Travel observations--retaining culture

I like areas that put some effort into retaining or restoring local flavor. In a well-connected world with shared technologies and supplies and ideas, uniqueness tends to disappear, cultural features blur, chain restaurants take over, and modern at that may or may not convey something of the artist and typically fails to to convey much of the culture or place they are from.

New Mexico is especially good at it, in some ways. They tried to capture and display local culture on the major highways, for example, with turquoise and terra cotta-colored overpasses, tiled sound barriers, and native traditional figures like in petroglyphs on bridge arches and some of the larger tiles. Texas as a whole didn't offer a lot but some of the newer overpasses were a nice shade of clay instead of the usual grey concrete. Waysides had native trees and plantings, and a few empty stretches had been left or planted with native plants to reinvigorate the nature and wildlife of the Rio Grand valley and other areas. In many cases, stores are recognizing the value of fitting into the expectation or desirability of local culture, building stores with the traditional roofing material or look-alikes. Or perhaps they've recognized the functionality that made them traditional in the first place. Steep roofs up north keep the snow from building up; domed terracotta allows cooling air flow in the south. generic may be cheap in the short run, but not always so much in the long run if it requires more electricity, more repairs, more other costs.

For myself, I just like the variety that local culture offers and generic modern culture rarely does. Chain restaurants, generic contruction techniques and materials, cookie-cutter houses, none of them have flavor, uniqueness, and the things that make a place visited memorable; all the things that make travel worth the doing.

Sea Rim State Park

Sea Rim in mid east Texas is empty this time of year, so shelling is pretty good but services limited to porta potties and beach access maybe a little challenging due to pools if it's rained recently. The absence of visitors doesn't hurt the shore bird populations, either, including plovers and pelicans. The fee is called an honor system but checked regularly, so if you don't already have a State Park pass that includes the day, get one. They are per person, not per car. They'll waste the time of park rangers even on an empty beach. On the other hand, no one will tell you that a pass at one State Park is a pass at all.