Wednesday, 9 December 2020
When the dogs and I went out for a 4:30 AM walk, we surprised a roost of vultures that were occupying a tree right above the trailer of that nice couple with the large dog. I doubt if I'd have noticed, but the vultures did notice and all flew away at once, which was pretty startling in the dark. I felt really bad when we found them in the tree they'd all moved to after we startled them the first time, scaring them a second time. Poor things probably just wanted a decent night's sleep.
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| today's route |
On the outskirts of Palestine, I saw a sign that said Old Magnolia Town. That's all I saw about it, so I looked it up and found these combined sources of information about life on a Texas river in the 1800s. https://historictexas.net/magnolia-texas
I came next to a sign saying Tennessee Colony, and that's all I saw about that too. It turned out to be almost what you'd expect - an unincorporated town established in 1847 by settlers that moved in from Tennessee and Alabama. It may still exist and was said to have 300 residents in 2000.
Palestine itself has 18,712 residents and struck me as an old town with random growth spread out around the original part of town. And it's the county seat.
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| Anderson County Courthouse in Palestine |
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| detail from photo at left |
Palestine, by the way, is pronounced -steen, not -stine like the area in the Middle East. And to my surprise once again, it was named for the town in Illinois, not the Biblical place.
It's so common for towns in east Texas to be 25-35 miles apart, that I feel confident it's because of travel times in the early and mid-1800s when White settlers came into this area. In this case, Palestine is less than 30 miles from Rusk. I drove past thickly wooded areas, hay fields, deer, frost still visible at 9:15 (I was right to get propane 2 days ago).
There's an old railroad that still runs between the 2 towns. Built originally in 1881 by the inmates of the Rusk Penitentiary to bring supplies to the prison, it soon expanded to public use and then was converted to a tourist attraction in the 1970s.
I went to the Rusk Depot, hoping to see the train or get some information about its history. Instead I found no trains in sight but, because the area included a campground and picnic area, they charge an admission fee for any day use, like walking my dogs, which is what I'd also hoped to do. When I explained my plan to the woman at the ticket counter, she agreed I could walk the dogs for free if I stayed in the immediate vicinity. She said the only train this time of year is the Polar Express, running in November and December. The railroad's website has a vehement statement about the virus and the behavior expected of passengers. It's the most detailed I've seen anywhere so far, and I'm attaching it in case you're curious. https://texasstaterailroad.net
So, on into Rusk, pop. 5,551. I saw an old town with an old downtown and zero vacancies. To me, that was stunning, indicating as it does that this town is doing just fine.
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| Cherokee County Courthouse in Rusk (as I saw it) |
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| online version, showing what's behind the trees |
I could find no angle that I could take a photo where the building wasn't mostly obscured by those huge oaks in front. That's why I looked its photo up online (on the right, above). What I could see, though, was an unusual building made of a stone I haven't seen on any of the others.
It was another 35 miles to Crockett, past nonstop farms and clusters of houses or occasional solitary houses, interspersed with thick woods. Narrow winding roads with lots of hills, and more than a few logging trucks.
I saw a cow facing the road by the fence obviously mooing, with several other cows rushing over to the mooing one. Really. I can't help but wonder what on earth was going on.
Both Slocum (pop. 198 in 2018) and Salmon (pop. 20 in 2000) have operating sawmills, which seemed surprising in a relatively uninhabited area. Grapeland has 1,489 residents and an extremely popular cafe, judging by the number of cars in the parking lot at 11:20 AM.
Latexo, pop. 322, must be a very forward-thinking community because they've got a big sign bragging about the excellence of the local high school students in UIL academic competitions. Specifically they usually do well in speech, persuasive speaking and current events, and in 2015 took 1st and 2nd and 3rd places in the 2A math competition. I'm impressed.
Crockett
I just did not get along with this town at all. I'm sure it's a nice place, but it and I just didn't work out together. It started with a shopping trip into the worst Brookshire Brothers store I've ever seen by a mile. It was dirty and crowded and some people didn't wear masks and I couldn't find most of what I wanted.
