Monday, 28 December 2020
Goliad's campground is quite small - only 20 camping spaces plus 5 screened shelters - so it's no surprise it was nearly full. That made walking the dogs hard for me yesterday afternoon, and I was saved by being next to a large grassy area that led to a trail into the woods, so we could get out of sight of other dogs (Dexter's problem), though not out of sound of the screaming little kids (Gracie's problem). I finally just stuck them into the RV, closed the windows and turned on the fan to drown out the noises. It was better this morning, with everybody sleeping later than we do.
We left the campsite at 7:10, because even Google said my route would take 3½ hours of driving, meaning 5 to 6 hours for me. But when I tried to leave the campground, I found a locked gate. Now, most of the state campgrounds are gated at night, but all the others have gates that automatically open for departing traffic. But as you can see in these photos, Goliad strikes out on an unusual path: combination locks.
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| These arms were surprisingly hard to manage. |
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| There are 2 combination locks, only 1 of which actually frees the chain. |
When I checked in they gave me the combination, but in other parks that's to let people come back into the campground when they've gone out to a restaurant or something in the evening, so I ignored it. But here I was, early in the morning, trying to figure out which of the 2 combination locks I should be trying to program with this combination I had to dredge up from their materials. Of course I picked the wrong lock to try to open first, making this chore even more chore-ful. Then I had to deal with that rusty chain and move both those arms out of the way, drive out, get back out of the RV to pull the arms back again and put the chain in place and refasten the lock. Ah, the hazards of traveling alone. When I mentioned this to the ranger in another state park, he didn't believe me.
I didn't actually feel grumpy until I had to deal with this gate, but it spoiled my mood for a road trip. And the very heavy mist that settled on everything made driving these country roads more difficult.
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| today's route |
Today I visited 3 county seats, and then ran 2 important errands in Austin before finding the campground. So it was a lot of driving and a lot of doing.
On the road
From Goliad (a county seat) to Cuero (another county seat) it's 30 miles. Getting there I passed by the turns for several tiny or no-longer-existent towns: Yorktown (pop. 2,100), Weser (pop. 50 in 1990 - I saw a few houses at a crossroads), and Dobskyville (no longer there). When I see names like Dobskyville, I often think about the little scene in the first Superman movie, where Ned Beatty's bumbling Otis names a town after himself and Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor scorns him (Otisburg??). Wonderful actors, both of them. Dobskyville has just about the history you'd expect, and a perfect example of how American rural towns grew and waned. https://texashistoricalmarkers-site-of-dobskyville
The second I crossed from Goliad County to DeWitt County, I knew that DeWitt considered road maintenance a higher priority than Goliad did.
I crossed the Guadalupe River and came to the town of Cuero, pop. 6,841. Although the county that Cuero's the county seat of was established in 1846, the town wasn't established until 1872. (Really.) I was interested to see that some of the names of the streets in town show clearly what the history was: Main St., Church St., Railroad St., Courthouse St. And speaking of courthouses:
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| DeWitt County Courthouse in Cuero |
Cuero looked like a vibrant old town. They were installing a handicapped ramp at the courthouse, something most others don't have, now that I think about it. Even though Texas has a governor who's confined to a wheelchair, which you'd think might raise some consciousnesses.
All my driving today was on US 183, and all along the way I saw cows, horses, and Trump signs and flags. Also oak and pecan trees.
Another 30 miles down the road I came to Gonzales, which had no official highway sign but had an estimated 7,606 residents in 2018. It did have some unofficial signs, though, such as "Visit Historic Gonzales - Birthplace of Texas Freedom" and this riff on the Burma-Shave signs:
Travis in trouble
Alamo may fall
Gonzales 32
Answer the call
Both signs refer to incidents that Gonzales sees as starting points of the Texas Revolution.
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| This is a version of the "Come and Take It" incident the town is proud of. |
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| The 2nd paragraph is about the 32 men from Gonzales who fought and died at the Alamo. |
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| The plaque below is part of this memorial, though they don't actually say which heroic action it celebrates. |
My brother and I got a different impression of this town. David's take on it is that "Come and Take It" is emblazoned all over town, including garbage cans. Mine is that the folks here are doing their best to build tourism in this old town, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and I somehow missed the garbage cans.
