Wednesday, 25 November 2020
We had heavy rain, thunder and lightning during the night. It really scared Gracie, of course. But I lay in my nice dry comfortable bed and thought about all the campers using tents at this campground. Neither David nor I will ever forget the 1st camping trip our family went on, which involved more mishaps than any one trip should have, including pouring down rain when what we had was an old canvas Army tent. From that experience, we both remember this rule: "Never touch the roof of a tent when it's raining." (It'll leak.)
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| today's route |
The first part of today's route took us past a lot of small lakes and one quite large one.
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| Lake O' the Pines (yes, that really is the way they spell it and capitalize it) |
FM 729 was a winding country road and, because it's fall, I saw some red and yellow but mostly brown dead leaves with green pines. Thick underbrush.
I heard on the radio that Texas had more than 14,000 new COVID cases in 1 day yesterday. It's appalling and terrifying.
I passed a church with this sign: "Our God Is Living. Sorry About Yours." Do you suppose they think this is a Christian message?
I kept passing signs warning of a school bus stop ahead and was thankful that there was no school bus today (tomorrow's Thanksgiving, after all). It can get a little dangerous on these narrow winding roads.
I crossed Johnson Creek and Hurricane Creek and both looked like they were either large rivers or large lakes. But I didn't see a creek anywhere.
Jefferson
This looked like just the sort of town someone would want to come visit once the virus is dealt with. Despite having only 2,106 residents, the town has lots of B&Bs as well as the Stillwater Inn and Restaurant (noted for fine dining, they claim). Founded in 1841 and named for Thomas Jefferson, the town still has lots of brick streets and French-looking buildings.
This looked like just the sort of town someone would want to come visit once the virus is dealt with. Despite having only 2,106 residents, the town has lots of B&Bs as well as the Stillwater Inn and Restaurant (noted for fine dining, they claim). Founded in 1841 and named for Thomas Jefferson, the town still has lots of brick streets and French-looking buildings.
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| so you can see the neighborhood |
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| closer view of the fountain |
I stumbled on this fountain - the Sterne Fountain - with its own historical marker. I couldn't take a photo of the marker but you can see it at this link. https://www.hmdb.org/Sterne-Fountain
There's the Blackburn Syrup Works and the Jefferson Historic Society Museum, including the RD Moses Model Railroad ("100s of Trains and Cars" and "So Big It Has Its Own Building").
Near the museum I found a wonderful old railway car with a historical marker titled "Jay Gould Railroad Car." The marker has some interesting turn-of-the-century insights, and it plus a photo of the RR car are at this link. https://www.hmdb.org/Jay-Gould
Another block or two from there, we finally found somewhere to stop and walk (plenty of sidewalks in town but I didn't want the dogs relieving themselves on the brick streets or old houses). This green area was called Big Cypress Bayou, complete with walking trail, a history & nature center, and a historical marker, which claims that this thoroughly inland town was once "southwest's greatest inland port." https://www.hmdb.org/Jefferson-Turn-Basin We had a nice walk that was unfortunately cut short by the appearance of a young woman with her dog coming back from the walking trail and, since her dog was as alert and bristly as Dexter, and since my dogs hadn't yet seen hers, I figured it was only prudent to hustle mine back to the RV as quickly as I could.
Jefferson is the Marion County seat (named for Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox," but the courthouse was in the middle of some serious reconstruction, so it was totally off-limits.
Back on the road
From Jefferson I took FM 134, another winding country road full of s-curves, through the Piney Woods countryside. I saw farms, cows, deer.
All along the way I continued to see lots of Trump signs, often with large Confederate battle flags nearby.
I tried hard to get a glimpse of Caddo Lake, which I'd seen well from the Louisiana side, when I stayed at a state park there for a couple of days. But Texas didn't want to let me get near it. I'd tried to map out a route following the roads in the town of Karnack I could see on a Google map, but they turned out not to exist. Really. And I was afraid to try ambling down the roads I did find, because they were narrow and unpaved and I had no idea where they'd go or whether they'd lead me to the lake or how I'd get back again.
Then I found the way into the Caddo Lake State Park, Texas version, thinking I could just drive around a bit in the park and go to the picnic areas. But unlike other state parks, they wanted me to park and go inside and, given the serious virus precautions I'd seen at other state parks, that struck me the wrong way. And anyway, I knew that the park's access wasn't really to Caddo Lake itself but instead to an offshoot of it, by which boaters could get to the main lake. I didn't figure that offshoot would give me a view of the lake, which is what I wanted, so I got myself out of the area and back on the road. Weird. Louisiana didn't try to hide the lake from me, so what's Texas's problem?
According to the map, Karnack is near the town of Uncertain, which I never found but a state I achieved, nonetheless.
Farther down the road, I got to Marshall, pop. 23,935, which has an office for the Texas A&M Forest Service. And this seems a much more reasonable location for a forest service than that one I saw way out in west Texas. Marshall has a "historic downtown," including the Texas & Pacific Depot and railroad museum. And a street named David Street.
Marshall has Wylie College, which was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest predominately black colleges west of the Mississippi. It currently has more than 1,000 students. Marshall also has the East Texas Baptist University, with about 1,500 students. All in all, I'd say Marshall's got a lot more going for it than I expected in a relatively small town.
Next up was Longview, pop. now estimated at 81,647. These towns over here are all within 30 miles of each other, which is why I'm stringing them together like this. I saw banners downtown proclaiming "1870 - 2020 150 Years" and "100 Acres of Heritage." I passed a building labeled Medical Simulation Center, which seems to be a place where students can practice treatment skills, as far as I can tell from an online description.
Longview is also the home of the East Texas Regional Airport which, because of its unusually long runway of 10,000', has been the backup landing site for US space shuttles. A little known factoid. I could see for myself that Longview has lots of parks.
Farther down the road was Kilgore, pop. 12,975. It hosts the East Texas Oil Museum, which I didn't visit but would like to someday, as I suppose it chronicles the discovery in 1930 and development of the East Texas Oil Field. Oil was found in the city of Kilgore itself in 1937 (and I can't help but wonder how that discovery was made) and, by 1966, 24 wells had been installed within a 1 acre area in the middle of Kilgore, producing 2.5 million barrels of oil during their operation. It's been dubbed World's Richest Acre by the Texas Historical Commission. The wells no longer pump oil, and all but one of the original wells were dismantled. Thanks to the THC, though, Kilgore has restored and reinstalled a batch of wells as a tourist attraction, with stars put on top at Christmas. So in 2003, the Texas Legislature named Kilgore "City of Stars."
As far as I'm concerned, though, Kilgore is best known for the Kilgore College Rangerettes. They claim to be the best-known college drill team in the world, which may even be true. I've seen them perform at all kinds of events for most of my life - including the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC. I drove by the campus, which is very attractive, catering to about 4,800 students.
Nearby was Overton, hometown of one of my college roommates. Population 2,554, they cancelled this year's Christmas parade "due to the virus." Lots of virus-related disappointments this year, though that's certainly better than risking virus-related deaths.
I passed Arp, pop. 970, and passed more logging trucks, then came to a sign saying Swinney Town. Wikipedia says there's a town named Swinney, with a population of 3,684, and the motto of A City With Pride. If so, I wonder why I didn't see any signs saying so.
In New Chapel Hill, pop. 594, I saw a sign saying "Count Your Blessings, Not Your Problems." It's a good motto for these troubled times.
Tyler
The odd thing to me about this town of 105,729 is that it had so few signs touting its attractions. I stumbled on the ones I found. Even the highway department gave it short shrift since I had to look up its population for myself. Tyler calls itself the Rose Capital of the World, boasts a municipal rose garden with 35,000 types of roses, and hosts an annual Rose Festival. It also calls itself the Capital of East Texas. (For all its online hyperbole, I'm even more surprised I didn't see any of this in town.)
Coming into town I passed the East Texas Islamic Society Mosque and School. Their website says there are almost 400 Muslim families in this area. I'm very likely maligning this town - and this area - by expecting they wouldn't welcome Muslims with open arms, but they must at least be tolerating them because otherwise there wouldn't be so many in this one area.
I passed the Tyler Junior College, which has an enrollment of 10,000+ and a campus that looks more like a 4-year college.
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| Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception |
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| close-up of the tower |
I passed a building that looked just like an old train station, which is what it was. The sign said Historic Cotton Belt Depot, though these days it's a museum. It opened in 1905 for train service and was abandoned in 1977, then deeded over to the city, who's restored it. Funny how train stations almost always look like train stations.
Downtown Tyler has brick streets, old buildings, a Pepsico bottling plant, and its very own Civil War POW camp. Camp Ford was the largest POW camp west of the Mississippi from 1863 until 1865. In total it housed 5,400 soldiers from every Union state except Delaware and Vermont. It's open to the public now.
Back on the road
I passed through Upshur County - isn't that a name from West Virginia?
I passed a tree farm and large horses with the feet of Clydesdales. Maybe they were. I saw quite a few horses in this area.
For some reason, the name Gilmer rings a bell, but I didn't find the reason in Wikipedia. It does have a few claims to fame, though. It has 4,905 residents, and was the birthplace of Johnny Mathis, Freddie King and Don Henley, which is a lot of well-known musicians for one small town. It was on the Old Cherokee Trace and, later on the Trail of Tears.
I passed several orchards, though I couldn't tell what kind of trees they were.
Pittsburg, pop. 4,497, says it's Great Lake Country. Gasoline here was 20¢/gallon higher than it was in Gilmer, less than 20 miles away.
And finally I came to Mt. Pleasant, pop. 15,564, where I planned to stay a few days at the KOA.
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