Evenin' Campers!
It's Silver Cliche' again. Second day here at Cedar Hill State Park
in Cedar Hill, Texas.
So, what's the big
buzz in the Dallas area today, or for that matter, across the south?
Rain. Lot's of rain. Which is a good thing sometimes (ask the people
of California). But when lots of rain falls after lots of rain has
recently fallen… not so good. It started here at about 4:30 AM
today. Fortunately (and unlike our camping experience the other day
in Lake Charles, Louisiana) our campsite here is high and dry. The
rain and lightning woke the dogs. They woke us and we all got
acquainted in the dark. Fortunately we also all fell back to sleep.
The rain continues
the erosion that has already closed a big portion of this park. Here,
let me show you a pic of a tree at the lake shore about 100' from our
campsite. Although the picture doesn't capture it clearly, on the
point of land in the background is a picnic table that now sits in
about a foot of water. I'm figuring it originally sat on the lake
shore ready to host family gatherings by the lake. Now its
ready to host people in the lake. Check out this tree, the
roots of which are now hanging in the air:
Just to demonstrate
the seriousness of the rain and flooding, there have been fatalities
from flash flooding near here in the past 24 hours. The NBC Nightly
News did a story this evening with a reporter in Lake Charles,
Louisiana to show the flooding right where we were a few days ago.
This spring the rain across the south has been the stuff of tragedy.
Today we had a day
off the road and decided to explore Dallas. Our two most common ways
to get to know an area are to eat there and to shop there. We chose
both. Once the rain stopped and we got organized it was late morning
and we headed off. Walking the short distance to the truck we
realized that the dry, cracked ground that seemed so inviting when we
arrived yesterday was a different matter entirely after an inch or
two of rain. I'm sure that soil scientists have a name for this earth
in its semi-saturated state. If they don't have a name, I would like
to propose “brown glue”. I'm thinking this will dry and cake off
sometime. Let's hope it's soon. And let's also hope the dogs come to
understand “no… stop… not in the mud… oh geez… how am I
going to get that crap off your paws so you don't track it all over
the trailer again…”. If they were parrots I think they'd be
repeating that line by now. Dumb dogs.
A little research
told us that we actually wanted to drive to North Dallas. How did we
determine that? Well, we looked into restaurants and discovered that
our favorite dining place had a location – actually two locations –
in North Dallas. For those of you who have traveled along with us
before, pardon the repetition. When we lived in the Maryland suburbs
of DC there were two Houston's restaurants in the area. They became
our go-to dining spot. At one point when we needed an apartment as we
were making the move to Florida we chose one apartment over others in
part because it was not only across the street from Houston's, but
the apartment had a view of the restaurant and its parking lot so we
could gauge when we needed to head over to avoid the crowd (unlike
some of my yarns, that's entirely true). So we headed to Houston's
which was every bit as good in Dallas as in Bethesda, Coral Gables
Pompano Beach, Atlanta and I'm sure Houston's we have yet to visit.
After that we headed
to some shops specializing in ladies finery and accoutrements.
Although “we” headed there, “I” received a pass and chose to
stay in the truck in the parking lot. Most of the time I spent trying
to figure out how much damage our GPS and I had done on the way to
North Dallas. You see, this area is criss-crossed by toll roads that
have no tool booths. There are multiple icons and logos on overhead
signs that are as easy to interpret as the hieroglyphs of the
pharaohs and that indicate (I suppose) what type of agency or
authority has declared the right to charge you for driving and what
means they plan to use to do so. One of those said “pay by plate”.
Until today I thought that was the pricing model at a dim sum
restaurant. It turns out my world view was incomplete. Evidently they
were watching the ass end of my truck to see where I came from and
they have a plan to send me a bill. Guess what? I'm not there! So I
figured I'd reach out to them. One hour and many web sites and
e-mails later I'm not sure if I ever contacted the right agency.
We'll see. Having spent my entire adult life (including much of my
professional life) interacting with government agencies I have great
confidence that one day they will find me and send me a bill. I have
the same amount of confidence that they will have spent almost as
much collecting my toll as the toll payment itself brings in.
After a bit of
shopping we headed south toward the campground. Since we were in
North Dallas and heading south we wound up in… class?… anyone?
That's right: Dallas is the correct answer. The #1 thing to see or do
in Dallas is… right… go to Dealey Plaza, site of the JFK
assassination. We went. We parked on the street just a block away for
50 cents. We had been joking en route about taking a pic or two
showing ourselves as shadowy figures on the grassy knoll. That joking
stopped as we walked across Houston Street, passed in front of the
building that once housed the Texas Schoolbook Depository and walked
down Elm Street. I've been to strange and eerie places before.
Crossing the Gettysburg battlefield in the place where Pickett's
Charge occurred (with unspeakable slaughter) was thoroughly creepy.
Standing at the rusting ruins of Launch Complex 34 at Kennedy Space
Center where the Apollo 1 astronauts perished was equally still and
eerie. Dealey Plaza is different – or at least it was for me today.
My memory is so full of images of the event that happened there over
50 years ago that the place triggers a flood of real memory, not just
historic reference. We stood on the grassy knoll, we stood where
Abraham Zapruder took the footage that captured the events. We looked
up at the window of the Schoolbook Depository. What eventually struck
me was that the people all around us (there were maybe 100 or so
people at 3:45 PM who were obviously doing the same thing we were.
All were speaking in low tones. All were moving slowly. All were
(evidently) having a similar experience. I thought of us as a group
of zombies, moving slowly, gesturing occasionally, milling around
with little purpose or direction except to be there. I'll leave you
with this panorama which starts with the Schoolbook Depository on the
left and ends with the grassy knoll on the right. It's about 270
degrees from end to end and right in the center is Elm Street where
the President was hit.
So, quietly we
walked back to the truck and drove the 25 minutes back to the trailer
and the dogs. It's been a quiet evening, too.
At sunset I walked
the dogs and took a last pic for the day of Joe Pool Lake.
As I turned to walk
back to the trailer and lock up for the day there were two bluebirds
on top of a railing post at the campsite where I took the picture
above. I thought "Zip a Dee Doo Dah" and walked home to Mrs. C' and the
two traveling dogs.
Tomorrow we are back
on the road and continuing to head northwest.
Good night.
SC'
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