Then I misunderstood the road signs and thought I was on a 1-way street, and was only saved from running into someone by their quick thinking. That was on a narrow uphill street, making things even more difficult. I stopped at a nearby green area for us to walk around, and learned it's set aside for a Farmer's Market, which I appreciated, but it just wasn't enough to keep me from having a bad feeling about this place. A shame.
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| Houston County Courthouse in Crockett |
Back on the road
I drove through part of the Davy Crockett National Forest, passing through Kennard, pop. 337 - Small Town, Big Heart.
In the town of Ratcliff, so small nobody wants to tell me how many people live there, I saw a sign saying: "The wages of sin are death - Quit before payday." Presumably meaning to quit sinning. That seemed like some odd reasoning to me, assuming the "payday" is the day we die, but if everyone dies (which we do) then does it matter how much we sin? But then I realized the sign poster must be meaning eternal life, which I can't say I find very attractive, personally, but it's clear lots of other people do. All of which doesn't mean I intend to run out and start sinning. (See, this is what happens when I can't get an NPR station - I start following my thoughts, usually leading to a tangle.)
I passed what I'm sure was a chicken farm, though there was no sign of any kind.
Google had told me to exit right from TX 7E, then turn left on US 69. Of course I assumed there'd be some kind of sign indicating the roads or the towns the roads would go to. I assumed way wrong. No sign whatever. Just suddenly there was a ramp off TX 7E at somewhere near the mileage Google had said it would be, so I took a chance. It wasn't until I was ready to turn left that I finally saw a sign saying I'd be turning onto US 69. Color me peeved.
In the town of Alto, with 1,225 residents (but no highway sign) I saw a sign for "Jone's Farm Produce." Do you suppose the person's name was Jone? Or instead that someone named Jones had lived all his or her life without learning where to put the possessive apostrophe in his or her name?
I turned on TX 21 and saw a small barn that had been turned completely over and was lying on its roof.
I'd intended to go to the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, where I understood they were still excavating the mounds they'd discovered that had been built by the Caddo Indians. Yet another disappointment in this day: the site was barely marked and was behind a serious fence that may not have been intended to discourage, but did discourage me. So I kept on going down the road to tonight's campground.
I'd been semi looking forward to Mission Tejas State Park, where I'd heard there were some historic buildings that had been preserved, plus the campground was so small I figured I'd be okay walking my dogs. Of course, none of that happened. Instead, the park's signs routed me, in my RV, into a parking lot way away from the office (cars were allowed to drive right up to the window). I parked, put on my mask and gloves, and climbed a bunch of stairs to the office to get checked in. When I commented on having to park so far away and walk up all those steps, the ranger said, "Well, if that's what you wanted to do . . ." like their signs had given me a choice. I was really peeved (again), because I'd been trying to avoid closed areas and limit my contacts with people. By the time I'd walked back down to the RV, I just couldn't summon any interest in tracking down whatever historic remains they had.
I found the road to the campsites was very narrow, 2-way in name only, winding, very much downhill with blind curves. I was extremely grateful I didn't meet anyone on the way down.
Then getting to my campsite was challenging because I like to drive around the campground and see where the dogs and I can walk, but at this campground they'd neglected to put up signs saying it was a one-way road around the camping loop, and of course I went the wrong way and had a heck of a time trying to back up and turn around, and ended up not knowing what lay beyond my field of vision in the campground.
So I gave up and went to my campsite, where I discovered that I could park in the space only because my RV was less than 25' long: when I was as far back as the tree smack behind my site would allow, there was less than a foot between my front bumper and the road. It gave me no chance to try to maneuver a little to make the RV remotely level and we spent the night feeling like we were hanging on the edge of a cliff.
There was nowhere at all for us to walk that wasn't a very very steep hill, meaning we had to climb up either to come or to go. And Gracie hates going uphill and makes me do half the work of getting her up, which with my asthma isn't something I can do easily.
In other words, this campground may have been wonderful for other folks, but it was a disaster for us. The appropriate end to a messed-up day.
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