Local Color XC

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The abandoned, 10-story Hotel Sabine in donwtown Port Arthur, TX

Local Color XC in USA Today

March 16, 2016 by Melissa Dohmen in Behind the Headlines

Since leaving Nebraska last December, Local Color XC has explored 13 states and counting. Nothing could have prepared us for Port Arthur, TX, without a doubt the most depressing - and, in turn, enlightening - stop on our trip. For his second "Road Trip USA" installment for USA TODAY, Carson chose to write about our experience in Port Arthur, a city that produces nearly a million barrels of crude oil a day and yet, somehow, shows no signs of prosperity. 

We felt a certain heaviness that night as we tossed in our sleep, a surreal neon glow tinting the window shades. It doesn’t take long to feel that way in Port Arthur; what it must feel like to live there, to breathe the putrid stench of the refineries, I can only imagine.

To be a tourist in Port Arthur is to ignore your own reflection. You don’t tour anything here. You swallow it.

Read the full story at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2016/02/27/port-arthur-texas/81002214/

March 16, 2016 /Melissa Dohmen
Port Arthur, Texas, Gas, Oil, Refinery, Sea Rim State Park, USA Today, travel writing
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