Friday, 19 March 2021
Before I left Inks Lake, I noticed a sign that explained where we were.
 |
| illustrates the series of lakes along the lower Colorado River |
 |
| explains where they came from |
The Lower Colorado River Authority regulates water usage from Inks Lake down to the Gulf of Mexico, which is an incredibly expansive range of authority, when you think about it.
 |
| today's route |
Llano, pop. 3,232, has a river running through town as many towns do - this time the Llano River, which I'll see again later today. I saw a number of signs welcoming the Jeep Jamboree, which I looked up and learned was an off-road adventure weekend that, this year, was centered on Llano, and I'd come right in the middle of it. Fortunately, I was there early in the morning and was just passing through. Wonder if all those Jeeps I saw at South Padre Island were heading up here.
I saw a sign at a restaurant that said, "I Drink Margaritas to Sanitize Inside," which sounds a lot more reasonable than the former president's suggestion of bleach.
This town seems to be old - founded in 1855, so yeah - but it also seems to be thriving, which is good to see. I saw 3 large locally-owned BBQ places within a few feet of each other just outside of downtown, so maybe they want to challenge Lockhart for BBQ title.
Llano is the county seat, and I really like the looks of their courthouse.
 |
| Llano County Courthouse in Llano |
 |
| a side door, but I wanted to show some detail |
I saw 7 Trump signs/flags today.
I noticed one of the volunteer litter crews along the highway was called "Protectors of the Earth" and assumed that was some environmental group I'd missed. But I'm glad I bothered to look it up because apparently the name came from a mini-movie about a crime-fighting network, or maybe originally a book, which there is one of and it might be related. But it's still a good name for a litter crew.
Today's scenery included lots of cows, mesquite, oak, hills, green grass and temporarily dry creek beds.
I passed a very small, very old cemetery with an old iron fence around it. And immediately outside the fence were several large, expensive, substantial grave markers. Maybe the original plots were filled but folks still wanted to be buried with their families?
I passed some kind of exotic animals in a field - these were deer-sized and deer-shaped, colored a rich chocolate/red brown with shortish curved-back horns - but what made me notice them was the mama with her baby.
I passed a nicely-kept though small house and yard with an old school bus parked in front. The bus was painted turquoise and white and had a message across the top saying "Not * Shabby" except that * is where they had a drawing of a hand making the peace sign, which is also the number 2, so they got several plays on words at once. (Sorry that I can't figure out where emojis are on my computer so I can make that message properly.)
Mason, pop. 2,114, is 34 miles from Llano, and also a county seat. However, speaking of courthouse fires, they've had a little problem here. This is the courthouse that I should have seen:
 |
| 1909 version of the Mason County Courthouse in Mason |
 |
| 2021 version of the Mason County Courthouse |
The fire was just last month and reported in the news nationwide, even making the New York City and Seattle newspapers. Local firefighters were responding to a house fire not far away when the dispatcher, located in the county jail near the courthouse (this is a small town), noticed flames at the courthouse too. The house fire helped pinpoint the suspected arsonist, caught nearing Waco, who was believed to be motivated by a recent family court case.
On a happier note, I managed - despite truly lousy directions from Google - to locate the statue of Ol' Yeller displayed at the local library.
 |
| showing Ol' Yeller |
 |
| showing Travis, the boy |
The author of the book that the movie was based on, Fred Gipson, was from Mason, which is why the statue is here. Some idiot that is probably also a QAnon follower started a rumor that, because Gipson's great-great-grandfather owned a slave, the library would be removing the statue. The poor librarians were instantly inundated with outraged phone calls and had to post a denial online (which probably stopped only a quarter of the calls).
Both in a nearby flowerbed and in an area with weeds I saw some bluebonnets, so maybe what I saw along the highway a few days ago was actually bluebonnets.
 |
| Bluebonnets, the Texas state flower |
Back on the road I passed more vineyards (Texas has really been working to build its wine industry) and cropfields and cows.
I passed a sign saying I'd come to the town of Camp Air, which seemed to consist of 2 houses at a crossroads. The censuses in 1990 and 2000 reported 15 people here, and I'm betting this is basically a ghost town now so can't quite understand why the highway dept. thinks it deserves a sign and other towns that have an actual population don't. Maybe these signs are being stolen?
We came to Brady, pop. 5,523, which calls itself the Heart of Texas, because it's the city closest to the geographical center of TX. Brady hosts an annual Heart of Texas Country Music Festival and the Heart of Texas Country Music Museum. It looked to me like a modern country/western town.
