Flying from Austin to Denver yesterday on my way back from Texas, I could see the effects of the drought. While I was in Texas I was surprised at how green everything was (everything except the burn area of the 2011 forest fire near Bastrop). But by the time the plane began descending over southeastern Colorado, the effects of the drought could easily be seen in the number of dry streams and stock ponds. It looks pretty bad out there.
By the time the plane took off from Denver, the Giants-Cardinals game, game 5 of the NLCS, had begun. For the first time ever, I sprang for in-flight wi-fi so I could follow the progress, and was happy to see the Giants win the game to survive in the series.
I got home about 9:15 pm San Francisco time.
So my trip was somewhat successful. I was able to see some oil drilling, and the truck traffic associated with the recent fracking boom, with my own eyes. And I was able to experience the meadow, or pasture, in the nature preserve which in my novel is a ranch which a character has inherited. Actually both Texas bits, the ranch and the oil drilling, are part of a story within a story. But as I wrote earlier, I'm also thinking of setting another book in the same locale, so the trip did double duty for that.
Today I was back in my writing office, working on the novel.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Texas Road Trip, Day 5: Austin
It was amazingly cool this morning when I left the hotel -- 58 degrees. It felt so wonderful it lifted my spirits.
For better or worse, I had several hours free to drive around Austin, which I resisted doing on Monday. I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find any of my old haunts 35 years later. Back then, Austin was expanding and growing and developing mainly on the outskirts, and we youngsters felt smug in the knowledge that we knew the true heart of funky Austin and it would never change because the squares were only interested in the suburbs. But at some point the squares caught on, and now... well, the epitome of the visit happened when I tried to park my car in the formerly funky neighborhood west of the university. Seeing that street parking was only for residents, I attempted to park in the garage of a large condo building. I drove in, and the door closed behind me. Then I realized it wasn't a public parking garage, it was for residents only. I turned around and approached the gate, supposing the electric eye would sense my car and open the gate. But it didn't. The gate would open only when one of the residents opened it, apparently. I had to wait until someone who lived there drove through it. It didn't take very long, but long enough for me to ponder the irony.
One thing that remained was the University Lutheran Center and its small parking lot. (In this picture I am 21 years old and standing in front of the building.) I parked, went inside and told the staff I was an alumnus and just poking my head in. As fate would have it, the pastor was my age and actually remembered my name from the 1970s, when he was also a student. Perhaps he was the only person in Austin who might have recognized my name.
With their permission I left my car in the lot for half an hour and walked over to the giant dorm, Jester Center (photo), where I lived as a freshman. Passing through the lobby like a ghost -- certainly nearly invisible to the crowds of youngsters -- I walked up to the mailboxes and touched my old mailbox. Then I walked back to my car.
A little more driving around, growing sadder by the minute. It wasn't just that things had changed; they had changed so much that I kept getting lost, getting on the wrong street, and so on. I had to look at the map, when 35 years ago I knew the town intimately. As in many cities, the area of post-industrial wreckage near the railroad had been transformed into a district of condos and offices. Only two ratty old buildings remained, and one had been self-consciously transformed into a "funky" bar: Flickr photo by Phil Ostroff. This epitomizes today's Austin: A self-conscious trying-too-hard attempt to have something that's not corporate. Of course I'm judging only by the exterior. If you look closely at that picture you'll see a condo building looming just behind it.
OK, off to the airport. Bye Texas.
For better or worse, I had several hours free to drive around Austin, which I resisted doing on Monday. I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find any of my old haunts 35 years later. Back then, Austin was expanding and growing and developing mainly on the outskirts, and we youngsters felt smug in the knowledge that we knew the true heart of funky Austin and it would never change because the squares were only interested in the suburbs. But at some point the squares caught on, and now... well, the epitome of the visit happened when I tried to park my car in the formerly funky neighborhood west of the university. Seeing that street parking was only for residents, I attempted to park in the garage of a large condo building. I drove in, and the door closed behind me. Then I realized it wasn't a public parking garage, it was for residents only. I turned around and approached the gate, supposing the electric eye would sense my car and open the gate. But it didn't. The gate would open only when one of the residents opened it, apparently. I had to wait until someone who lived there drove through it. It didn't take very long, but long enough for me to ponder the irony.
One thing that remained was the University Lutheran Center and its small parking lot. (In this picture I am 21 years old and standing in front of the building.) I parked, went inside and told the staff I was an alumnus and just poking my head in. As fate would have it, the pastor was my age and actually remembered my name from the 1970s, when he was also a student. Perhaps he was the only person in Austin who might have recognized my name.
With their permission I left my car in the lot for half an hour and walked over to the giant dorm, Jester Center (photo), where I lived as a freshman. Passing through the lobby like a ghost -- certainly nearly invisible to the crowds of youngsters -- I walked up to the mailboxes and touched my old mailbox. Then I walked back to my car.
A little more driving around, growing sadder by the minute. It wasn't just that things had changed; they had changed so much that I kept getting lost, getting on the wrong street, and so on. I had to look at the map, when 35 years ago I knew the town intimately. As in many cities, the area of post-industrial wreckage near the railroad had been transformed into a district of condos and offices. Only two ratty old buildings remained, and one had been self-consciously transformed into a "funky" bar: Flickr photo by Phil Ostroff. This epitomizes today's Austin: A self-conscious trying-too-hard attempt to have something that's not corporate. Of course I'm judging only by the exterior. If you look closely at that picture you'll see a condo building looming just behind it.
OK, off to the airport. Bye Texas.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Texas Road Trip, Day 4: Meadow
I drove this morning to the Armand Bayou Nature Center [map; point A in the map below] outside Clear Lake City, where I went to high school. Back then I used to cut through the woods to get from the school to my subdivision; now that's now possible, because fences have been put up preventing anyone from crossing into the woods. All you can access is the nature preserve, and you have to wait until it opens at 9:00 a.m. But finally I got in, and I took pictures of the other main thing I wanted to see: the pasture.
They call it a "prairie;" the fact is that it's a pasture that hasn't fed cattle for 50 or 60 years. The old guy who owned the ranch refused to sell it to real estate developers, and his heirs donated it to a nature conservancy, so there's a couple of square miles of woods and bayou and "prairie" that is beautifully undeveloped.
I spent a lot of time in these woods and fields when I was a teenager. This was my place of retreat. If not this exact pasture, then very near it.
After that I drove north and found myself near the hamlet of Daisetta (point B below), site of a famous sinkhole which opened up suddenly in 2008. I found a pond which I thought was in the right place, but it wasn't very large -- smaller than I expected it to be. I was too shy to ask anyone. This is pretty much how I've handled the whole trip: I go someplace and see something and am too shy to ask anyone about what I'm seeing, or whether I'm even looking at what I think I'm looking at. (Oil drilling: horizontal or vertical? Fracking or standard procedure? I couldn't tell.)
After that I drove west across the state, trying to avoid Houston, which I did by going through Cleveland, Conroe and Navasota. I'm spending my last night in Texas in La Grange, which is near Austin. I'm going home tomorrow, four days early.
They call it a "prairie;" the fact is that it's a pasture that hasn't fed cattle for 50 or 60 years. The old guy who owned the ranch refused to sell it to real estate developers, and his heirs donated it to a nature conservancy, so there's a couple of square miles of woods and bayou and "prairie" that is beautifully undeveloped.
I spent a lot of time in these woods and fields when I was a teenager. This was my place of retreat. If not this exact pasture, then very near it.
After that I drove north and found myself near the hamlet of Daisetta (point B below), site of a famous sinkhole which opened up suddenly in 2008. I found a pond which I thought was in the right place, but it wasn't very large -- smaller than I expected it to be. I was too shy to ask anyone. This is pretty much how I've handled the whole trip: I go someplace and see something and am too shy to ask anyone about what I'm seeing, or whether I'm even looking at what I think I'm looking at. (Oil drilling: horizontal or vertical? Fracking or standard procedure? I couldn't tell.)
After that I drove west across the state, trying to avoid Houston, which I did by going through Cleveland, Conroe and Navasota. I'm spending my last night in Texas in La Grange, which is near Austin. I'm going home tomorrow, four days early.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Texas Road Trip, Day 3: Enough of fracking
Woke up this morning in San Antonio. Weather was utterly dreary: thick fog and drizzle, just a complete mess. I found my way to a cafe with wi-fi and camped out for about an hour and a half, until morning rush hour was over and I had a plan for the day.
