![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariOkay, now that all that is (almost) out of the way....
SATURDAY
The planned day with Dean fell through. However, an EMail from Erin saying that I could come over today moved my trip from Austin, to about thirty miles to the east. Dean or no, I HAD to go pickup my Backups CD. Erin had my copy of Office 2000, and I NEEDED it to reinstall Frontpage on my computer (stupid thingy).
I'll admit that I'm a complete and total nut over the Old San Antonio Road right now - now that I have a trillion and a half bits of information I didn't have before. So I figured...OSR goes through San Antonio. And it goes to Bastrop, near where I needed to pick up my CD.
ROAD TRIP!
If you hate roadtrip entries, skip down to the ***NO MORE ROAD TRIP*** part of this entry.
I managed to get to the corner of Tuxedo Avenue and Nacogdoches Road. This intersection is the end point of the drivable OSR. IT used to go onto San Pedro Springs a few miles south, but there're whole subdivisions in the way, and a BIG mall. Plus there's just NO ROAD there....So I take Nacogdoches Road north looking for the first historical marker, which is at Nacogdoches at Loop 410.
Mistake #1 - I forgot my San Antonio map book. That map book marked where all the OSR historical markers are from the Daughters of the American Republic website. (I have a love hate relationship with the DAR - but that's for another time). The DAR markers, though, were ere posted in 1915...and they're these little small granite blocks that are HARD to find.
After a good ten minutes flying around the I-410 interchange I found the first marker. Where is it? Just outside the Guaranty Bank building, in a parking lot, next to a break area. What a place to put a marker. And it wasn't just the granite marker, there were a few other historical markers as well. All hidden away, and REALLY hard to find. Took a picture, and took off, farther up Nacogdoches Road.
The next marker was at Nacogdoches and Higgins Road. And I wooshed right past it. The map book I had with me was for counties, not cities...so San Antonio was just a mess of unlabelled lines. I figured Higgins Road was a big enough road it'd be nice and marked on Nacogdoches Road. Whoosh. I missed it. Oh, well, maybe next trip.
At Nacogdoches Road and Topperwein Road is a HUGE hill. Nowadays, it's Comanche Peak Park. Back when I visited it, it was a visitable urban legend. I took my pickup up this HUGE peak up a dirt path. At the top was a tower that the citizens of provincial San Antonio used to watch for raiding Comanche Indians. Or so they'd have you believe - Actually,the whole area was bought by an eccentric man in the 1920s, and he began to build a HUGE house - the first part was an observation tower. The 1929 Stock market crash wiped him out, leaving him with no land, no house and the huge tower all alone up on that hill. It's still there.
The Third Marker was at Nacogdoches Road and the County Line. I wooshed right past it. I asked some people around the nearby town of Bracken, who pointed me in the right direction. This was going to be a LOT harder than I thought. I found the marker - on the West side of the road, right at Evans Road. Right where it said - but it was REALLY small, and hard to find. Yeesh. Took a picture, and took off.
Nacogdoches road ends at FM 482 in the town of Comal. Comal is a strange little town, where everything is like a wild west town that boarded up and left the state. YEt right in the middle of all this ancientness is a semi-modern 1950s era gasoline pump. Right down the street on 482 is a Conoco sign. Fun-kee.
Took a lefty into the town of Solms, and looked for the marker in Solms. No one knew what the heck I was talking about. My county maps had a marker in the town, but I could not find it anywhere. After about thirty minutes of getting silly looks, I took off to find the next marker. (Turns out I had passed the Fourth Marker a LONG time ago - in the most conspicuous place possible. These things are hard to find!)
From 482, I merged onto I-35, took the Business I-35 exit into the Cool Town of New Braunfels. From Business I-35, I took a left on Nacogdoches Street (Strangely, as you leave San ANtonio, a lot of the OSR is marked as "Nacogdoches Road/Street." If you go the other direction, it's marked as "San Antonio Road/Street"). Right at Nacogdoches and Business TX 46, is the next marker. This was the very first marker I'd ever seen as a kid, and it got me interested in the OSR road system in general. This was prolly the easiest marker I took a photo of. I continued up Nacogdoches Street until it dead ended at the Guadalupe River. Here, the road actually become a foot path (by the time the city wanted to build a bridge here, a textile mill had built over the road on the other side of the river. I backtracked to Business TX 46, crossed over the Guadalupe on THAT bridge, and made my way back to the OSR (picking up right at an entrance gate to the textile Mill.
The sixth marker was somewhere on I-35. I had marked its location on the county map all wrong. After about twenty minutes crawling up and down the frontage roads, I gave up (When I got home, I learned I was nowhere near the sixth marker at all - it was about five miles south of where I was looking). This was getting REALLY hard.
Turning right on Old Bastrop Road, I found the seventh marker, along with another historical marker I'd never seen before (I drive this stretch a lot, yeah, but usually late at night.) This marker said that the little ditch directly behind the sign was the actual road itself! The ditch was made by wagons making ruts, which rain would wash away and dug a cut into the ground. Wow - living history! I had half a mind to jump the fence...butI learned my lesson with that a LONG time ago. Jumping from the truck side is easy - jumping from the non-truck side is not. And never jump in a dress.
At Old Bastrop Road and the San Marcos River is a really cool little area for you to go swimming in the river, and a good number of historical markers (no DAR marker, though). One of the historical markers, though, is REALLY far away on private land. How are you supposed to read that? The gate is locked, and there's a camera watching you. Next trip - I bring binoculars. At Old Bastrop Road and TX 80, in San Marcos, is a nice little historical marker about the OSR, along with a REALLY good print of the trails and history of the road. It's in the middle of nowhere, and is not very well maintained, but it's there.
The Eighth Marker had been pulled up during construction. I REALLY hope they plan on putting it back.
The Ninth Marker, Tenth and Eleventh markers were really easily found in Uhland and Neiderwald, and I took a picture of each.
At Texas 21 and US 183, a friend of mine gave me instructions on where the OSR went in 1940, but...well...frankly it doesn't make sense to me in that routing. The route is FM 1854 to County Road 175 to 174/260. The roads just don't "match up" with Texas 21, or any other routing near it. I think Texas called it OSR because they didn't own the right of way at that time. Either way, I'm pretty convinced this is NOT the OSR, even though my maps show that the OSR does break off of Texas 21 around here.
By this time, it was getting pretty dark, so I decided to keep my trip to Texas 21 and start heading for Erin's house.
***NO MORE ROADTRIP***
When I got there, they were pleasantly surprised to see me. Why? Cause they don't run on Jenn Standard Time. When I wrote my letter asking to see if I could come over, I made the mistake of saying "Tomorrow" instead of "Saturday." When I wrote that letter, it was officially Saturday at 3AM...which to me is still Friday. Any ways, I didn't seem to intrude, and we had some dinner and saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Lots of spandex in that movie.
A LOT.
I got my CD and took off to Austin for gas. Called Dean to see if he still had company, and he did have company that I would rather not see. I'm actually getting a signal I don't like from Dean. Mainly I don't see Dean or Leeza anymore because Leeza will basically beat Dean over the head about me while I'm there. But Dean constantly tells me that "if you need to do X with me and she has a problem with it, well, we'll break up."
No.
I refuse to be the reason for a breakup. If Dean wants to break up with Leeza, it will have to be HIM That starts it, not me. I refuse to be a pawn in this game. If you're that miserable, you LEAVE. Don't wait for me to be an excuse.
So any ways, I had to head back to San Antonio...and I took off in a direction I'd been a million times, but now I knew was part of an alternate routing of the Camino Real. The one before was "Old San Antonio Road" This one was "Camino Real de los Tejas."
You know what that means.
ROAD TRIP!
But this one'll be short. :) It was already midnight, and I didn't wanna sight see.
From Austin on "Old San Antonio Road" to Buda. Then to Loop 4 to FM 2770 through Mountain City and Kyle. County road 136 to County Road 140 into San Marcos. Loop 82 to FM 12 to FM 2439 through Hunter to FM 1102 to Hunter Road to Gruene into New Braunfels.
Now here...well...the CR del los Tejas went from Gruene Road to San Antonio street...but...well..there's a large subdivision in the way. I figure, heck, it's just a grid, I'll worm my way there eventually.
It took me thirty minutes to find my way out of that. :)
From there - I gave up...I got the heck back to I-35 and headed home...but I got hungry. I hadn't eaten much all day, so I pulled off at a local whataburger at 2AM. I didn't get out of THERE until 2:30AM. Seems several tour busses had pulled in, and they were busy cooking about 100 burgers. Bet their manager is happy.
I got home and installed Office 2000, so I could get a head start on the comics for Sunday. But all was not well in the city of Whosville. After installing everything just fine, I rebooted...and my system went straight to hell. FDISK FORMAT REINSTALL. And then bed. I'd deal with installing everything Sunday.
Saturday was a fun and enjoyable day, despite the way it ended. But still - how often can you say you had fun on the first anniversary of your parent's disowning you?
(Yeah, they took me back - but only after I got laid off)
SUNDAY
The day began with a full reinstall of everything. Dammit. I inked in AWFW #13, and finished it when I finally got everything that I needed installed. By that time it was ALREADY 11 PM. I finished Episode #13 VERY late, and I hadn't even begun inking (and in some cases finishing pencilling) Closetspace #2. I pushed it off until Monday...late on my deadline, but tI'll make it all up Wednesday. Despite how rushed and hurried and harried I felt, AWFW #13 is so far my favorite strip. Carrot said she thinks the shadows get cooler every time we see them. Aadroma said it was Deep. I likes. Things are definitely getting off kilter in a way I hope'll make for a decent cliffhanger.
MONDAY
I finished inking up Closetspace #2, but I'm taking my time on it. A panel I didn't really like disappeared on me, forcing me to redraw it. It came out a lot better. Hopefully I'll have Closetspace #2 finished completely. Wednesday I need to kick butt and draw up CS and AWFW. Yeesh...this is hard.
I put in a resume for this today:
The only thing I don't know is Flash, and I hate Flash sites any ways. If I don't get this job I'm gonna cry.
DAMN this was long....
SATURDAY
The planned day with Dean fell through. However, an EMail from Erin saying that I could come over today moved my trip from Austin, to about thirty miles to the east. Dean or no, I HAD to go pickup my Backups CD. Erin had my copy of Office 2000, and I NEEDED it to reinstall Frontpage on my computer (stupid thingy).
I'll admit that I'm a complete and total nut over the Old San Antonio Road right now - now that I have a trillion and a half bits of information I didn't have before. So I figured...OSR goes through San Antonio. And it goes to Bastrop, near where I needed to pick up my CD.
ROAD TRIP!
If you hate roadtrip entries, skip down to the ***NO MORE ROAD TRIP*** part of this entry.
I managed to get to the corner of Tuxedo Avenue and Nacogdoches Road. This intersection is the end point of the drivable OSR. IT used to go onto San Pedro Springs a few miles south, but there're whole subdivisions in the way, and a BIG mall. Plus there's just NO ROAD there....So I take Nacogdoches Road north looking for the first historical marker, which is at Nacogdoches at Loop 410.
Mistake #1 - I forgot my San Antonio map book. That map book marked where all the OSR historical markers are from the Daughters of the American Republic website. (I have a love hate relationship with the DAR - but that's for another time). The DAR markers, though, were ere posted in 1915...and they're these little small granite blocks that are HARD to find.
After a good ten minutes flying around the I-410 interchange I found the first marker. Where is it? Just outside the Guaranty Bank building, in a parking lot, next to a break area. What a place to put a marker. And it wasn't just the granite marker, there were a few other historical markers as well. All hidden away, and REALLY hard to find. Took a picture, and took off, farther up Nacogdoches Road.
The next marker was at Nacogdoches and Higgins Road. And I wooshed right past it. The map book I had with me was for counties, not cities...so San Antonio was just a mess of unlabelled lines. I figured Higgins Road was a big enough road it'd be nice and marked on Nacogdoches Road. Whoosh. I missed it. Oh, well, maybe next trip.
At Nacogdoches Road and Topperwein Road is a HUGE hill. Nowadays, it's Comanche Peak Park. Back when I visited it, it was a visitable urban legend. I took my pickup up this HUGE peak up a dirt path. At the top was a tower that the citizens of provincial San Antonio used to watch for raiding Comanche Indians. Or so they'd have you believe - Actually,the whole area was bought by an eccentric man in the 1920s, and he began to build a HUGE house - the first part was an observation tower. The 1929 Stock market crash wiped him out, leaving him with no land, no house and the huge tower all alone up on that hill. It's still there.
The Third Marker was at Nacogdoches Road and the County Line. I wooshed right past it. I asked some people around the nearby town of Bracken, who pointed me in the right direction. This was going to be a LOT harder than I thought. I found the marker - on the West side of the road, right at Evans Road. Right where it said - but it was REALLY small, and hard to find. Yeesh. Took a picture, and took off.
Nacogdoches road ends at FM 482 in the town of Comal. Comal is a strange little town, where everything is like a wild west town that boarded up and left the state. YEt right in the middle of all this ancientness is a semi-modern 1950s era gasoline pump. Right down the street on 482 is a Conoco sign. Fun-kee.
Took a lefty into the town of Solms, and looked for the marker in Solms. No one knew what the heck I was talking about. My county maps had a marker in the town, but I could not find it anywhere. After about thirty minutes of getting silly looks, I took off to find the next marker. (Turns out I had passed the Fourth Marker a LONG time ago - in the most conspicuous place possible. These things are hard to find!)
From 482, I merged onto I-35, took the Business I-35 exit into the Cool Town of New Braunfels. From Business I-35, I took a left on Nacogdoches Street (Strangely, as you leave San ANtonio, a lot of the OSR is marked as "Nacogdoches Road/Street." If you go the other direction, it's marked as "San Antonio Road/Street"). Right at Nacogdoches and Business TX 46, is the next marker. This was the very first marker I'd ever seen as a kid, and it got me interested in the OSR road system in general. This was prolly the easiest marker I took a photo of. I continued up Nacogdoches Street until it dead ended at the Guadalupe River. Here, the road actually become a foot path (by the time the city wanted to build a bridge here, a textile mill had built over the road on the other side of the river. I backtracked to Business TX 46, crossed over the Guadalupe on THAT bridge, and made my way back to the OSR (picking up right at an entrance gate to the textile Mill.