It's also a county seat.
 |
| McCulloch County Courthouse in Brady |
Driving west on US 190, I passed flocks of goats and sheared sheep, both with many young ones. The landscape was looking more and more tan because I was closing in on West Texas, so I really enjoyed the nice stretch of wild redbuds I passed along the way.
Sadly, I was also seeing quite a few dead deer.
It occurred to me as I was driving toward Menard, intending to turn south from there to head to Junction, that Menard might also be a county seat since it sits in Menard County. And sure enough, it is, but getting to the courthouse turned out to be a problem.
Since I hadn't planned this stop, I had to try to find it on my own. I figured Menard, with only 1,471 residents, couldn't hide a county courthouse, but first I had to find the main part of town. Once I crossed the San Saba River, I finally saw enough buildings to look like a downtown, which it was. And then I drove around until I found this building:
But as you can see, there's no street in front of the building. The entire rest of the block extending out of the left side of that photo is a park with a swimming pool. But this was the only building in the town that looked imposing enough to be a county courthouse, so finally I found a place to park and took the dogs for a walk.
 |
| Menard County Courthouse in Menard |
Although I saw some nicely-kept houses from the '30s or so, most storefronts seemed empty and I can't really tell where the town's money comes from. Its Wikipedia page doesn't say anything about the economy, but it does say that a third of the residents live below the poverty level. A shame, really, for a nice old town like this one (founded 1858 with a lot of prior history) to be dwindling away.
You can see in my photo that the day turned out to be sunny, but it was quite windy and chilly all day.
Coming into Junction, pop. 2,574, I saw a rock mass that reminded me of the incredible rocks around Grand Junction in Colorado. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. Junction is another county seat.
 |
| Kimble County Courthouse in Junction |
This is the county's 3rd courthouse and was built in the Art Deco style in 1929. Junction describes itself as a rural ranching community in the Texas Hill Country, and that's about what I saw.
South Llano River State Park is 4 miles out of town, and I accidentally became very familiar with that stretch of road. On my first trip along it, I saw a dead javelina, which means they're in the area, and a large flock of those brown-headed sheep I've been seeing so often. I tried to find out what breed they are, but an answer would take more time than I want to spend on it right now.
I found the campground was pretty full so took the dogs to a day use area where they could walk around without running into a lot of other dogs. It turned out to be a good place to go, because the area is protected as a turkey roosting areas for all hours but between 10 AM and 3 PM each day. And they were kind enough to provide an explanatory sign.
 |
| I took close-ups so this information would be legible. |
The habitat that the park was protecting looked like this:
 |
| the pecan trees the sign says turkeys like to roost in |
 |
| South Llano River |
If you know where to look, you can just see US 377 on the other side of the river, running along that hillside.
I couldn't get a phone signal but did manage to find a position for my hotspot where it could pick up an internet signal. I found I had an email from my cousin Karen, telling me my cousin Gaylan was dying. So instead of settling into my campsite as I'd planned to do after driving all day, I drove back into Junction so I could get a phone signal. I called Mary Francis, Gaylan's wife, and learned he had died not long before. I offered to call my cousins to let them know, to try to take at least a few of the responsibilities off her shoulders, since I know how very hard it can be to care for someone who's terminally ill. I hated to call only with bad tidings, but it was good to talk to my family again and hear that all were well (something we can't take for granted these days).
Then I drove back down the 4 miles to the campground and thought I was settled. But Dexter wasn't. It turns out there was a large population of armadillos in that place.
In case you can't see what he's looking at so intently (look in the grass just beyond the shelter over the picnic table), here's another view.
 |
| see it now? |
I actually didn't think too much of it, but Dext hadn't forgotten and when I took the dogs out for what I'd planned to be a quick before-bed walk, he found another one, rooting around in the grass near the road where we were walking. And he went absolutely bananas. It was all I could do to hang onto him, and thank goodness Gracie wasn't responding at all. But Dext was so wild to get at this thing that he pulled me over, and I scraped my knee badly enough that it was harder for me to get back up again - especially because I usually depend on Dext's back to help me up (Gracie won't let me use hers) and he wasn't holding still for nothing. He was twisting and writing and strangling himself trying to get away from me to get at that 'dillo. What surprised me, though, was that I wasn't going through this silently but nobody stopped their car to help, nobody came out of their RV to see what was going on, I had to cope with it all on my own. And of course I was definitely not real happy with my dumb dog.
My knee was sore for days afterward. And I honestly can't tell you how I managed to get up and away from there finally - I guess I just passed through the level of awfulness into a blank mind to help me cope with it. What a mess.
No comments:
Post a Comment