I had a choice of going west to Carrizo Springs to see more drilling, trucks, pipelines, RVs camped in a pasture, etc. etc. -- but aside from a slight change in the landscape (it would have been drier and more desert-y), I didn't expect to see much that I hadn't seen during the first two days. I realized there was only one thing I really wanted to see in the state of Texas: the Rothko Chapel in Houston which, despite having lived in Texas for ten years, I had never seen. So I drove to Houston.
As I drove west, the murk cleared up and the day became hot and cloudy/sunny -- pretty much a typical summer day. That it is mid-October doesn't matter a bit. The clouds were light and fluffy and the air was hot and humid. OK, it was only 90 degrees, not 103 like it was during the summer.
In Columbus, I stopped and drove around a little, because that was a spot I drove through on the way from Houston to Austin back in the 70s. I found a couple of miles of the old highway that runs through and out of the town before it meets the new freeway that has erased the rest of the old road.
Houston is pretty amazing. Imagine Las Vegas in the way it over-does everything possible. Now multiply its size by about 10. That's Houston, with 12-lane freeways decorated with gigantic stars, and futuristic skyscrapers not just downtown but in concentrations of office buildings at various places along the roads leading into town. I was listening to a sports radio station and heard consecutive commercials as follows: 1) An anti-Obama commercial sponsored by the gun lobby, saying if Obama was re-elected he would take away not only "our" Second Amendment rights, but also threaten the First Amendment; 2) A commercial by the natural gas lobby saying how wonderful it was; and 3) A commercial by a local gun dealer that was so over-the-top it sounded like it was produced by the Firesign Theater. That was on a sports station, which was the only one I could listen to without encountering Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or some other right-wing beanbag.
I won't even mention how heavy the traffic was, despite all the multi-lane freeways. In fact, they aren't happy with the existing Interstate Highway System; they are busy opening parallel freeways that are toll roads. There's one that bypasses Austin, another that partially circles Houston.
After all that, the Rothko Chapel was quite a relief.
Rothko Chapel
Then I found a cheap motel and settled in to watch baseball. We're in a rain delay.
I had a choice of going west to Carrizo Springs to see more drilling, trucks, pipelines, RVs camped in a pasture, etc. etc. -- but aside from a slight change in the landscape (it would have been drier and more desert-y), I didn't expect to see much that I hadn't seen during the first two days. I realized there was only one thing I really wanted to see in the state of Texas: the Rothko Chapel in Houston which, despite having lived in Texas for ten years, I had never seen. So I drove to Houston.
As I drove west, the murk cleared up and the day became hot and cloudy/sunny -- pretty much a typical summer day. That it is mid-October doesn't matter a bit. The clouds were light and fluffy and the air was hot and humid. OK, it was only 90 degrees, not 103 like it was during the summer.
In Columbus, I stopped and drove around a little, because that was a spot I drove through on the way from Houston to Austin back in the 70s. I found a couple of miles of the old highway that runs through and out of the town before it meets the new freeway that has erased the rest of the old road.
Houston is pretty amazing. Imagine Las Vegas in the way it over-does everything possible. Now multiply its size by about 10. That's Houston, with 12-lane freeways decorated with gigantic stars, and futuristic skyscrapers not just downtown but in concentrations of office buildings at various places along the roads leading into town. I was listening to a sports radio station and heard consecutive commercials as follows: 1) An anti-Obama commercial sponsored by the gun lobby, saying if Obama was re-elected he would take away not only "our" Second Amendment rights, but also threaten the First Amendment; 2) A commercial by the natural gas lobby saying how wonderful it was; and 3) A commercial by a local gun dealer that was so over-the-top it sounded like it was produced by the Firesign Theater. That was on a sports station, which was the only one I could listen to without encountering Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or some other right-wing beanbag.
I won't even mention how heavy the traffic was, despite all the multi-lane freeways. In fact, they aren't happy with the existing Interstate Highway System; they are busy opening parallel freeways that are toll roads. There's one that bypasses Austin, another that partially circles Houston.
After all that, the Rothko Chapel was quite a relief.
