Tuesday, 22 December 2020
On the 2nd of our early morning walks at Lake Somerville, I saw a skunk walking quickly (for a skunk) across the road near our campsite. Dexter wasn't sure what he was looking at, which was good, and he took the out-of-sight-out-of-mind attitude when the skunk disappeared into the brush, which was even better. Gracie missed it all.
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| today's route |
On the road
Today was a very long drive (as you can see above) that took us through 3 quintessentially east Texas population hubs as well as many smaller towns.
A half hour down the road from Lake Somerville State Park is the town of Giddings, pop. 4,881. The high school athletes are known as the Buffaloes (per signs around town). Giddings is also the site for the Texas Wendish Museum. The Wends emigrated from eastern Germany, arriving here in the mid-1800s. Since Giddings itself wasn't founded until 1871, that makes the Wends very early settlers here.
Giddings is also a county seat, with a courthouse built in the 1890s. Why don't modern courthouses look as happy as this? Yes, we should take the law very seriously, but that doesn't mean we need to be grumpy about it.
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| Lee County Courthouse in Giddings |
A few miles down the road is the unincorporated town of Warda, also settled by the Wends.
The town of La Grange, pop. 4,641, is only about 20 miles down the road from Giddings. It was founded in 1837 and named in honor of Marquis de Lafayette, whose castle in France was named Château de la Grange-Bléneau. La Grange is the county seat for Fayette County, also named in honor of Lafayette, whose death in 1834 obviously did not signal the death of American gratitude for his services to the country.
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| Fayette County Courthouse in La Grange |
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| the museum is in 2 historic buildings (above) |
Not far outside of town, we passed Sanctuary Serengeti, with large fields of a wide variety of African animals - zebras being the most easily identifiable. A startling sight for those who aren't expecting it, like me.
Coming into Columbus, another 25 miles down the road from La Grange, we crossed the Colorado River on a new bridge. Next to it was the original bridge, I think, but it looked like it had been shrink-wrapped. The entire bridge. Not in the usual shrink-wrap material, but still entirely encased in some kind of tight material. It really looked odd.
Because we'd left last night's campground at 7:30 this morning, I decided it was time for a rest stop. We were lucky to find a parking place only a couple of blocks from the town square, where we found another county courthouse.
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| Colorado County Courthouse |
And then there's the information on the historical marker shown below left.
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| about the courthouse |
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| 1883 water system improvements |
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| detail from water tower photo (right) |
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| the 1883 water tower (see marker above) |
The courthouse and the water tower are the only buildings on the town square. But across the street I saw this gorgeous building.
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| Stafford Bank and Opera House - 1886 |
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| detail of bank/opera house |
The bank building is on the first floor and the opera house is on the second floor. I'm sure that made sense in 1886.
Columbus has an oddity as part of its history, a man known as Three-legged Willie, and a tree that's now known as the same.
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| this is the man |
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| this is the tree |
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| this is the history |
There are historical markers all over town. Here are 2 more I saw that seemed interesting.
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| 1st Texas drugstore |
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| earliest Texas Rangers |
Columbus has 3,655 residents. Note that all 3 of these county seats are actually pretty low on residents, yet all 3 look and act like thriving towns.
From Columbus, we drove out into farmland with lots of cows. We passed the Texas Bull Institute, but I couldn't find anything about it online. You'd think they'd want to distinguish themselves from all the bull that gets thrown around by Texas politicians.
Here and there we came across towns in varying sizes of small, from Garwood, pop. 1,000, to Nada, pop. 165 (in an apparently self-fulfilling prophecy).
At El Campo, pop. 11,602, we passed a vet's office with the sign: "We Woof You a Meowy Christmas." El Campo is by far the largest town in Wharton County, but the town of Wharton (pop. about 8,800) is the county seat.
I passed a sign that read: "Havoline Oil - Born in Texas." Of course I looked that up, but online it says Havoline oil was created in New York, so I'm not sure where that claim came from.
Then I came to the town of Louise, which is where I'd been aiming for. The highway department didn't give it a sign, but online I learned it has 935 residents.
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| US Post Office in Louise |
The town put up a welcoming sign that says, "Clean Country Air to Share." And Louise is Home of the Hornets, according to another sign. Still another town with a Hornets mascot. Kind of odd, when you think about it. Apparently, a prime source of income in this town is rice growing, along with a little oil and gas.
