A slow waltz across Texas

Evenin' Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. Tonight from beautiful Cedar Hill State Park in Cedar Hill, Texas. What? Never heard of it? Me neither until I started to plan this trip. Ever heard of Dallas, Texas? Let's start there. We are 20 miles southwest as the Toyota flies from that most notorious place in Dallas… Dealey Plaza. Aw, come on, kids. How about “the grassy knoll”? Still no? Maybe the “Texas Schoolbook Depository” or November 22, 1963? Any of you who have not solved the riddle yet have no future as a “Jeopardy” contestant. We are near the place where John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald (or was he…).

But that's not all nearby. We are about 45 minutes from Ft. Worth which is Northwest from here. Due north of us is the city of Arlington, Texas. Being a curious traveler I decided to ask TripAdvisor what there is to do in Arlington. After all, we have a free day tomorrow and might like to tune in to the local sights and sounds. So, contestants… what's the top thing to do in Arlington. Class? Anyone? Did I hear someone say “According to TripAdvisor the #1 thing to do in Arlington, Texas is to visit AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys?”. CORRECT! This is the group that modestly calls themselves “America's Team”. That sort of modesty generally only leads to becoming the presidential nominee of a major political party. Sorry, lads… the president is an individual… no groups need apply. Any of you who know my NFL rooting habits know that my favorite team is A-B-D. For those of you who are not fans, that's Anybody But Dallas. When I realized the draw that the stadium represents to rabid Dallas fans I had visions of the hajj of Dallas being an obligation of all Texans at least once in their life (except those that are Houston fans) and that each pilgrim was required to walk seven time counterclockwise around the stadium wearing only a silver helmet. Fortunately, I was able to shake that vision. I hope you can do the same. In any case, football is nearly a religious activity in Texas and the Cowboy's home is clearly revered as a temple. All I can say is “we're not going”. Oh… and “I hope they lose again this year”. Now that I've said that, I hope I can escape Texas without being pulled from my truck and beaten with a hose.

Anyway… Dallas. “The big D”. How did we get here, you ask? Well, the evening yesterday in Weches was hot and nasty. We may have left the bayou, but we brought the weather with us. Even so, we slept with the windows open and the AC off. It feels more like camping that way. By morning it was comfortable in the trailer… right around 70. As the sun came up we were treated to the sound of the forest around us being filled with songbirds. We opened the door and the rear hatch of the trailer (remember, we live in a hatchback house) but left the screens in place on both since the mosquitoes were still out there somewhere. The morning light hit first the tops then worked all the way down the 150' trunks of the pines that dominated the park. Some of these monsters were 4 or 5 feet across at the bases. Majestic. About every other day while on the road we have pancakes. On a quiet Sunday morning surrounded by majesty that seemed just the thing. By about 10:00 we were prepping for departure, securing this, draining that, filling something else, throwing out anything that wasn't making the next leg of the trip and calming the dogs (who seem to know before we do that it's departure time and believe me, they do not plan to be left behind).

Yesterday we had zero interstate time. Today we had to have some but it wasn't going to be in the first half of the trip. We continued where we left off yesterday… driving county roads (they designate them as “FM 1234” or whatever number didn't win the powerball drawing the week the road was bulldozed through the forest and paved over. The “FM” stands for “Farm to Market”. These rural roads were justified as economic development assets to connect the rural food producers to their urban consumers and they bear the mark so people wont forget that. Smart. The roads we traveled were generally narrow, curvy and even hilly. As such, here in Texas they mostly had a 70 MPH speed limit. Of course we saw signs marking the occasional school zone. In those areas the speed (during designated school hours) was more like 55 MPH. I'm thinking the average Texas school kid has a nervous twitch and an ability to jump pretty quickly if a fast moving F-150 comes around a curve. I like that. The Texas public school experience must prepare kids for a wider range of adult challenges than do the schools in states with school zone speed of 25 or so. Smart.

Something happened as we moved northwest from Weches. The hills got less pronounced. The roads got straighter. The trees got shorter. By the time we stopped for lunch around 1:00 we had completely left the forest environment where we spent yesterday and last night. We were on the Great Plains of the central United States.

Let's talk about that lunch. Somewhere in every driving day either Mrs. C' or I turns to the other and asks “You hungry?”. The usual response is a noncommittal “a little… and you?”. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes and several proposals, counter-proposals and fine tuning before we decide whether we are stopping to make our own lunch, pressing on to the campsite or finding a restaurant. Today we decided to sample the local cuisine. By “local” I mean Ennis, Texas where I-45 meets US 287. It happens that our go-to source (yep… TripAdvisor again) called out for a stop at Bubba's Bar-b-que and Steakhouse. Mrs. C' was still smarting from the guidance offered by TripAdvisor that led us to Steamboat Bill's and the Boudin Balls in Lake Charles. I reassured her that this time would be different. How I was able to reassure her I do not know. It was the same TripAdvisor and I had never been to Ennis or any restaurant named “Bubba's”. I'm thinking now that when she said “If you say so” it wasn't a vote of confidence… it was a sign of resignation. Anyhow when a patron enters Bubba's they are greeted warmly by a local lass who asks if they have come for the bar-b-que, the steaks or “something ordered off the menu”. We chose bar-b-que and were directed to the left and into a cafeteria line. OK. I'm still good. The people in line around us were buzzing with excitement and suggestions. When our time came to face the man with the knife and long fork, Mrs. C' went for the ribs and I pick the “3 meat platter” choosing brisket, pulled pork and chicken. We each added two sides and headed to our table. I'd give Bubba's pretty high marks. Now, this is Texas style bar-b-que which (as far as I'm concerned) features beef and sausage versus east coast bar-b-que which is centered around pulled port or Mississippi River style which features ribs. So, we had ordered the Texas versions of their own and other regional specialties. Given that, the beef brisket was their best item followed by the ribs, pulled pork and lastly the chicken. It was lightly smoked with mesquite (as opposed to hickory most often to the east). I think TripAdvisor got it right.

In another 40 minutes we were at the campground. Cedar Hill is pretty nice. It's clear that they suffered heavily this spring with the rains and flooding that hit Louisiana and southeast Texas (e.g.: Houston) even harder. Nevertheless it's obvious that they were hit here. Sections of this campground are still closed due to the erosion. Even in our section of the campground there are individual sites that are not habitable. I walked down to the lake (just 200' or so from where we're camped) and too this shot of the shoreline and a dock in one of the unusable campsites. Note how the land is undercut and the dock foundation which was once clearly in dirt is not being undermined by the lake itself. Hey, if water erosion can carve out the Grand Canyon, this place doesn't stand a chance over time!

And here we are tucked into our campsite. We don't have a waterfront site this time (Texas parks assign sites when the camper arrives, not at the time of reservation and there were none available that were big enough for us and had not been condemned) but it's not bad and it's quite well protected from gawkers on the road or in other campsites. Google Maps makes it easy for me to share with you precisely where we are. Click this and you can see our spot then zoom out for a view of the entire region (https://goo.gl/maps/rrZbiUqCSX92 ):

 

And finally, here's our landscape of the day. Now that we are getting into western landscapes I hope to concentrate on panoramas to show you what we see in our travels. This single frame seems to capture the This is Joe Pool Lake (don't be confused… Lake is the geographic feature and Pool is the proper name...it's a Lake, not a Pool and it's named after a guy named Pool, not a guy named Lake) as the sky tells the story of its day before turning in.

And with that, I'm turning in. Good night, campers.

SC'