Rothko Chapel
Then I found a cheap motel and settled in to watch baseball. We're in a rain delay.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Texas Road Trip, Day 2 -- near Kenedy (sic)
I took a nice walk on the beach this morning in Port Aransas. Without really planning to, I walked down the beach all the way to the ship channel. There, in about 1971 when I was barely a teenager, I walked with my father just after dawn to see a large ship coming out of the channel. And diving playfully, just in front of its bow, were two or three dolphins. This was a magical moment, one of those times when the universe arranges itself before you in an unexpectedly beautiful way. And one of the best memories I have of a nice moment with my dad. This morning I didn't expect the experience to repeat itself, but a large ship was coming in through the channel, and at first there were no dolphins -- and then there they were, doing the same trick, dving in graceful arcs just in front of the ship's huge bow. I guess it's a dolphin thing.
After I walked back to the hotel, it began to rain. For over an hour while I had breakfast and conducted a phone interview, rain poured down. When I finally checked out and went down to my car, I found I had left the windows open. I had to take a bunch of tourist giveaway newspapers from the hotel's lobby to sit on until they mopped up the water.
I drove northwest up US 181 all the way to San Antonio, but around the towns of Kenedy (sic) and Karnes City I took loads of side roads just to the west, and I saw tons of oil wells in every stage -- old ones that were capped, new ones being drilled, and many in every stage in between.
Here's what the pad looks like with the well head when they finish drilling it and connecting it to a pipeline:
Much of the area I drove through, west of the highway between Beeville and Karnes City, was still ranch country, beautifully oak-covered. Other spots were untended brush. But in other places there were large industrial installations. In one spot there was a big area the size of about 20 football fields that was entirely stripped, taken up with gigantic equipment and a few large buildings; a sign identified it as an oil pumping station. That's one thing that demonstrated the immediate area had been an oil field for many years.
Then other thing was the presence of many pipelines. They'll all buried, but of course where the road crossed them they're clearly marked. I saw a lot of pipelines, both natural gas (blue signs) and oil (orange signs). And I also crossed the route of a new pipeline under construction:
In Karnes City, I stopped for a while at a major intersection. I saw probably four times as many huge trucks as I did yesterday in Cuero. And at the gas station-store, there were lots of oil field workers, dressed in jumpsuits or t-shirts emblazoned with the names of their employers. These included vans full of red-suited Halliburton workers. Of course Halliburton was an oil field services company long before it was a general services provider in Iraq under the Bush administration.
Back on the main road, I passed several brand-new hotels, all with large pickup trucks in the parking lots. And I also passed several places where large new RVs had parked. All this is housing for oil field workers.
Sorry for the tilt.
Finally I drove up to San Antonio, where I checked into a cheap hotel (and if you want a fairly dependable cheap hotel, go to a Super 8) in time to watch the second Presidential debate.
After I walked back to the hotel, it began to rain. For over an hour while I had breakfast and conducted a phone interview, rain poured down. When I finally checked out and went down to my car, I found I had left the windows open. I had to take a bunch of tourist giveaway newspapers from the hotel's lobby to sit on until they mopped up the water.
I drove northwest up US 181 all the way to San Antonio, but around the towns of Kenedy (sic) and Karnes City I took loads of side roads just to the west, and I saw tons of oil wells in every stage -- old ones that were capped, new ones being drilled, and many in every stage in between.
Here's what the pad looks like with the well head when they finish drilling it and connecting it to a pipeline:
Much of the area I drove through, west of the highway between Beeville and Karnes City, was still ranch country, beautifully oak-covered. Other spots were untended brush. But in other places there were large industrial installations. In one spot there was a big area the size of about 20 football fields that was entirely stripped, taken up with gigantic equipment and a few large buildings; a sign identified it as an oil pumping station. That's one thing that demonstrated the immediate area had been an oil field for many years.
Then other thing was the presence of many pipelines. They'll all buried, but of course where the road crossed them they're clearly marked. I saw a lot of pipelines, both natural gas (blue signs) and oil (orange signs). And I also crossed the route of a new pipeline under construction:
In Karnes City, I stopped for a while at a major intersection. I saw probably four times as many huge trucks as I did yesterday in Cuero. And at the gas station-store, there were lots of oil field workers, dressed in jumpsuits or t-shirts emblazoned with the names of their employers. These included vans full of red-suited Halliburton workers. Of course Halliburton was an oil field services company long before it was a general services provider in Iraq under the Bush administration.
Back on the main road, I passed several brand-new hotels, all with large pickup trucks in the parking lots. And I also passed several places where large new RVs had parked. All this is housing for oil field workers.
Sorry for the tilt.
Finally I drove up to San Antonio, where I checked into a cheap hotel (and if you want a fairly dependable cheap hotel, go to a Super 8) in time to watch the second Presidential debate.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Texas Road Trip, Day 1: First pass through fracking zone
I left Austin late this morning. I couldn't resist just a little pass through town, but I limited myself to a few streets in South Austin. Along Lamar and South First I saw a lot of self-consciously quirky shops and bars, one of them trying way too hard with murals and a big statue of a mascot of a large-breasted woman, the shop itself emblazoned with the legend: "Since 1997." That 15-year history failed to impress me, but as I watched, I saw people taking their pictures with the statue of the mascot, so it must be a landmark. Because I'm a terrible journalist, I didn't take a picture.
In fact, I was terrible, just terrible, at taking pictures all day. Here's the best one:
I was in a town called Cuero, a small town that is in the middle of the eastern side of the Eagle Ford Shale. The New York Times last month said it was overrun with huge trucks, and there certainly were a lot. So there you go, a truck. I sat at the main intersection of town for half an hour grokking the trucks.
Before that I managed to find some good sites where fracking actually seemed to be going on. Or drilling of some kind. It's not like they put up a big sign that says Fracking Here! Basically you have a temporary, portable drilling rig, four or five stories high, surrounded by trucks and equipment, in the middle of a two-or-three acre patch of denuded pasture.
The setting was what I found most interesting. I drove through beautiful countryside between Gonzales and Cuero, the pastures mostly green because it rained a lot here a few weeks ago. When they pick a spot, they strip off all vegetation over a few acres, forming a perfectly rectangular bare patch. Aside from the road they build into the site, they seem to leave the rest of the surroundings alone. (Supposedly the industry has learned from the public relations disaster that was their exploitation of another area in Texas, the Barnett Shale zone.)
I swung through Victoria, which I visited once many years ago when I found it a nice little city. It's now a hollowed out, sprawling mess. There's a historic district in the center that's like a ghost town; on the outskirts are 8-lane-wide boulevards and shopping centers.
Then I drove south toward the coast. It wasn't that I wanted to go to the coast so much that you can't find a hotel room in the fracking zone; they're all occupied by workers. So I had to drive 70 miles south, and decided I may as well go to Port Aransas, a beach town reached by a short ferry ride.
The blue area in the map is approximately the Eagle Ford shale. I drove through the eastern edge of it.
In fact, I was terrible, just terrible, at taking pictures all day. Here's the best one:
I was in a town called Cuero, a small town that is in the middle of the eastern side of the Eagle Ford Shale. The New York Times last month said it was overrun with huge trucks, and there certainly were a lot. So there you go, a truck. I sat at the main intersection of town for half an hour grokking the trucks.
Before that I managed to find some good sites where fracking actually seemed to be going on. Or drilling of some kind. It's not like they put up a big sign that says Fracking Here! Basically you have a temporary, portable drilling rig, four or five stories high, surrounded by trucks and equipment, in the middle of a two-or-three acre patch of denuded pasture.
The setting was what I found most interesting. I drove through beautiful countryside between Gonzales and Cuero, the pastures mostly green because it rained a lot here a few weeks ago. When they pick a spot, they strip off all vegetation over a few acres, forming a perfectly rectangular bare patch. Aside from the road they build into the site, they seem to leave the rest of the surroundings alone. (Supposedly the industry has learned from the public relations disaster that was their exploitation of another area in Texas, the Barnett Shale zone.)
I swung through Victoria, which I visited once many years ago when I found it a nice little city. It's now a hollowed out, sprawling mess. There's a historic district in the center that's like a ghost town; on the outskirts are 8-lane-wide boulevards and shopping centers.
