chocolate Bayou, looking south, from the Farm to Market 2004 bridge. 

Oyster Creek, TX

The local water tower tells travelers they are in Oyster Creek, one of the smaller entities that make up the mighty Brazosport area. 

The Village of Oyster Creek gets its name from this body of water, which, oddly enough, is named Oyster Creek.  

Don't bring your horse to the park. 

The local park in Oyster Creek is under surveillance! 

Oyster Creek has a significant industrial presence. 

Brazosport's only radio station, KBRZ-AM, is located in Oyster Creek. For years it was a country-western station, but about 4-5 years ago it was sold for $700,000 to Aleyua Broadcasting, which changed its programming to a Spanish language religous format.  

Surfside Beach, TX

Hurricanes, tropical storms and just the normal everyday processes of the Gulf of Mexico have wreaked considerable erosion on Texas beaches. The owner of the blue house built a bulkhead to keep the water from undermining his beach house. It's probably illegal, since it's technically on the public right-of-way, but I don't know the details of how he got the permit.  

Can I get a witness? Not today.  

Under the Texas Open Beaches law, all of this is the "public beach" even though a private home is still sitting there. This beach is supposedly going to be the site of a renourishment project to stem erosion.  

Beach erosion, a never-ending problem. Galveston usually gets all the mainstream media coverage after storms remove large swaths of beach, mainly because the beach homes are nicer and more expensive than the blue-collar beach dwellings that preodominate in Surfside.  

Dow Chemical in Freeport, as seen from Surfside. 

The so-called "Pedestrian Beach" of Surfside. 

I don't know the story behind this place, just thought it looked interesting.  

The fishing pier. It's longer and nice than the one across the channel in Quintana.  

The Southwest Trail Ride

The trail ride continues Thursday on its way to the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo. Everyone will parade through downtown Houston on Saturday. 

A Lone Star of Texas motif adorns this rig. 

The Triple B Riders came over from the Texas City-LaMarque area in Galveston County. 

Most of the participants on the Southwest Trial Ride are African American. There is a strong tradition in and around Rosharon for the black man's Western heritage.  

Most of the wagons are pulled by mules, but I don't think this one is.  

A rolling homage to Yosemite Sam.  

"My heart's calculatin', my true love will be waitin', be waiting at the end of my ride...".  

A few minutes earlier, this trail rider was on a cell phone, which sort of broke the cowboy mood, but once he mounted up to move out, everyone was back in rodeo mode.