Texas - Day 22 - Paris, Texarkana, East Texas

Daingerfield State Park, Daingerfield
Tuesday, 24 November 2020

When I walked the dogs this morning, I noticed as many as a third of the campers were using tents or, at most, one of those very small trailers.  I saw one small A-frame pop-up trailer that had solar panels covering 1 of the 2 sides of the A-line roof.

Lots of deer in this park.

today's route

On the road

I noticed the Sulphur River has 3 forks: the North, the Middle, and the South.  I know because we crossed them all today.

The Paris Texas Harley Owners were litter pick-up volunteers.

We were getting intermittent showers all morning, as on the previous evening, and I wondered about all those folks out in tents in this kind of weather.  Must be young.  The TV weather person said there's a cold front moving in.

Paris

Paris, pop. 25,171, claims title of "Second Biggest Paris in the World."  It must be one of the older towns in Texas - founded in 1844.  Actually, because the Paris Fire of 1916 burned the entire downtown, none of the buildings match the age of the town.

This is the R.F. Scott Building, built 1916.
I thought it was too beautiful to be an office
building, which was its original purpose.

Signs called this
"Downtown Plaza."  I expected
a courthouse and found this
anti-climactic.  But it's 
surrounded by some lovely
old buildings around the plaza.

The photo at right is of the First Methodist Church, built 1922.  I saw it as I was driving down the street and didn't have any place to stop, so this is an internet photo.  But I was lucky there wasn't much traffic because I kept staring at this building.  I've never seen a Methodist church like it.

I passed the campus for Paris Junior College.  Founded in 1924, today it has 3 campuses and nearly 5,000 students among them.

I was aiming for the Eiffel Tower that I'd found unexpectedly online.  And it more than met my expectations.

centered directly under
the tower

I've never seen the real Eiffel Tower so have nothing to compare this one to.  But it made me smile and think that a lot of people in this town have a sense of humor.

It's immediately next to the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial, which had a few features I haven't seen at other such memorials.

This picture always
puts a lump in my throat
and tears in my eyes.

This plaque sits directly in front of the statue shown
at left.  Those figures are looking up at
the US flag flying from a flagpole in the center of the park.

Back on the road

This part of Texas goes in for names from other places: Reno (pop. 3,166), Detroit (pop. 732), Clarksville (pop. 3,285) ("Gateway to Texas"), New Boston (pop. 4,550), DeKalb (pop. 1,699).

We stopped for a rest break in the DeKalb Middle School parking lot, where I found the following sign:

Staff at DeKalb schools are armed and trained and ready to use the force necessary to protect our children.

I was seriously relieved that school was out for Thanksgiving holidays - or maybe for the virus.

Texarkana
On the way into town I passed the Red River Army Depot, and I was curious so I looked it up.  It was established in 1941 as an ammo storage, but almost immediately grew into a whole lot more.  It did and still does provide maintenance and support services worldwide, and provides training and other services to the "4 States Area" (TX, AR, LA and OK).  Their motto is "Our Best - Nothing Less!" and "Build it as if Your Life Depends upon it - Theirs does!"  (They go in for exclamation marks here.)  This facility now has Dept. of Defense's only rubber products division, doing research and testing and so forth.

I still remembered spending a little time in Texarkana (pop. 29,660 on the TX side) last March, when I was staying on the Arkansas side.  Because of that I didn't feel much need to explore the town again, but I'd found one place that's definitely on the Texas side of town that I wanted to see.

The Ace of Clubs House

This house was built in 1885 in the shape of a club, as in one of the 4 suits on playing cards.  It has 22 sides, a 20' tall tower and a spiral staircase.  It's now a museum, which seems like a shame to me because it was clearly built to live and have fun in.

Back on the road
I saw an Arkansas license plate that read: NVRWNTR.  Doesn't that mean Never Winter?  If so, I'd say they didn't go far enough south, because this particular day was pretty chilly and as overcast as you see in my photo above.

Going south on US 59, we passed Wright Patman Lake.  I'd heard his name in a John Putnam Thatcher mystery (believe it or not), so the lake made me curious.  I'm sure he was needed in his own time - not least because he contributed significantly to the end of Nixon's presidency - but he sounds like someone who's needed in our time too.  Here's a link to some background.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Wright-Patman

In the town of Atlanta (pop. 5,675), I found that Louise Street is one of their main streets.  We stopped at the city park on that street and had a nice walk among the pines.

I've never been clear exactly what area the name "Piney Woods" refers to, but I'd say we're definitely in it here.  This east TX landscape couldn't be more different than that I saw in west TX.  Here it's many many trees, green fields, rolling hills.  Almost lush, even at this time of year, in comparison to the stark landscapes in west Texas.

And from there, I thought I had an easy drive to the state park.  But Google's directions turned out not to be clear enough.  I ended up on the right road, but way way away from the end of it Google thought it was sending me.  I drove for miles and miles along a narrow country road - lovely scenery - but it was unsettling for me to not know where I was.  I knew what road it was, and I found it on the map, but I didn't have any directions to match that so ended up just continuing to drive.  I finally found where I was supposed to be and have no idea how I ended up on that detour.

But that meant I was tired and distracted by the time I found the campground, and our campsite.  And then had to deal with the dogs for whom a walk an hour previously was in the Dark Ages and they expected another one instantly.  You know, traveling around in an RV isn't as relaxing as one might think.  Or at least, not the way I'm doing it, with the companions I've got.  Oh, well.  My choice.