Then I drove south toward the coast. It wasn't that I wanted to go to the coast so much that you can't find a hotel room in the fracking zone; they're all occupied by workers. So I had to drive 70 miles south, and decided I may as well go to Port Aransas, a beach town reached by a short ferry ride.
The blue area in the map is approximately the Eagle Ford shale. I drove through the eastern edge of it.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Texas Road Trip, Day 0: Flying to Austin
I'm in Texas on vacation, and to research something for the novel I'm working on. When I tell people I've come to Texas to research fracking, they can't believe it. I overheard Cris saying to a friend, "First he went to Minnesota to see what it was like in a blizzard, and then he went to the desert to find survivalists, and now he's going to Texas to get himself in trouble with oil roughnecks."
It's true that all those trips were research for this book. But I took out the part about the survivalists. And the fracking stuff is really for a story-within-a-story. However, I'm also thinking of setting my next book in this milieu, so this is both research for my current project and for the possible next one.
I'm in a hotel near the Austin airport. I went to university in Austin, many years ago, and at the time I had a frantic love for the city. Then I graduated and got a little sick of it, and moved to San Francisco. I've only been back twice before this. Once, in 1981, was only two years after I'd left, and it was still very much the same place. The next time was in 2001, and it was very much not the same place. In the intervening 20 years, the tech industry had come to town, and Republicans were in the ascendancy. There were huge new developments all over, and a freeway had replaced the sweet two-lane state highway I used to take from Houston to Austin, a road that meant so much to me I wrote a song about it. In 2001 I actually drove 100 miles to the town of Columbus and attempted to drive the fondly-remembered highway, but the freeway had erased it almost entirely. Now -- that is, in 2001 -- it was just another drive through countryside.
Now it's almost 12 years after that. I have no hopes of a nostalgic reunion with any of my favorite places, going on 37 years since I left town 9 months after graduating. So much money and development has come to town that it would be like going to Las Vegas and attempting to find old Rat Pack hangouts. Of course, the university itself is still there, and many of its buildings are even the same. (Of course, when I attended in the mid-70s, it was already full of newer buildings which probably shocked anyone who had attended even 10 years earlier.) But even in 2001 almost none of the funky houses and buildings I'd lived in still existed; they'd been torn down and replaced with condos and large apartment buildings. So I'm not going to spend much time trying to connect with my youth.
Instead, I'm going to drive south, toward the Eagle Ford Shale zone, and try to find some fracking. The illustration below shows the zone, marked by red pins, spreading across south Texas.
It's true that all those trips were research for this book. But I took out the part about the survivalists. And the fracking stuff is really for a story-within-a-story. However, I'm also thinking of setting my next book in this milieu, so this is both research for my current project and for the possible next one.
I'm in a hotel near the Austin airport. I went to university in Austin, many years ago, and at the time I had a frantic love for the city. Then I graduated and got a little sick of it, and moved to San Francisco. I've only been back twice before this. Once, in 1981, was only two years after I'd left, and it was still very much the same place. The next time was in 2001, and it was very much not the same place. In the intervening 20 years, the tech industry had come to town, and Republicans were in the ascendancy. There were huge new developments all over, and a freeway had replaced the sweet two-lane state highway I used to take from Houston to Austin, a road that meant so much to me I wrote a song about it. In 2001 I actually drove 100 miles to the town of Columbus and attempted to drive the fondly-remembered highway, but the freeway had erased it almost entirely. Now -- that is, in 2001 -- it was just another drive through countryside.
Now it's almost 12 years after that. I have no hopes of a nostalgic reunion with any of my favorite places, going on 37 years since I left town 9 months after graduating. So much money and development has come to town that it would be like going to Las Vegas and attempting to find old Rat Pack hangouts. Of course, the university itself is still there, and many of its buildings are even the same. (Of course, when I attended in the mid-70s, it was already full of newer buildings which probably shocked anyone who had attended even 10 years earlier.) But even in 2001 almost none of the funky houses and buildings I'd lived in still existed; they'd been torn down and replaced with condos and large apartment buildings. So I'm not going to spend much time trying to connect with my youth.
Instead, I'm going to drive south, toward the Eagle Ford Shale zone, and try to find some fracking. The illustration below shows the zone, marked by red pins, spreading across south Texas.
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