Day 4 of my vacation was spent going to a pair of Food Pantries and preparing photos for sharing.
Day 5 saw me return to my adventures in an entertaining way....
Interested in my earlier vacation adventures, this week? Begin here.
The other day my creative friend Amanda Socci encouraged me to try my hand at the latest writing prompt by the great Robert Lee Brewer, of Writer's Digest and Poetic Asides Blog.
As Robert explained:
"write an ekphrastic poem. Ekphrasis sounds kind of complicated, but it’s just a fancy word for using a piece of art to inspire a poem. I’ve included a few images below, but feel free to use your own, including paintings, drawings, and sculptures."
I got to thinking about this and decided to used the first 2 photos below as my inspiration...
Enjoy! And let me know what you think in the comments.
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Just sit right back and read this tale, a tale of a short but interesting trip,
That started from the Houston Port, aboard a small, but comfy ship.
The crew were friendly sailin' folk, the Skipper steered straight and sure.
A hundred passengers set sail that morning for a 1 hour tour, a 1 hour tour.
Getting there on time was a little tough, I almost got lost.
The gatekeepers wouldn't let me walk through, but I vowed to make it at all cost, make it at all cost.
A ride I soon found and got on the boat with a happy smile.
With the tour guides, the Skipper too, some old folks full of life,
Travelers from afar, students and yours truly, a creative writer man,
We left our cares behind for a little while.
It was supposed to take me just 2 buses and 5 minutes of walking to reach my destination, but...
I got off the 2nd bus and, following my direction I came to an intersection at a 90 year old RR track bridge where a street continued right and one street continued left.
The street signs seemed to indicate I needed to go left so I did...
and 30 minutes later, after walking alongside some major highway construction, I realized that I should have gone right.
Seeing a bus stop and a bus coming I asked the driver how I could get back to were I had got off the other bus...quickly.
He dropped me off 3 blocks up this side road he went on and told me my bus should be coming and get me to where I wanted.
Sure enough, 3 minutes later the same bus I had got off of came back and the driver and I had a good laugh as she took me back.
THIS time I made it to the Port of Houston gate...with 25 min. until the tour would start.
The guys guarding the gate, however, were adamant about the fact that I could not walk to where the tour was, just 10 minutes away by foot.
When I responded that they could not tell me that I was the first person, ever, to have either come alone, or with others, by bus and foot to the tour, they showed no inclination to answer yes, or no.
Instead they told me I had to hitch a ride from someone going in who was willing to help (no-one was going near the tour).
After 10 min. of my not finding a ride they decided to give me the tour office phone number and when I called them they said they would see if they could get someone to come.
With 10 min. to go and them not sending someone, I finally got a ride from a worker passing the tour and called the office to let them know.
The tour office told me that they used to let people walk in, but things had gotten dangerous along the road so they recently had a change in policy.
There was no mention of this on the website, however, and tghe road didn't seem dangerous to me...but I let it go...I made it to the tour and that was the important thing.
The tour is normally 90 min., but ours was cut a little short because another ship was reported to be coming in to the Houston Ship Channel, to where we were going to go before normal turn around.
Also, only special tours make it as far as where Buffalo Bayou passes San Jacinto Battleground Park and Monument and and nowhere near where it empties out into the first of several bays that has so much more to see and a lot more boat and even cruise ship, traffic heading in and out of Trinity and Galveston Bays.
We saw a lot of oil and chemical refineries, many businesses that ship and receive products of all sorts at docks, including some that, one of our guides said, go back to when the channel was first dredged, then opened for business, 102 years ago.
We saw a few boats of various sizes and appearance, from tug boats and fishing boats, to those that carry merchandise.
While there was comfortable seating inside our ride, where people could watch the passing scene out the window, or on a live feed on a large screen, many of us, myself included, stood at the rails, risking the loss of hats in the brisk breeze, and the loss of cameras and cell phones, overboard, with the loss of attention and grip.
After the tour was over I got a ride back to the gate by an Asian couple, from Oregon, the husband with whom I had struck up a conversation about his Camera and tripod and accessories on the boat.
The Houston Ship Channel and the Port of Houston is one of the world's busiest ports and the leading port in the nation in terms of foreign tonnage.
You can see a map, learn the history, economic impact and more, here.
For a cool, 100+ year, visual history...explore a large collection of centennial images, here and explore the Port of Houston Magazine archive going back to the first issue in 1923.
Visit the home page of the Sam Houston Boat Tour, a program of the Houston Port Authority.
Next Up:
Wow! This was very, very interesting, Kiril. You totally lucked out having people give you a ride to and from this place. Your keen sense of observation and admiration for that which is all around you is to be commended.
Posted by: SocciWriter | October 17, 2016 at 05:54 AM