How High's the Water, Mama

If you don't know Johnny Cash's music, a lot of my posts probably don't make sense. Anyway that post title is also an old JC song. We are at Medina Lake and the water here is not high. It is not even existent. The entire lake is dried up. We rode our bikes to the bottom. Cows graze on the bottom every day. We have seen a trickle of a little stream, but that's it. There are big homes high on the banks and docks that have fallen I can't guess how many feet down. They are now lying on the bottom of the lake. In the picture of Larry you can see the steps/walkways that went out to the docks. The docks are on the lake bottom.

The tracks are from people driving down into the lake. It is so weird to see.

 

 

 

And the cows.

Apparently there has been a drought in West Texas for five years. I can't believe this is an occurence that they expected. Why, if they knew this happened frequently, would they have built the big dam and all these houses and dried up resort-type services for the lake? Amazing, sad and amazingly sad.


We visited San Antonio and the Riverwalk was nice. It is one of those things that, for us, is good once. It was interesting to see how they had incorporated this area into the city. Tourism is the second biggest industry in San Antonio, after the medical industry, and I am sure the Riverwalk area is the reason.

 

We also went to the Alamo, and I think I finally understand Texas history. It really is unique among the states because of having been a Spanish, then Mexican territory, then an independent country and then part of the US. And if this isn't true, you didn't hear it from me. I said I THINK I finally understand Texas history.

 

 

 

I still need to tell you about the deer in this park and the town of Bandero, a real cowboy town, I guess. At least they said so. And is boot-scooting in my future? No, because the only boots I own are hiking boots. Oh, well.

 

GO WEST, OLD FOLKS, GO WEST

One of the first things we did, or Larry did, while at Lake Conroe was get his hair cut. He had promised that he was going to let it grow until we got home. I don't think he really knew what hair feels like on one's neck. It's a feeling I don't like either, thus the short hair. So here he is before he visited Alley Cuts. Sorry I don't have an after picture, but he sure felt better when he got home. The hair was gone from his neck or either those ladies were giving more than cuts in the alley. Just kidding, honey.

 

We visited the Sam Houston Museum in Huntsville, Texas. I found it interesting that he was born in  Virginia, grew up in Tennessee (Maryville to be exact), lived in Texas and Oklahoma, and met his wife in New Orleans.The story of early settlers is often filled with wanderlust. I wonder if that is what keeps some people moving today.  But then there are those who are content to never travel outside their own neighborhood. Different strokes, I guess.

This is statue is 67 feet tall and faces the interstate. Did I say Texans are proud of Mr. Houston? I know sometimes our heroes are made to be larger than life, but really? Ok, don’t say it. Everything is bigger in Texas. 

But I have no problem with their pride in Mr. Houston. He was governor of Tennessee, but resigned after his bride left him and divorced him. No public explanation was ever given. He loved the Native American culture having lived with them in Tennessee and married one in Oklahoma. He led the army that finally defeated Santa Anna when Santa Anna was intent on keeping Texas a part of Mexico. He was removed from the governorship of Texas when he opposed joining the confederacy. Before this gets to be too big a history lesson, I’ll just say, he was a character with character.

 

But you have to see this. At the museum which included an excellent history in pictures, words, artifacts and displays, there was also Houston's home and office and several outbuildings. Also there was a small picnic area which proved very handy since we had brought wraps and drinks. But in the picnic area were flocks of chickens and ducks. They were very docile, thank goodness. Roosters sometimes scare me. They did even before I met Larry. Anyway...

 

 

On Tuesday, October 9 we gassed up at Sam’s and headed out of Conroe, Texas.  It seems to be a typical little town, although I think I saw two Jaquars within two miles of each other. Oil money, maybe?  We met a man at the gas station who appeared to be about 75 and was working the gas pumps. He had lost his retirement savings in the recession. Now he is working 32 hours a week. I guess we saw both ends of the spectrum within five miles of each other. He was upset to hear we are hoping NC goes for Obama. I found that puzzling. 

This next little part was written as we on the road to Colorado River Thousand Trails.

We just passed Montgomery High School which has a gigantic football stadium, bigger than some college stadiums. Wonder who went to high school there. There had to be some big football great.

Now we are beginning to get into Texas flatland a little. It is still rolling country. EWww, a huge cattle ranch.  Oh, look, a For Sale sign. No thanks.  Now if I saw an oil well for sale that would be different. I feel like we are making a down payment on one every time we fill up.

Just passed the entrance to Bernhardt Winery. I’ll be that’s some awful stuff. Private joke.

Now we are in Plantersville and have been welcomed by the 4-H Club. The sign said so. For those who may be considering a trip here we are traveling on Texas 105. It is a two-lane road with very wide paved shoulders.  Lots of farm country, but a few industries.  OOO an old dirt road and I see the red clay is gone. Just dusty white.