Gonzales was founded in 1825 so, by Texas standards, it's an old town. I was interested to note that the First Baptist Church, established in 1847 they say, takes up an entire city block. More than the county courthouse does.
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| Gonzales County Courthouse in Gonzales |
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| detail from the courthouse, built in 1895 |
And speaking of an old town needing reinvention, here's what a piece of downtown looks like:
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| You can see Gonzales isn't exactly a hive of commercial activity. |
One of the stores shown here is the Gonzales Food Market, which in the past, at least, has ranked high on Texas Monthly's annual "Top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas" list - David says it's still good.
From Gonzales, it's 18 miles to Luling, pop. 5,411. For those in the know (which this time includes me) Luling's best known for its annual Watermelon Thump. A summer tradition since 1954, the Thump is 4 days of fun in celebration of watermelons, including a parade and the crowning of the Thump Queen.
Texas is one of the US's largest producers of watermelons, and farms around Luling produce 15,000,000 pounds or so each year, which is a lot of watermelons. I've always enjoyed the picture of a watermelon on Luling's water tower so was very disappointed on this visit to find the water tower without a watermelon. Is nothing sacred any more?
Luling is also unusual in having lots of working oil wells right in town - and it's a long way from Midland or Odessa where that sort of thing is more common. But Luling has added a clever twist to their oil wells by decorating them to become something humorous, rather than frankly unsightly. For instance, I saw one where the rocker arm looked like 2 children on a seesaw; one was decorated like a large grasshopper that went up and down, and another like an Orca whale that ditto. Unhappily, I also ran into a very strong petroleum smell - oil or gas - really powerful and really bad. That's the first time I've noticed that in Luling, but I sure did this visit.
Lockhart, pop. 12,698, is just another 15 miles farther along the road. Lockhart is another old town, established in 1848, and still has many old buildings, including the 1894 county courthouse.
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| Caldwell County Courthouse in Lockhart |
I noticed by accident that Lockhart is home to the Southwest Museum of Clocks and Watches. It's described variously as a "hidden gem" and home to "some unique clocks" so one day when I have time I'd like to go back for that.
Austin
From Lockhart to Taurus Academy, the doggy daycare and boarding place I used to take the dogs when we lived here, it's 35 miles and that's where we went. It was only when I got there and showed them the dogs' vaccination records that they said, "oh, don't you have the canine influenza vaccine?" Never having heard of this one I agreed that no, we didn't. And they almost refused to take the dogs. They offered to take the dogs to their usual vet, but the vet would charge $60/dog plus some amount of money/dog for an office visit, and they'd both need to get a 2nd shot each in a month - all so I could get rid of them for a while.
I'd been counting on boarding the dogs for 2 nights while I dealt with this root canal scheduled for tomorrow morning, so when they said that, I was almost reduced to tears. But when they heard that the dogs live a very isolated doggy life in the RV, never around other dogs, and when I explained about the root canal, they said okay but just this once. So I promised fervently that if I were able to bring them back I'd get the vaccine shots (which they anyway said don't always prevent the illness) and thankfully got rid of most of the energy sources in the RV.
I went from there back to the lab where I'd gotten the blood draw last week to dump off my 24-hour urine sample. And very glad I was to get that out of my refrigerator.
On the way to tonight's campground, I passed El Mercado restaurant, whose motto is "World Peace Through Tex-Mex." Which sounds just about as good a path to world peace as any that the international diplomats seem to be finding so why don't they give this a try?
I stopped at a Staples store looking for steno pads to take notes while I'm driving, and the sweet young thing at the cash register said, "Steno pads?" With as blank a look on her face as I'd ever seen - but this wasn't a problem I'd expected. So, trying to translate the 20th century to the 21st century, I explained what they looked like and she said oh yes they're ___, and I went back to ___ but as expected, no steno pads in sight. I understand stenographers aren't in big demand these days, but those pads are a useful size and can be used by both right- and left-handers, so what's not to like. But nobody seems to carry them any more. I think the last time I found them it was in a grocery store in a small town somewhere.
Then on to tonight's campground - a KOA that's actually in the Austin city limits and charges accordingly. I paid more for this campsite than I've ever paid before and take a look at what they gave me.
It wasn't even level. Not even sort of. But it was less than a half hour from the dentist I had an appointment with tomorrow, so . . .
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