I discovered what looked like the remains of an abandoned town on google maps last week and had decided that I’d drive out towards Baytown and check it out. What I found turned out to be what must be the creepiest park in Texas.

Neighborhood streets with what looked like the remains of houses

As it turns out, the area has a really funky history. It started out in 1891 as unincorporated community in Harris County called Wooster, Texas. It was hit hard by the 1900 Galveston hurricane and by the time World War II rolled around, Wooster had become an internment camp for captured German prisoners of war.

After the war, the Wooster internment camp became the Brownwood subdivision. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was a highly desirable residential neighborhood with almost 400 large homes. It was nicknamed “The River Oaks of Baytown” and was home to many well-to-do engineers and oil executives.

In 1961, Hurricane Carla devastated Brownwood and subsidence became a serious problem. Industrial and municipal water users pumped out aquifer groundwater faster than nature could replenish it. Additionally, industry pumped out massive quantities of oil, natural gas and sand. The sustained attack on the environment lead to Brownwood sinking between 10 and 15 feet into the San Jacinto Bay:

Newspaper photo of a Brownwood family during the "Valentines Day Storm" in February of 1969

A 1972 newspaper photo of a Brownwood subsidence

In 1983, extensive damage from Hurricane Alicia finally led to Brownwood’s total abandonment. By 1990, the steadily encroaching waters had submerged many Brownwood streets:

In 1991, the residents of Baytown took a small step towards doing something about Brownwood by voting to approve $300,000 in bonds to deal with the sinking ghost town. Eventually in 1997, Brownwood was declared a Superfund site due to the “legal”, but ethically dubious toxic dumping activities of various local oil companies.

Nowadays, the ex-environmental disaster area / ex-Nazi internment camp / ex-exclusive neighborhood / ex-toxic dump is now a place where people can bring their kids to play and fish.

However, Superfund money and playground equipment can’t seem to erase the fact that this place is actually a ghost-town with a sordid past as a dump:

A park nature trail

The park beach

A "nature trail" that's actually an abandoned Brownwood neighborhood street named MacArthur St.

Another "nature trail" that's actually an abandoned Brownwood neighborhood street named Crow Rd.

What's left of a Brownwood home. In this picture, you can see bathroom tiles.

Another Brownwood home. In this picture, you can see the remains of what was a kitchen.

What's left of a private boathouse

A dichotomy: this was once a Nazi-internment camp and vibrant family neighborhood

Walking the abandoned streets of Brownwood was evocative. This is such an interesting area. In this place, children grew up; they enjoyed things like Christmas mornings, riding bikes and playing house. In this place, people fell in love, fought and dreamed. In this place, engineers and oil-executives unwittingly designed  the destruction of their own homes. In this place, Nazis were held in captivity, people died in natural disasters and the land became toxic.

Best FaceBook comment: “I went to high school in Deer Park, then went off to college, but in th emiddle of those yrs actually went to Lee College in Baytown for a sememster. I dated a girl that lived out there in Brownwood, actually if I remember correctly, on Crow Rd. That was in 1973, if I recall. Those pictures really are frightening. Her family had this gorgeous ranch style rambler, and they were a happy family. Too bad that area has disappeared. I haven’t been back down there since probably 1975, so I had no idea it had changed so much. So sad……so sad.”

Carolyn and I went out to Bear Creak park on Sunday. It was the first day that I really felt like myself again. While we were out I got a few interesting shots:

You can see more at my TH album HERE.

As I said in my last blog, I can feel the anticipation building as I move closer to next month and dealing with the 3 separate grants + moving + programmatic setup(s). I decided that I would get out of Houston and go camping for a couple of days. You know, I think it’s been more than 20 years since I’ve been camping : /

On my way to the campgrounds, I ran across some creepy places… so you know I had to stop and take pictures!

First, I found a cool abandoned motor lodge:

‘

And, I had to peek inside…

I was amazed to find that one closet was full of 1960s/70s era clothes:

Here’s the Motel sign. I wish I could make out the name,

Then I found an abandoned house. This one looked too rickety to risk going in though:

So, here’s some pics of the campground:

Here’s me at the campfire:

Warming up my feet:

Oh yah, almost I forgot. I ran across what seemed to be an old family graveyard while I was out. So, you know I had to check that out:

I liked this name: Hudson Oliphint.

I love when I run across folksy epitaphs: “No pains, no griets, no anxious fear, can reach our loved one sleeping here.”

So, it was really, really nice to run way for a couple of days. My first day kinda sucked because the people next to me were incapable of shutting the hell up! They brought a baby (who wouldn’t shut up crying), a dog (that wouldn’t shut up barking), 3 teens (who played music and wouldn’t shut up) and to top it off, their parents were kinda pathetic. The father would ask the kids to do something and when they wouldn’t, the mother would screech and scream at them – at which point they would screech and scream and the mother and the mother would loudly bemoan the fact that she didn’t have 3 abortions and then the teens would go back to what they were (loudly) doing. They didn’t shut up until 11.