Just passed something that looked a gas well. And then horses, lots of beautiful horses.

 

10/15/2012

As you no doubt can see there was an abrupt halt to the play-by-play. I wasn’t watching the road closely enough, and we took a wrong turn. Navigating is a boring, full-time job.  And it pisses the hell out of Larry when I mess up. Oh well.

So anyway, we got to Thousand Trails at Colorado River near Columbus, TX. It was a very quiet park with deer that were practically tame and lots of pecan trees. I picked up several pounds, and Larry cracked the first bunch. They are much bigger than Georgia pecans (or pea-cans, if you’re Paula Deen). I guess everything is bigger in Texas.  Pea-can pie for you, Mr. Carswell.

This park had something we had not seen before, tame, or nearly so, deer. They were everywhere. But the deer weren’t bigger than those in NC. Actually they were smaller. There was some information from somewhere that said they were inbred and diseased.

This little buck was  outside our RV each morning. We were warned not to feed the deer, and  we didn’t. Larry says living with me is like living with the game warden and the sheriff . (He especially says that when we are driving. He’s nicknamed me Barney, but I don’t even get one bullet. Good thing for him, I guess. Larry, not the deer.)

Lake Conroe, October 5, 2012

The bulk of the trip from Vidalia, LA, to Lake Conroe, TX was uneventful. Scenery in East Texas is, how shall I say this, non-existent. We did see a few cows, no longhorns, and some horses. There are lots more pine trees than you might imagine, loblollies, I think.

This is the lake at our campground. Hope we can get out the kayak and get out on it. 

We did pass through one town with an interesting name, Cut and Shoot.

According to one local legend, Cut and Shoot was named after a 1912 community confrontation that almost led to violence. According to differing versions of the story, the dispute was either over:^[4]

• The design of a new steeple for the town's only church,
• The issue of who should be allowed to preach there, or
• The conflicting land claims among church members.

Whatever the circumstances were, a small boy at the scene reportedly declared "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!" This statement apparently stayed in the residents' minds and was eventually adopted as the town's name.

                                                                    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_and_Shoot,_Texas

All they left off was "the Christians".


Yesterday we went to Houston to for a little business. We should have gone fully downtown, but honestly the drivers here scare the pee out of me. So we did what we needed and came back home.

Last night I couldn't sleep so I worked on a map of where we have been and where we expect to stay going up the West Coast. When I get plans made to Washington state, I will publish it. This morning Larry used the info to decide that yes, even at $6 a gallon, we can still buy gas. Eating may be a different story. But, hey, we can stand to lose a few.

Editorial comment:

A strange thing happened when I googled Cut and Shoot. One of the choices that came up was "cut and shoot kkk". I couldn't resist, like looking in the toilet after, well, you know. Seems there was a question on the website asking for the "whitest" town in Texas. Will this disease never end?



Mileage: 1342.1 miles

Days on Road: 32 days

Loosiana to Texas

We left Vidalia at about 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 3. There wasn’t much in the way of excitement, just lots of water, except for one little incident that had us parked on the side of the road, climbing the RV, and literally trembling.

We were traveling through the country side, Larry, driving and glad for wide shoulders on the two-lane road, and me, playing with the computer, looking at maps, generally in my own little world. When you are together 24-7 sometimes it’s best to zone out a little, to the zone the other one isn’t in.  Anyway Larry said, “Did I just see a sign that indicated a low something, like 12 feet 3 inches?” Of course, I hadn’t been looking out the window. I hadn’t seen a thing. We couldn’t see are reason for a low overhead anything. There sure weren’t any tunnels in western Louisiana. There weren’t even any mountains. Most covered bridges are in New England aren’t they? There weren’t any major highways that would have required an overpass. So ahh, just forget it. He must have misread the sign. We continued to scramper down the highway, meeting trucks much taller than us and becoming more confident. And then, there it was, at a tiny intersection that we whizzed up on:

 

 Only ours said 12’3”. Talk about heart dropping. We had discussed the height of our vehicle earlier on the trip in Hohenwald. There the overpass had only been 11 feet. But the Thousand Trails website had warned of this (pat myself on the back, I read it before we got there), and said we could get under by going off the road to the left on a little gravel shoulder. Larry said then that the best he had been able to calculate our rig was 12’2”. And I probably didn’t mention that we had a truck come to our campsite in Clinton, MS, right outside of Jackson and check our air pressure. And sure enough we needed more air. So now our RV was taller. How much taller? Who the hell knew….Not us.

 We had missed the intersection and had one mile to decide. There was one house with a circular driveway that we might have been able to negotiate a turn to go back, but, wouldn’t  you know, there was an RV already parked in it. By now we were sweating bullets. And then, there it was, a big, old, heavy, mean-looking, rusty steel bridge. Luckily there was a pull-off, just big enough for us to get into right before we got on the bridge. We pulled off. Larry measured from the ground to the top of the RV and got 11 feet. If we didn’t mind losing two air conditioners, three vent covers and the satellite dish, we’d be fine. Then like a monkey, he maneuvered himself over the rock guard at the back and up the ladder. (The little devil is limber, I’ll give him that.) So, after measuring the AC at 13 inches, we hoped we had two inches to spare. As we were sitting there a truck, a tall one with diesel pipes gleaming, flew, and I do mean flew, by. Larry said, “I’m going in.” Sounded like he was headed into a coal mine. So we eased up to the bridge and headed down the middle straddling the yellow line, dodging the supports that were angled at the sides. We were praying that another semi didn’t come flying up on the other side, like we had just seen. We eased under the first girder and heard nothing. HALLELEUJAH. So we began picking up speed, still in the middle. That tenth of a mile was a good five miles long.  Just before we reached the end a van skidded up to the other end of the bridge. Of course, he didn’t back up an inch, so we were forced to really go carefully at the end. But we got off with all the roof and its attachments. WHEW

The bridge is pictured on Google satellite. It is the bridge that separates Louisiana and Texas on Nolan Trace Parkway. If I were really, really smart, I would have been able to put a picture of it here, but I’m just smart, not really, really. : )   But you can look at it there. If you bother to look and I probably wouldn't, you will notice that there is a good-sized body of water there. If you had held a gun to my head after we crossed, I would not have known that.

And by the way, when we got in Texas we learned why that truck was flying by off the bridge. Here we are on a two-lane country road and the speed limit was 70, yes 70, mph. A road like that in NC would never be more than 45. We quickly learned that people in Texas drive really, really fast EVERYWHERE.

Natchez, MS and Vidalia,LA

We found Natchez State Park on a rainy Sunday morning and Larry quickly decided that we would NOT be staying there because we would not have satellite reception for the TV. I know, we aren't really campers, what with a washer/dryer, three TV's, computers, phones, yadda, yadda, yadda. What can I say? It's a little embarrassing, really, but, whattaya gonna do? So out of the wilds and woods of Mississippi and on to Vidalia, LA.

We found a very nice park in Vidalia, right on the banks of the Mississippi. We took our lawn chairs out by the river and watched barges travel up and down the river. Apparently the drought that affected the river has eased somewhat because there seemed to me to be a good deal of traffic. Of course, I think the drought problems on the river were farther north.

I  did take this picture of sand along the side. I don't know if it's always that way, but it looked to me as if the river should have been covering it.

This is the bridge connecting Mississippi and Louisiana at Natchez.

And a little history that I found on the Riverwalk in Vidalia:

We visited an old Indian village. Apparently this area had been used mainly as a ceremonial ground. There was a tour bus of people from Austria. Thought that was interesting that they would be there.

Then we checked out a former plantation that is maintained by the National Park Service. This is the only picture I took because my camera flashed and that was frowned upon. Really the house didn't seem all that imposing, except for the 24-carat gold overlay cornices and moldings in the drawing room. The house belonged to several different families, but remained mostly intact. This is the dining room.

I feel a little guilty because I have recommended Natchez to others and I didn't do half the things I should have. Maybe when I get back to Tupelo,  I'll have to come back here too.

Skipped Something

I left out the time from Bay Springs Lake to getting to Jackson. We had planned to stay longer at Bay Springs, but as I said, there was no cell or computer service. That's just slightly less important than no food or oxygen for Larry and me, so we lasted less than 24 hours. We made a quick side trip into Tupelo for gas at Sam's. Bummer! We had wanted to spend some time in Tupelo to try to find an old friend from our Air Force days, but we didn't. I'm going to do this trip again if only as far as Tupelo, just so we can do that.

Anyway since we didn't stay as long as expected in Bay Springs we needed to stay somewhere along the road. We chose a concrete RV park in Clinton, MS, a suburb of Jackson. (I'll quit singing, OK?  I know you're relieved.) We stayed in the RV for two days except for a little morning walking exercise. We didn't even unhook the car. I kept the washer/dryer in the RV humming, and Larry did...I don't know what he did.

So now, it is on to Natchez.

Jackson to Natchez, Still on Natchez Trace 9/30/12

Rain, lovely rain. The rain started early yesterday evening and we are now (7:45 Sunday, September 30) driving in a steady shower. I don't like driving or riding in the rain, but this is the first we have seen. Whoop!A hawk just swooped across the road in front of us. Anyway, back to the rain, it is kind of refreshing. And I have noticed something that surprised me. We have passed over a muddy dirt road and a muddy creek, and they were both RED. I don't recall red mud from when we lived in Arkansas so this was a  glimpse of North Carolina. It's not quite as red as the red clay at home, but still it's not the black I normally associate with low-lying areas.

