Wednesday, 17 March 2021
 |
| today's route |
This morning there was such dense ground fog that it actually hid wind turbines; I know they're there when I get close enough to see through the fog. Fortunately, that burned off over time.
About 25 miles from the campground we came to Zapata. It's unincorporated so all I can tell about its size is that the county as a whole has over 14,000 residents. Despite being unincorporated, it's the county seat, and the courthouse is visible for some miles away because it's at the top of the highest hill around.
 |
| Zapata County Courthouse in Zapata |
The fog is obscuring the view of the dome in my photo, which is several shades of red and quite attractive. This was built 2003-2005, and I found a surprisingly rapturous description on this website that isn't usually prone to such language. https://www.waymarking.com/Zapata-County-Courthouse Among other things that page says there's a lot of wealth in this town, and I noticed for myself that it seemed to be quite a substantial town - more than its size and lack of incorporation would suggest.
I didn't sleep much last night, finding it difficult to go to bed in full daylight - it's disorienting. I really do wish we could do away with Daylight Savings Time (and hope those in Congress talking about making DST permanent would note the number of jurisdictions in the US that currently refuse to go on it - including entire states). So I found myself practically cracking my jaw by yawning so much and pulled over to find some CDs and get a Diet Coke for the extra caffeine.
I thought I saw some bluebonnets along the road, though I'm sure I saw other wildflowers and may have just been indulging in wishful thinking.
I saw no Trump signs/flags at all today, though I did see several Biden/Harris signs.
But I did get 3 thank yous today from drivers grateful for me pulling over to let them pass.
As I've come north along the Rio Grande Valley I've discovered how much Spanish I've forgotten. I guess it's just been too long since I've used it, and now I find enormous gaps in my vocabulary and ability even to form sentences. Really a shame.
I was surprised to see as I went towards Laredo that the land was no longer flat. I was driving on lots of hills, passing huge crop fields, and other large fields of mesquite and oaks and something smaller that hadn't begun to acquire new leaves yet.
A new day and farther north and still I saw state trooper cars.
Without intending to, I ended up spending some time in Laredo, pop. 236,091. I've never really been here before - only as I was passing through on my way across the border. I-35 that runs from north to south all the way across Texas, including through Dallas, Waco, Austin, and San Antonio, goes straight to Laredo, so it's the logical entry point to Mexico for much of the population of Texas.
I'd just gotten into the city limits when I decided to take a stretch-your-legs break in a nearly empty parking lot for Laredo College. I hadn't been parked 5 minutes when one of its security officers had pulled up beside me. When I explained what we wanted to do and asked permission, he said sure he just wanted to be sure everything was okay. Which didn't make sense to me - what wouldn't be okay? - but he had to explain it somehow. I guess older-white-female-with-2-dogs seemed unintimidating, or at least not doing something illegal.
A sign told me it was already 76° at 10:00.
Laredo College is a junior college with more than 10,000 students, which seems huge to me. Also in Laredo is Texas A&M International University, which sounded very fancy but instead seems to be just a name that A&M gave the school when it joined the system.
Speaking of international, Laredo has 2 international bridges and, as I noted above, is a very busy port of entry.
Laredo also has a bizarre batch of one-way streets throughout its downtown area, as well as some road closures for construction, so I spent a lot of time driving around and around first, to find the county courthouse and next, to get an angle for a photo.
 |
| Webb County Courthouse in Laredo |
 |
| pretty fancy courthouse, huh? |
Even the random buildings I passed in my wanderings were decorated.
By the time I got the county courthouse photo, we all thought it was lunchtime so I tried to find someplace to park. I ended up in the San Agustin Historic Zone, which covers the original city of Laredo, founded in 1755. It's an even more impenetrable maze of narrow, mostly one-way streets, which I found frustrating because I had to concentrate on my driving instead of sightseeing. Many of the buildings were quite old (for Texas); I found a nice little plaza in front of La Posada Hotel, which looked just like the old-but-nice hotels I've stayed in in Mexico.
I saw signs for Outlet Mall, which sounded like I could at least stop in the parking lot for a little bit so I headed there. I saw the sign that said No Outlet but figured it just went to a parking lot. Well, yes and no.
What it went to was a parking garage. With a maximum height of 10' 6" so I knew we couldn't fit and I stopped dead in the driveway. So where are security guards when you actually need them, I wondered as I searched frantically for some help. Nearby I saw a young woman who was clearly broadcasting live on television (I could see she was responding to something she heard in her earpiece), and she surprised me because she was doing her own camera work. I always figured those on-site interviews and reports I've seen on TV had a separate person there for camera operation, but not this time. Anyway, when she was through I asked if she knew how to find help - at which point a couple of security guards started coming out of the mall and - at the same time - cars pulled into the driveway behind me, with them blocking me from backing up and me blocking them from going forward. I got a lecture but was abjectly apologetic and the security guards moved some barricades and helped me turn around and cleared out the driveway to let me go the wrong way out to freedom.
At this point I still wanted to stop and, on my way out of town, I found one of the public library branches. When I went to ask permission to park, I saw a sign saying they were closed due to COVID, so we stayed for a bit. The library had a small park in front of it that had a surprising amount of history on its own.
This little plaza is complete with its own decorated fountain.
 |
| the fountain |
 |
| a closer view of the decorations |
Back on the road, I passed a sign that said: "Texas Hold 'Em Project - 710 CDLs Revoked." That turns out to be a real thing - the Texas Hold 'Em Initiative begun in 2008 by US Customs and Border Patrol jointly with TX Dept. of Public Safety. The point is to try to discourage truckers from smuggling people over the border in their trucks by revoking their commercial driver's license permanently if they're convicted of felony smuggling while operating a motor vehicle. As of 2017, 620 licenses had been revoked, 421 for human smuggling and 199 for drug smuggling. Apparently the total's up to 710 now, which is a lot of CDLs when you think about how many don't get caught at all or get caught but not convicted.
Once I got onto US 83 heading north, I ended up in 20 or 25 miles of road construction, complete with jersey barriers and narrow lanes and lots of oncoming traffic. I was also battling some scary-strong crosswinds at a time when I didn't have any extra room to be blown off course. I was getting hot and tired and wishing I'd taken I-35 straight up to Cotulla instead of taking this side trip to Carrizo Springs.
Carrizo Springs, pop. 5,368, was named by the Spanish for local artesian springs which, by the way, produce such pure clean water it's often exported for use as holy water.
 |
| Dimmit County Courthouse in Carrizo Springs |
I wondered about the county's name and have learned it was named for Philip Dimmitt, who figured largely in the Texas Revolution. Note the difference in spelling, which was the result of a mistake in the state legislature when it named the county. I don't know how it is that Texas seems to keep shooting itself in the foot (note the western metaphor).
 |
| a lot of information about the courthouse |
Driving east to Cotulla, I passed a ranch named Poco Mas.
All afternoon I passed large pipeline pumping stations, sometimes several all in one small area. The result, by the time I'd gotten to FM 468 with 20 miles to town still to go, was some very rough roads, probably due to the big rigs that likely serviced those pumping stations. After I'd gone for miles of very rough road, I saw a sign warning me of "Rough Road."
I finally got to the Cotulla KOA and was stunned to see the guy in the office not wearing a mask. His customers were, and I finally asked him why he wasn't. He said, "one, because the governor said we didn't have to and two, because we have had zero problems here." Those were such lousy reasons all I could think of to do was get out of that office as quickly as possible.
On the plus side, he noticed I was dragging a hose that he said was for the AC and he voluntarily got some zip ties and fixed it for me, which involved spending some time on his back in the gravel under my RV. A pretty noble thing to do, I have to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment