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Dec. 27th, 2007 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSunday, December 16
Emily and I hadn't had much of exploring time around Texas, with my job, our illnesses and errands. FINALLY we had a chacne to plunk down in the truck (with it's new alternator and tires) and explore the Texas East Lands.
Most of these trips are for Emily, she enjoys looking at old rail lines and railroad configurations. She'd therefore desing up our routes, and I'd drive.
Our first stop was to see the old town of Maxwell, to see it's old historic buildings looking much like they did a century ago, and the railroad frontage. I also got to show The Maxwell Leaning House, which is a house that sure looks like it's about to fall apart any minute now and is listing badly to the left. At the same time...it kinda looks like it was BUILT that way. The back end is crooked in a whole nother direction, and people do still live in there.
From there we moved into Lockhart and visited the town for a bit, ending up near the grain silos where Emily got more pictures of some used and unused lines. We also kept orbiting Black's BBQ, which I've heard is really good, and either Lockhart has 85,000 of them, or every road in Lockhart goes to it.
We the proceeded on our way to Bateman, Emily spied an old old old railroad siding. The area had just gotten some rain, it didn't seem to be too too too bad, but I decided to keep the truck on the shoulder as we looked. It was an old siding, not used in forever, but still available as track. We decided to trace it a bit in the truck, sure enough, I got farther from the shoulder of the road. After we'd made sure we got most of it, we pulled back on the road, only to get stuck in the mud. It wasn't much mud, and after some serious gunning up the hill we'd gone down from, we managed to get on the road again. Just a taste of what was to come.
After the mud trip, we ventured into Red Rock, which we did only to say I had shown her Red Rock. Red Rock is a scary little town. The first time Iw as there, to see a little painting a hobo had made while he was staying. While I was there, I began getting quite a crowd across the street. And not the kind of Good Crowd you get at a girl scout meeting or Christmas Carols. When I left the town, there was literally a Confederate Battle Flag raised in the house on ehte way out of town. We went, but didn't dally, the painting is gone. The good news? The house with the confederate flag raised in my honor? Abandoned.
We'd been through Bastrop before, so we plowed through it to go down the Bastrop State PArk and Buescher State Park...although now they're charging you $2 to drive through. Having only credit cards, and my newfound allergy to pine (the State Parks are all about these lost cluster of pine forests in the middle of oaks), we decided to just go the old fashioned way, down TS71. And I'm glad we did, because we found an auto-seller selling cars from the 30s, 40s 50s and 60s near Alum Creek. Even a few 80s thrown in.
We were starting to lose light, so we hightailed it into Smithville, where Emily hit a treasure trove. Not only was there a train park, with two MKT Cabooses (caboosii?), a railroad museum, but a whole maintenance facility for her to awe at. After about a half hour or so, we left, and I got to look around some local spots to see what's changed. Our finaly destination was ahead, though.
We entered La Grange as it was getting to twilight. We found LaFayette street, which was the halfway point on Emily's trip (the other half we had to abandon due to lack of light), where she got to see some street trackage (places where the train actually bisects the street) and where we also found another old railroad depot, now turned into am museum. And we'd missed closing by 15 minutes! D'ohh. Again, lots of railroad pics to be taken...and as it got dark, we decided to turn around and head back, the other half of the trip would have to be abandonned. :/
But that left time for something we NEEDED to hit - Wiekels. Every so often I get a real hankering for some good good GOOOOD pastries. I usually have to special order them from Weikels since I live so far away (they deliver!). Today we hit the store proper, and found some Dublin Dr. Pepper in bottles for Dean's present, too. Emily was underwhelmed. After having Weikels cinammon rolls and kolaches she imagined something more than just a convenience store with an attatched bakery, but you can 't argue with results! :9
We turned around and headed back to Austin via Bastrop, but not before Emily decided we should see a diamond interchange in Westpoint. We weaved our way back there, and eventually found a gigantic diamond interchange. Byu now it was almost night, and beginning to cool down quickly to freezing...Emily taught me that tracks shrinking in the cold pop and click, which is what that video was of last week. After a good number of pictures and tresspassing, we turned around. Or at least, tried to. The roads out there are pretty narrow. There's no real dividing line between "Road" and "Field." I decided to use a nice flat spot to turn around, and quickly got my front wheels stuck in the mud. I did everything I remembered about getting out of there. "Creeping" out on 1st gear to get back into the road, rocking the truck back and forth, no go. Eventually it took Emily jumping up and down on the back bumper to get enough traction to pop the truck out of the hole it'd made for itself. And when we looked back, the flat terrain I'd thought was nice and dry turned out to have become a mud hole about three feet deep. I got lucky. :D
Eventually, we had some dinner. I had planned to hit the Blu ePlate in La Grange, but it was closed. We ended up having Schlotzky's back in Bastrop followed by a leisurely drive back to San Marcos.
Emily and I hadn't had much of exploring time around Texas, with my job, our illnesses and errands. FINALLY we had a chacne to plunk down in the truck (with it's new alternator and tires) and explore the Texas East Lands.
Most of these trips are for Emily, she enjoys looking at old rail lines and railroad configurations. She'd therefore desing up our routes, and I'd drive.
