Port Arthur culture?

October 7, 2010 5:42 AM

I have a friend who is living and working temporarily in the Port Arthur/ Beaumont area of Texas. He is vegetarian and gets his goodness from nature, museums, etc. Depression is sinking in, any suggestions?
posted by haikuku to society & culture (7 answers total)

He is less than 1 hour from the Sabine Island WMA, about 30 minutes from the Big Thicket National Preserve, and about 45 minutes from Sea Rim State Park.

Because of the local economy, many of the museums are focused on the energy industry, but maybe that's his line of work? Surely he's been to Spindletop and the Texas Energy Museum?

For more ideas, he could poke around the TravelTex website -- a great resource (also available as a very big book, which they will mail to him for free). For example, here's the entry for Beaumont, and here's the one for the Gulf Coast region.
posted by Houstonian at 6:12 AM on October 7, 2010

I lived in Beaumont as a kid, and have spent the rest of my life on the East Coast. At times I have wished for an opportunity to return to the area and experience its qualities again as an adult. I know it's a refinery town with decades of strife behind it, but being in reach of cultures and environments that, to me, have become more exotic sounds like a great opportunity. He's there temporarily - it's not a life sentence - he should explore!

The McFaddin Ward House
Beaumont Public Library Programs
Get involved with Lamar U's radio station
Take a continuing education course through Lamar (bad site design, scroll down!)
Visit an organic rice mill
Art Museum of Southeast Texas
Babe Didrickson Zaharias Museum (world's greatest female athlete)
Search Roadfood for suggestions around Beaumont/Port Arthur - it'll be hard for a vegetarian, since so much of the cuisine is either meat- or seafood-based or, at the very least, stewed in pork fat - but I have a feeling you'll find some good stuff
And I'm sure he can find fellow travelers and great food at the Beaumont Farmers Market
Finally, maybe do some volunteering. If he's got lots of free time and wants to meet kindred spirits, it's a great way to go.
posted by Miko at 6:46 AM on October 7, 2010

That's my homtetown. I still have family there so I go there about once a month.

It's a great place to eat if you can get people to invite you over, but the restaurants are not always excellent. Ditto with the nature interactions - if he can get locals to invite him to their beach house or duck hunting, he can have all the nature he'd ever want. But the parks aren't grand.

Key element to happiness in small town in the South: BE FRIENDLY. Ask questions, engage with people in restaurants or at the dry cleaner or whatever. If you ignore them, they'll ignore you, and you'll end up eating all your meals at the Stuckey's in front of your DaysInn Hotel. That's depressing no matter where you are.

Food:

Basic Foods and the giant HEB in Beaumont for his veggies and good bread.
Carmela's and Carlito's for Tex-Mex
There are some fancy restaurants that recently opened by Parkdale mall in Beaumont.
There's a great Thai restaurant on Lucas in Beaumont.
There's a fantastic Vietnamese restaurant on College across for Carlito's in Beaumont.
There's a thriving Vietnamese Buddhist community in Port Arthur, they are very welcoming to strangers.
The restaurant at Calder and MLK in the Mildred Building is delicious and fancy-pants.
The Grill in Beaumont is good for dinner.

The best loft party I ever went to was at an artist's studio at the Port Arthur dock.

The UU services by Lamar University tend to attract lots of very cool people from all over the world.

I strongly, STRONGLY recommend Shangri-La Gardens in Orange if he likes nature - the swamp and birdwatching are amazing.

He needs to start hanging out at The Art Studio in Beaumont, average art but great, creative, well traveled people who are as welcoming as can be. Don't wait for an art opening, just show up. Ask for Greg Busceme and tell him that Franny sent you.

Being liberal and arty is not the same thing as being open minded or creative. Your pal needs to think more like an anthropologist and less like a hipster. Go out, meet people, leave whatever snottiness he has at the door, and just enjoy the experience.
posted by pomegranate at 8:08 AM on October 7, 2010 [6 favorites]

To add on to pomegranate's excellent comment, if someone DOES invite your friend to their property to go hunting, he can still go (even though he's a vegetarian) and be out and enjoy the nature. There are many people who go hunting with their cameras rather than guns, and he won't have a problem if that's what he says he'd like to do.
posted by Addlepated at 10:45 AM on October 7, 2010

Sea kayaking the waters behind the gulf's barrier islands would be a neat nature escape. The birding along the Gulf Coast is pretty awesome, and you'll see more from a quiet boat than from almost any other vantage point I can think of. You can camp out of a sea kayak, and their shallow draft makes it possible to go places that are too wet to walk and too dry to visit in a normal boat. If cost is an issue, it's almost certainly possible to rent them in PA.
posted by richyoung at 10:47 AM on October 7, 2010

Seconding a UU church, where he's likely to find fellow vegetarians and lovers of museums and nature. Checking the church calendar can turn up evening activities, movies, discussion groups.
posted by exphysicist345 at 11:08 PM on October 7, 2010

The Coastal Birding Trail maps are a terrific way to find quiet places to enjoy nature and watch for birds.
posted by kristi at 1:16 PM on October 9, 2010