Texas - Days 15 - 17 - San Angelo

San Angelo State Park, San Angelo
Tuesday, 17 through Thursday, 19 November 2020

I spent all of Tuesday and parts of Wednesday and Thursday in the campground.  On Wednesday I went into town to do a few errands and take a driving tour of the town.  On Thursday I did a few more errands and had coffee with the stepson of my friend John Pabor.  Because there's so much overlap, I'm combining the 3 days into one post.

Campground

This was a comfortable campground, close enough to town that I could pick up an internet signal but still remote enough to be very dark and quiet at night.  I understand there are some bison in the area and, though we didn't see the real thing, we did see these metal sculptures not far from our campsite.

From even a slight distance, these were surprisingly realistic and when I saw them our first night decided not to take the dogs where they could see them, thinking these were real critters.  By the next morning, though, I'd noticed that they were the most immobile real critters I'd ever seen and cautiously took the dogs closer so I could confirm.

The funny thing is that neither of the dogs even noticed them until the 3rd day when I walked the dogs right by the sculptures and watched Dexter do a double-take.  Gracie did too at exactly the same time, and for a minute I had my hands full trying to hang onto them.  But then Dext calmed down and started growling at these strange animals, obviously convinced they were real.  He didn't believe me when I told him they weren't, and we finally had to walk right up to them so he could sniff.  And once he'd sniffed, he acted like they were invisible, and he never paid attention to them again.  It was an odd performance.  Gracie, of course, was much more easy-going about the whole thing and didn't even bother to sniff them, having decided they weren't important.  I think this incident is an illustration of how thoroughly both dogs live through their noses, discounting their eyes entirely if their noses aren't aroused.

I also had a fair view of the lake, which looked suspiciously low from my vantage point, so one day we drove down to take a look.

You can see that this boat launch was left entirely high and dry, with a stretch of actual land between the end of it and the start of the lake.  It reminded me a lot of how Lake Travis outside Austin looked a few years ago when we'd had an extended period of drought.  One of the rangers here told me, though, that there's another boat launch on the other side of the lake that's still usable and is, in fact, being used.  She said folks were bringing in really nice expensive boats to launch into these waters, and she said (dubiously) that she assumed they knew what they were doing.  With the size this lake has shrunk to, though, it doesn't seem like it'd be worth the trouble of launching.

For some reason I never got around to asking about, there's no burn ban in either San Angelo or Tom Green County.  Most other counties I drove through to get here were advertising burn bans, but not here.

Carolina Wren - cute, isn't it?
They're just over 5" long.

I had a brown bird with prominent white eyebrows land on my non-existent window sill one morning.  I think he was just clinging to the framework around the window for a minute, before flying to a nearby tree.  From what I can figure, it was a Carolina Wren - it being the only one with a very definite white eyebrow and longish bill (which I also noticed) that is supposed to be in this area at this time of year.

There are plenty of deer here, and we saw them every morning on our early walks - exciting for the dogs, a nuisance for me.  Luckily for me, very few of the folks who camped near me had dogs, so I didn't have to spend my time dodging them.

San Angelo

For some reason I never figured out, Google's directions didn't at all match with what I found in real life, so I got lost almost as soon as I got to town.  Luckily, I found a street with a familiar name and ended up following my planned itinerary backwards.  That's not as easy as it sounds because I had trouble figuring out whether I should turn left or right, based on instructions coming from the opposite direction.  But I ended up finding the places I'd hoped to see.

One of those was the Concho River, which flows right through town, and the riverwalk park that the town's created along the banks.  It's a shame we got there right about lunch time so many others were out too, and I couldn't take the dogs as far as we both wanted.  But Gracie's ankle was still bothering her sometimes, so we were somewhat limited anyway.  Still, it was a pleasant area and an attractive river.

On Randolph Street, I saw an elaborate mural about the agricultural history of the area.

left side

in the center

right side

These are the 3 pieces of this mural.  But there were many others I saw driving around town, and here's a link to some.   https://www.gosanangelo.com/san-angelo-murals

I also found the county courthouse, which was a real work of art.