Our first stop was to see the old town of Maxwell, to see it's old historic buildings looking much like they did a century ago, and the railroad frontage. I also got to show The Maxwell Leaning House, which is a house that sure looks like it's about to fall apart any minute now and is listing badly to the left. At the same time...it kinda looks like it was BUILT that way. The back end is crooked in a whole nother direction, and people do still live in there.
From there we moved into Lockhart and visited the town for a bit, ending up near the grain silos where Emily got more pictures of some used and unused lines. We also kept orbiting Black's BBQ, which I've heard is really good, and either Lockhart has 85,000 of them, or every road in Lockhart goes to it.
We the proceeded on our way to Bateman, Emily spied an old old old railroad siding. The area had just gotten some rain, it didn't seem to be too too too bad, but I decided to keep the truck on the shoulder as we looked. It was an old siding, not used in forever, but still available as track. We decided to trace it a bit in the truck, sure enough, I got farther from the shoulder of the road. After we'd made sure we got most of it, we pulled back on the road, only to get stuck in the mud. It wasn't much mud, and after some serious gunning up the hill we'd gone down from, we managed to get on the road again. Just a taste of what was to come.
After the mud trip, we ventured into Red Rock, which we did only to say I had shown her Red Rock. Red Rock is a scary little town. The first time Iw as there, to see a little painting a hobo had made while he was staying. While I was there, I began getting quite a crowd across the street. And not the kind of Good Crowd you get at a girl scout meeting or Christmas Carols. When I left the town, there was literally a Confederate Battle Flag raised in the house on ehte way out of town. We went, but didn't dally, the painting is gone. The good news? The house with the confederate flag raised in my honor? Abandoned.
We'd been through Bastrop before, so we plowed through it to go down the Bastrop State PArk and Buescher State Park...although now they're charging you $2 to drive through. Having only credit cards, and my newfound allergy to pine (the State Parks are all about these lost cluster of pine forests in the middle of oaks), we decided to just go the old fashioned way, down TS71. And I'm glad we did, because we found an auto-seller selling cars from the 30s, 40s 50s and 60s near Alum Creek. Even a few 80s thrown in.
We were starting to lose light, so we hightailed it into Smithville, where Emily hit a treasure trove. Not only was there a train park, with two MKT Cabooses (caboosii?), a railroad museum, but a whole maintenance facility for her to awe at. After about a half hour or so, we left, and I got to look around some local spots to see what's changed. Our finaly destination was ahead, though.
We entered La Grange as it was getting to twilight. We found LaFayette street, which was the halfway point on Emily's trip (the other half we had to abandon due to lack of light), where she got to see some street trackage (places where the train actually bisects the street) and where we also found another old railroad depot, now turned into am museum. And we'd missed closing by 15 minutes! D'ohh. Again, lots of railroad pics to be taken...and as it got dark, we decided to turn around and head back, the other half of the trip would have to be abandonned. :/
But that left time for something we NEEDED to hit - Wiekels. Every so often I get a real hankering for some good good GOOOOD pastries. I usually have to special order them from Weikels since I live so far away (they deliver!). Today we hit the store proper, and found some Dublin Dr. Pepper in bottles for Dean's present, too. Emily was underwhelmed. After having Weikels cinammon rolls and kolaches she imagined something more than just a convenience store with an attatched bakery, but you can 't argue with results! :9
We turned around and headed back to Austin via Bastrop, but not before Emily decided we should see a diamond interchange in Westpoint. We weaved our way back there, and eventually found a gigantic diamond interchange. Byu now it was almost night, and beginning to cool down quickly to freezing...Emily taught me that tracks shrinking in the cold pop and click, which is what that video was of last week. After a good number of pictures and tresspassing, we turned around. Or at least, tried to. The roads out there are pretty narrow. There's no real dividing line between "Road" and "Field." I decided to use a nice flat spot to turn around, and quickly got my front wheels stuck in the mud. I did everything I remembered about getting out of there. "Creeping" out on 1st gear to get back into the road, rocking the truck back and forth, no go. Eventually it took Emily jumping up and down on the back bumper to get enough traction to pop the truck out of the hole it'd made for itself. And when we looked back, the flat terrain I'd thought was nice and dry turned out to have become a mud hole about three feet deep. I got lucky. :D
Eventually, we had some dinner. I had planned to hit the Blu ePlate in La Grange, but it was closed. We ended up having Schlotzky's back in Bastrop followed by a leisurely drive back to San Marcos.
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Date: 2007-12-28 02:51 am (UTC)Years ago when I was someone else I went to AUSSIECON II with Ralph (from Canada, who fancied himself a 'James Bond') and Sean. On the way we stopped at Coolgardie and Raplh walked into the local pub, while wearing a pair of dark shades, as it was a bright and sunny day. The classic responce - all conversation ceased and all eyes turned to him. He did the only thing possible - cut a huge grin and walked out.
Country towns can be scary.
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Date: 2007-12-28 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 05:37 pm (UTC)Schwertner: It's got a good dark view to the north and south, although Jarrell and Bartlett might make the west and east skies glow a bit. Bartlett I don't think will be much of a problem honestly, they roll up their streets pretty quick.
This is another area you might try, but I seem to remember it's kinda wooded.
Another spot I'd go to is this rest area here. It's got a really bright ranch to the north, though, but once they turn off their lights, dead black.
The Oatmeal Chruch is high up on a hill, pitch black, and a great veiw all around - but a long long trip.