So far this morning we have seen three deer, three hawks, a turtle and at least one crow. We passed an exit to Vicksburg. Larry nor I are big Civil War buffs, so it's not like we missed much. We did the Gettysburg tour in Pennsylvania in June 2011 so that's enough for this lifetime. 

There are a lot of big trees down along this stretch, just individual trees, not the huge swaths of dead trees we saw earlier from tornado damage. It is sort of curious. There will be one huge tree all by itself, uprooted on the side of the road. Weird, huh? I will ask a ranger when we get to Natchez State Park. 

Larry is driving like my mother used to walk. After she was in her mid-80's, Mother would go out in the road that ran in front of her house and walk from side to side, up and down the road between her house and mine. She didn't want to get too far from home, but she wanted to get in some distance. Larry is dodging the overhanging trees that seem really low due to the rain. Side to side, side to side, side to side.  Getting just a tad seasick.

Just scared a flock of probably 25 turkeys out of the road. Larry had to slow down and blow the horn a bunch. Finally they took flight. Now a little deer off to the side. We have only seen about four cars, total, this morning. That's another reason I like this parkway. Compared to the Blue Ridge, it is desolate. But can you imagine the eighteen-wheelers in this rain on the interstate?  I'll take dodging turkeys and low-hanging limbs any day. Two more flocks of turkeys and two big muddy creeks/rivers/bayous. Nice morning.

Everybody bored, yet? I can start naming wildflowers and trees?

We Got Married in a Fever...

Can you sing the next line?

"Hotter than a pepper sprout.
We been talking 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went out.

We're going to Jackson."

Ha! We've been singing that song again. When we were first married, Larry was in the Air Force Blytheville, AR. From NC we would travel through Jackson, TN to get to Cottonwood Point to catch the ferry to cross the Mississippi. From Nashville to Cottonwood Point, we would sing that song. And as we headed out from Hohenwald we were singing again at the top of our lungs. Johnny and June we ain't, but it's still fun.

This part the Natchez Trace is just as pretty as what we have already seen. And there are many more chances to see the history of the area. I keep reminding Larry and myself that this trail has been used for thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands of years, first by bison following the salt deposits on the ridge line, then Native Americans, then settlers and traders, and now us. I just find the evolution of the area fascinating.

The Indian mounds and their history and construction were interesting too. They were built around the time of Christ. When you think it was 1500 years after Christ that Europeans came to this country, it sort of gives a perspective on the age of the mounds. Maybe the Mormons are right and Christ did visit the Indians after his crucifixion. I'm not sure you can see the mounds in the distance here, but there supposedly are eight.

But this one is clearer because we could get closer to it. And the neat part of this picture was we met two couples here, three of whom were on bicycles. (There are a lot of bicycles on Natchez Trace, but because it isn't crowded or curvy, they don't seem to startle us like the ones on the Blue Ridge Parkway do.) The fourth person was driving a van. The oldest of the cylists was 85 and the youngest was 70. The 85-year-old said his goal was to cycle the length of the Trace, 444 miles. We shared some persimmons from a nearby tree. They were just delightful people. The wife of the 85 year-old said that they had been RVers, and both couples had driven to Alaska. They were adamant that we would love it. I tell everyone every chance I get what we are doing in the hopes they will have advice.

 We saw our first cotton field along the route. This is another memory of our early marriage. There was a lot of cotton grown around Blytheville. Look at those mountains in the distance. I thought my camera was pointed west, but maybe not. I just didn't notice the hills at the time, so I don't know where they are.

This last picture was made the day before left Hohenwald. We like to feed the fish but our method is a bit complicated. We go to WalMart and buy some night crawlers. Then we attach them to a fishing hook. Sometimes it takes a long time to get the fish to nibble away at all your food, (Some people call it bait, but I don't know what they are baiting.) If you are like me and don't attach the night crawlers to the hook well, you can sling a good many loose on your first cast. But that makes the day go by much too fast so it's important to hook 'em on more than once. But I liked this picture of Larry feeding the fish.

We spent the night at the Piney Grove Campground on Bay Springs Lake, along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in northeastern Mississippi. Without phone or internet we were ready to leave the next morning although it was a lovely campground. We are learning that these Corps of Engineers places are really very nice, but they are intended for people who are going to stay for awhile, not for passersby. By the time we drive to their out-of-the-way locations, we could have paid for a place nearer the highway. And we are anxious to keep moving. I'm not sure that's the exact purpose of the trip, but it's who we are.

And the next morning, who did we pass along the road?/The bicylclists we had met at the Indian Mound/persimmon tree. Neat, huh? Makes me wish I could ride a bike.  Somehow riding my tricycle down the parkway seems a bit dumb. But "We're going to Jackson".