When it got dark, I took my telescope and drove down to the edge of the water to do some stargazing. The sky was kinda hazy, so I wasn’t able to get a good look at Jupiter. However, since the moon wasn’t full, I was able to take a really close look at the surface of the moon (I didn’t have a moon filter). I could sit looking at the moon for hours and hours!

Anyway, my neighbors packed up Monday and I was left with nothing but peace and quite. Ah… it was so nice! I hiked for several miles and basically did a lot of communing with nature. My tent roof is mesh without the rain covering, so I was able to lay in my bed and gaze up at the trees and stars. It was all so beautiful, I started to weep. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to spend this much time with nature; I feel as if my batteries were recharged!

I had to take off earlier than I wanted to since I had a 3 PM appointment with the Havens Center representative at the Path of Tea. I had lunch from the Field of Greens and before my appointment, Rudy What’s-His-Name (I think he’s a coach of something in Houston) came in for a business meeting. I thought I’d get a pic cus’ I thought that it would be funny to have the big bad coach of a pro sports team getting a pic (even if it is a horrid post-camping photo) with a tranny

This is a little piece of an actual photo taken by Hubble and released to the public by NASA on Jan. 5th.

Yah, that’s all “whatever” you say? What is SO COOL about this photo is that this is a photo of the dark part of the sky. If you look at your fingernail and take 1/10th of its size and use that measurement when you look at the darkest part of the night sky – the dark part that looks like there is absolutly nothing there – this is what you’d find: 7,500 galaxies:

Click here for the actual picture – the above is just a little piece of the actual photo.

When you look this deep into space, we are viewing the past… Some of the galaxies in that photo (the red ones) are from just after the “Big Bang”. What you see in the photo is the actual creation of the universe as we know it. It is like looking at the mind of god (in a completely pantheistic way, of course).

<rant> When I hear people say that a god used magic to poof everything into existence so that human life could only exist on this one little planet so that he could reveal himself to a remote, primitive and illiterate desert dwelling people (instead of an advance civilianization like China or Greece) – I want to pull out my hair. That attitude seems to miss that beauty, magnificence and sacred (again meant in a completely pantheistic way) truth of the fleeting immensity of it all. When I look at this stuff, I feel… well, I almost feel rapture.  As Douglas Adams said: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”</rant>

Anyway, this is a land breaking photo – kinda like the photo we took of the creation of the universe a few years ago by the COBE and WMAP satellites. It gives us a better understanding of the process of assembling galaxies.

As I was heading out the door yesterday morning, I was greeted by that little squirrel that hangs out near my porch. I thought she might be hungry, so I went back inside to get some bird seed to put out. I keep the feeder under the stairs on the other side of my porch wall. I walked over to the feeder and filled it… with this squirrel at my heels. I walked back into my apartment without a look back because I thought the squirrel would be eating about then. After putting up the seed, I turned around to see:

Apparently, she followed me back inside.

I was able to get right up to her. Anyway, this squirrel followed me out the door and across the parking lot, to my car and only scampered away when I got inside of my car.

Well, I thought it was kind of strange. Carolyn insisted that I give it a name, so I picked Doris… Actually, her full name would be “Doris The Squirrel.” Gowd I am so dorky.

Carolyn called me around 4 to see if I wanted to do a trip down to Galveston for the evening. The first thing we did was to stop at the ruins of the pirate, Jean Lafitte’s home. As seems to be our karma, Carolyn and I found ourselves exploring yet another creepy place. The ruins are surrounded by a large fence with barbed wire at the top and a huge padlocked gate. Interestingly, the gate was open when we got there and in we went!

Afterwards, we headed for the beach:

Base of a giant redwood.

Acquaintance standing next to one of the trees.

Here are some photos I got from the plane of the Grand Canyon:

Here are a few couple areal photos I took that seemed interesting:

While I was in San Francisco, I visited the Japanese garden – which was amazing. It is unfortunate that my camera seemed to overexpose everything:

I’m not sure what this squirrel was doing, but he was sitting in a tree doing this for a while.

Here are some other photos I got while in San Francisco:

Kites at the park

Golden Gate Bridge UFO (LOL) shot from a great distance

Alcatraz #1

Alcatraz #2

Alcatraz #3

Sign on a pier that is open to the public

Seal at a great distance #1

Seal at a great distance #2

Seal at a great distance #3

Location of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot of 1966

Wax Museum #1

Wax Museum #2

Wax Museum #3

Well, on this trip I discovered one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen: