The view from KFDM-TV 6 weather cam at Pleasure Island
After a month or more of suffering through the Southeast Texas heat we finally have got a day like the one for which I moved here. It’s a rainy or otherwise cloudy Friday. The temperature and humidity taken together makes it feel a pleasant 87 degrees, the last I checked with the weather service.
It was nice enough for me to sit today, for the first time, on my landing while I read a military thriller by Stephen Coonts. Mind candy. I love it.
I plucked the above weather cam off the local CBS affiliate. The station has weather cams outside their station on Interstate 10 in Beaumont, Texas, and one at Pleasure Island in Port Arthur, Texas. I don’t particularly find I-10 attractive so I went with the marina shot.
Pleasure Island, about 25 miles southeast of here, is a man-made island about 18 miles long. It is surrounded by Sabine Lake — more a bay than a lake — and the Gulf Intracoastal canal. According to this history from the Pleasure Island Commission Web site:
“The U. S. Corps of Engineers created Pleasure Island from deposits dredged while constructing the Port Arthur Canal, completed in 1899, and the Sabine Neches Intracoastal Waterway, completed in 1908.
“In 1913 a dance hall and roller coaster were constructed. In 1941 a private investor built the Pleasure Pier Ballroom, a midway, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and the largest roller coaster in the south. A fine 18-hole golf course was enjoyed for years. Pleasure Island was Port Arthur’s playground for decades until the Pleasure Pier bridge, which opened in 1931 and was frequently hit by ships, was taken out of service in 1967, making it difficult to reach the island. Storms, fires, and erosion eventually destroyed all of the existing facilities.”
Of course, nothing will take the wind out of your sails like ships repeatedly ramming your bridges. And not to mention fires, erosion and storms. Pleasure Island?
It sounds more like the Island of Doom.
But there is nothing like the U.S. dollar to transform chicken shit into chicken salad. In recent years development has taken place and another bridge there, the Martin Luther King Bridge, now connects Texas and Louisiana.
Wonderful, marvelous. The empire is saved! I have only passed through Pleasure Island coming back from Cameron, Louisiana. Maybe I will stop and check it out sometime. In the meantime, I am content to read my book and enjoy a rainy afternoon.