My Daddy once taught a course to the student cadets at Texas A&M, and he assigned them to pick a small town in Texas and write about it. This was long long before the internet and personal computers, so information-gathering would have looked much different from today. One of his students had chosen the town of Louise, and my sister wrote me about the extraordinary good taste this young man had shown in making his choice, and in beginning his report: "The lovely name of the town of Louise only hints at its good qualities."
From there, we crossed the Navidad River, which was absolutely enormous, though since it's formed entirely from runoff, and not springs, it may have been really shallow and I was seeing everything it had.
I passed a homemade sign saying, "China Joe - Got to Go" which meant nothing to me until I saw the separate Trump sign. I sure am glad we've got the internet now so we can all stay well-informed and exchange competing ideas.
At Victoria, pop. 63,149, I decided we needed another rest break. Victoria is the county seat, a fact that I completely missed and so also missed the courthouse. I guess I'll have to go back.
Another reason I'll have to go back is to visit the Museum of the Coastal Bend at Victoria College, which I think is part of the University of Houston. I accidentally parked at the college and stumbled on the museum, which was closed. The "Coastal Bend" is where the state of Texas stops running nearly east/west and starts curving south to the Mexico border. I saw signs saying the museum explained why this is "where Texas history began" and described "13,000 years of history in the Texas Coastal Bend." The Texas Gulf Coast is packed with interesting historical events, including pirates and immigrants and refugees.
In Victoria is a business called White Trash Services, which seemed to show a sense of humor. Their motto: No Trash Left Behind.
Near the town of Raisin I saw a highway sign that said, "Changing Signs Ahead." I never did figure out what that meant but had a mental image of someone running onto the highway and suddenly switching the signs, over and over during the day. Like a Keystone Cops movie.
At Fannin I passed McMillan's World Famous BBQ, and maybe it is, though I saw a poor review in Texas Monthly.
Also at Fannin is the Fannin Battleground State Historic Site. It commemorates a battle in 1836 in the Texas Revolution, where Col. James Fannin and his Texian forces were surrounded by Mexican soldiers, who captured and later executed them.
I was driving on US 59 when I saw a sign saying it was "future interstate corridor for I-69." A little farther down the road I saw another sign saying it was the Sen. Lloyd Bentsen Highway. I remember Lloyd Bentsen quite well, as he was running for senator in the first election I was allowed to vote in.
The land I was driving through didn't seem at all coastal to me, which makes sense since you can see by the map above that I wasn't actually all that close to the Gulf. I passed farmland, cows, hills and oaks. Nope, not coastal.
I passed a sign for Historic Berclair, established in 1889. It's an unincorporated town that claimed 253 residents in 2000, which was a while ago. I didn't actually see any residents, myself. I did see a sign that said, "Friendly People, Cattle, Oil, Hunting - Where President George Bush Hunts." I don't know which George Bush hunts/hunted here. And honestly, my first impression of that sign was that they had friendly cattle and oil and hunting here, as well as friendly people. And maybe they did.
I passed through the towns of Goliad, pop. 1,908, and Beeville, pop. 12,863, both of which are, like Victoria, county seats. And when I was planning today's route, I completely missed that fact and therefore missed seeing the county courthouses. I'm pretty sure I missed it because, by insisting on going through Louise, I was greatly extending the length of today's drive and I mostly focused on getting to the campground, rather than on what I could see on the way. But I'd like to go back and pick them up if I have time.
I passed 3 inspection stations for commercial motor vehicles today, all of them spaced widely apart, and not one of them open. Today's a Tuesday, which I usually think of as a working day, so I wondered why.
At the town of Skidmore (Home of the Bobcats and the Ladycats, they say), I started heading west on a state highway and suddenly the land got very flat. It was still farmland, there were still cows and goats and a large wind farm, but it was very flat. Much more coastal.
And I'm still seeing lots of Trump flags and signs.
I remembered staying at Lake Corpus Christi State Park 3 years ago, so I knew exactly the campsite I wanted, and I was lucky enough to be able to reserve it. What I hadn't remembered is that the place is full of stickers, which Dexter immediately started finding as soon as he stepped off the paved road.
I remembered that part of the campground was oriented around an inlet from the lake, and that there was enough water in it to support a large number of ducks. On this visit, though, there wasn't even a hint that the inlet had ever existed. I mean, the place for it was still there but not a drop of water, let alone ducks. It really made a different atmosphere, somehow.
Every campsite was taken - I suppose folks planning to stay for Christmas in a few days. And as usual, at least half of them had dogs. So I was very thankful I'd gotten a site at the end of the row near the lake and near a picnic area, so we could get away from all of that for some walks (when I could get Gracie to ignore the noises of the little kids and keep Dexter's feet free of stickers).
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