SON OF A GUN, WE’LL HAVE BIG FUN ON THE BAYOU..

  Saturday afternoon we drove 8 miles into Jefferson to get a few photos.  The homes are all decked out for Christmas, and lots of them have been made into Bed and Breakfasts…Here are a few of them…

….The weather today was a balmy 73 degrees, so we decided we would take the Turning Basin Bayou Tour .  Let me just say that there is virtually NO overhead in this business.  We finally found the road to take us to the “ticket office/book store” , where tickets could be purchased…(the word “shack” comes to mind.)

On the left is the “old building” where the tour tickets are purchased….and the tickets are being purchased by an “old tourist.” The photo on the right is the same building in the Jefferson flood of 1945…Now I know why it was built up on stilts. 

  This place was an absolute hoot! Once you pay your money, you just hang out till they “call your name”…Nope, no actual tickets involved…  Here is the area you lounge around in…I just HAD to get a few well screened pictures of the waiting area behind the “office”….

….Yes, I know..I was really loving this place.  My only fear was that the boats were in the same shape as the buildings.  FYI,  that building above right housed the bathrooms, and is a made of a couple converted train cars.  I couldn’t resist using the facilities, and I have to say, everything was well worn, but very clean.

 

 

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET, MCGUYVER????

 

WELL, ONE OF US IS, FOR SURE!!! (AT THIS POINT I THINK HE WAS QUESTIONING MY DESIRE FOR THIS BOAT RIDE.)

 

 

Our tour guide was the owner of the business, Captain John Nance.  He has been giving bayou boat tours for 28 years, and I really enjoyed his humor..imagine that.

The boat ride was on small riverboats left over from St. Louis, MO. Great America rides…Hey!…the guy is nothing else if not frugal!..and they were well maintained.  Captain Nance informed us that this area is in a drought, so if the boat tipped over in the bayou, just stand up and we would all be fine. Just ignore the snakes and snapping turtles…  (I TOLD you , I LOVED his sick humor!)

Above, left is an the remains of an old munitions building, left over from the Civil War…NOW WE’RE TALKIN’!  I tried to talk Captain Nance into letting me jump ashore so I could touch it and do some serious channeling of history…but this is where his sense of humor failed me…So I tried to visualize Confederate soldiers madly digging stuff out of this building to use against them “damn Yankees”…

 

  The Big Cypress Bayou area we cruised used to be used by  steamboats filled with cotton coming up from New Orleans. The Port of Jefferson, TX was the “gateway to the West” in the early 1800’s.  But in the late 1800’s, the Army Corps of Engineers dropped the water level in the Big Cypress Bayou, and it became too difficult for the big boats to navigate the narrow channel , so it began it’s great decline, and the port ceased to be used as such.

 

 

OUR “CRUISE” LASTED ABOUT AN HOUR, AND WE PULLED BACK INTO THE DOCK (RIGHT) TO CLIMB OUR WAY BACK UP THE HILLSIDE TO OUR TRUCK.  I KID YOU NOT, THAT IS THE VIEW FROM THE BOAT BEFORE WE GOT OUT..YOU JUST CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!!

 

We really had a great time on the bayou tour and Captain Nance knew his history of Jefferson.  I would highly recommend this little jaunt, if for nothing else than the distinct feeling that you will never get this kind of tour anywhere else in Texas!!!! The price was certainly reasonable enough, at $7.00 a person….So, a big hats off and thank you Captain John Nance, for a most enjoyable afternoon ….”ON THE BAYOU”!!!

In closing, I do have one serious question (one is all , I promise)… for anyone out there..(surprise, surprise!)..Has anyone been to Port Mansfield Texas?? and if so, do you know anything about an RV park called the Park At Port Mansfield?? McGuyver and I are not big fans of “the Valley”…just too busy for us old farts, and we don’t like the “closeness” of RV parks….But we found this place online, and it looks like it is just North of that really congested area, in a small fishing town.  The weather looks great for January,  and the ambience just our speed…SSSSLLLLOOOWWWW. If any of y’all know ANYTHING about this area…speak up….We are floundering around down here, not sure which way to go!!