The building itself looks fairly square
and dryly official . . .

. . . but I hope you can enlarge this enough
to see some of this detail.

I drove by Angelo State University, the Railway Museum, found David Street, and stumbled on a place called Old Central Firehouse Bed and Brew.  This last is a large brick firehouse built in 1929 and used as a fire station until 1976.  It's now what they call a "bed and brew" which apparently means their breakfast is nothing much (cereal, yogurt, bagels) but they offer a happy hour for guests to sit around and chat.  And the bedrooms all have firehouse themes.  Here's the link.   https://www.ocfbedandbrew.com

San Angelo is the proud home of Robert E. Lee Middle School - Home of the Rebels.  I'm wondering if there's been any discussion here of considering a name change - or at least a mascot change.  But since more than 85% of the town is White and less than 5% of the town is Black, I'm guessing not much.  The local air force base is named Goodfellow, in memory of a man who fought in WWI, so that won't be one that's up for renaming if the majority of Congress that supports it can override Pres. Trump's objection to changing the names of some military bases.

My visit with Austin

I wasn't too sure about getting in touch with him, mostly because there's about 50 years difference between our ages and almost no history.  I'd met him a few times through John when they were living in Austin (TX) and I was taking care of my mom.  But he seemed glad for the chance to get together, so I suggested meeting for coffee in some outdoor location.  We ended up at at Starbucks not far from the state park.

He turned out to be a remarkable young man.  I'd had only limited conversations with him before, and anyway at his age people can change a lot in a short time.  He's now in his junior year of college, having started as a sports medicine major and now being in the business program.  He told me that in the public school he'd been going to, they insist (his version) that kids choose the direction they want to go with their lives when they're in their freshman year of high school.  I was in my 40s before I had even an inkling of what I wanted to do when I grew up, so if it's true the school was doing that, I can't believe the parents have been passively accepting this.

Anyway, Austin said he'd ended up in sports medicine in 9th or 10th grade, took all the classes his school offered, went to college with that in mind, and just kept on with it, despite not being particularly inspired by it.  He'd stumbled into business education by accident and was thrilled with it.  Business isn't a topic that would thrill me, but it's clearly something he loves.  It's so incredibly lucky to find a field you love when you're still young enough to capitalize on it - and I told him so.  I don't regret much in my life, but I can still see I could have lived a far more productive life if I'd known at his age that law was the field for me.  But I'm lucky I did find it, even though it came late.  Some people never do.

Besides going to school full time, he's working as a mechanic in a bowling alley, and incidentally learning mechanical skills.  He's living with his biological dad, reconnecting with him for almost the first time in his life.  He just seems like a likeable, all-round good kid.  Some people are born lucky, and I think he's one of them.  He said well, he works hard at school and at his job, and I said luck is nothing without hard work attached.  After all, I'm a lucky person but have always been too lazy to take advantage of it.  I told him when he's 85 he'll look back on his life and think how lucky he was.  I was glad we'd both made time for each other.

A final thought

My first roommate in college was a girl from San Angelo.  Her name was Donna, and I have no idea what her last name was because I haven't wanted to remember.  She didn't know any of the other students when she came to the school and seemed to have assumed she and I would be best friends.  I on the other hand knew several people before I came and was glad to renew my friendships with them.  Donna resented feeling left out, because though we tried to include her, she was a stranger to us.  Worse than that, I was accepted in a sorority and she wasn't, though she'd wanted to be.  And aside from all those messy situations, she and I were just not alike in much of anything and wouldn't have been friends even if I'd known no one.  

So our tiny shared room became a war zone of repressed emotions, not something I needed in my first experience away from a very sheltered upbringing.  As a result of all that, I've always thought of San Angelo as a terrible place I never wanted to go to.  (I can be irrational too.)

I don't think I'd feel comfortable living in a place that thinks the Robert E. Lee Rebels are a good idea, but aside from that, I learned there's a lot to this town that's very pleasant, even charming.  I'm glad I came.  And I hope Donna was able to find her way in life and has been happy.