The sixth marker was somewhere on I-35. I had marked its location on the county map all wrong. After about twenty minutes crawling up and down the frontage roads, I gave up (When I got home, I learned I was nowhere near the sixth marker at all - it was about five miles south of where I was looking). This was getting REALLY hard.
Turning right on Old Bastrop Road, I found the seventh marker, along with another historical marker I'd never seen before (I drive this stretch a lot, yeah, but usually late at night.) This marker said that the little ditch directly behind the sign was the actual road itself! The ditch was made by wagons making ruts, which rain would wash away and dug a cut into the ground. Wow - living history! I had half a mind to jump the fence...butI learned my lesson with that a LONG time ago. Jumping from the truck side is easy - jumping from the non-truck side is not. And never jump in a dress.
At Old Bastrop Road and the San Marcos River is a really cool little area for you to go swimming in the river, and a good number of historical markers (no DAR marker, though). One of the historical markers, though, is REALLY far away on private land. How are you supposed to read that? The gate is locked, and there's a camera watching you. Next trip - I bring binoculars. At Old Bastrop Road and TX 80, in San Marcos, is a nice little historical marker about the OSR, along with a REALLY good print of the trails and history of the road. It's in the middle of nowhere, and is not very well maintained, but it's there.
The Eighth Marker had been pulled up during construction. I REALLY hope they plan on putting it back.
The Ninth Marker, Tenth and Eleventh markers were really easily found in Uhland and Neiderwald, and I took a picture of each.
At Texas 21 and US 183, a friend of mine gave me instructions on where the OSR went in 1940, but...well...frankly it doesn't make sense to me in that routing. The route is FM 1854 to County Road 175 to 174/260. The roads just don't "match up" with Texas 21, or any other routing near it. I think Texas called it OSR because they didn't own the right of way at that time. Either way, I'm pretty convinced this is NOT the OSR, even though my maps show that the OSR does break off of Texas 21 around here.
By this time, it was getting pretty dark, so I decided to keep my trip to Texas 21 and start heading for Erin's house.
***NO MORE ROADTRIP***
When I got there, they were pleasantly surprised to see me. Why? Cause they don't run on Jenn Standard Time. When I wrote my letter asking to see if I could come over, I made the mistake of saying "Tomorrow" instead of "Saturday." When I wrote that letter, it was officially Saturday at 3AM...which to me is still Friday. Any ways, I didn't seem to intrude, and we had some dinner and saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Lots of spandex in that movie.
A LOT.
I got my CD and took off to Austin for gas. Called Dean to see if he still had company, and he did have company that I would rather not see. I'm actually getting a signal I don't like from Dean. Mainly I don't see Dean or Leeza anymore because Leeza will basically beat Dean over the head about me while I'm there. But Dean constantly tells me that "if you need to do X with me and she has a problem with it, well, we'll break up."
No.
I refuse to be the reason for a breakup. If Dean wants to break up with Leeza, it will have to be HIM That starts it, not me. I refuse to be a pawn in this game. If you're that miserable, you LEAVE. Don't wait for me to be an excuse.
So any ways, I had to head back to San Antonio...and I took off in a direction I'd been a million times, but now I knew was part of an alternate routing of the Camino Real. The one before was "Old San Antonio Road" This one was "Camino Real de los Tejas."
You know what that means.
ROAD TRIP!
But this one'll be short. :) It was already midnight, and I didn't wanna sight see.
From Austin on "Old San Antonio Road" to Buda. Then to Loop 4 to FM 2770 through Mountain City and Kyle. County road 136 to County Road 140 into San Marcos. Loop 82 to FM 12 to FM 2439 through Hunter to FM 1102 to Hunter Road to Gruene into New Braunfels.
Now here...well...the CR del los Tejas went from Gruene Road to San Antonio street...but...well..there's a large subdivision in the way. I figure, heck, it's just a grid, I'll worm my way there eventually.
It took me thirty minutes to find my way out of that. :)
From there - I gave up...I got the heck back to I-35 and headed home...but I got hungry. I hadn't eaten much all day, so I pulled off at a local whataburger at 2AM. I didn't get out of THERE until 2:30AM. Seems several tour busses had pulled in, and they were busy cooking about 100 burgers. Bet their manager is happy.
I got home and installed Office 2000, so I could get a head start on the comics for Sunday. But all was not well in the city of Whosville. After installing everything just fine, I rebooted...and my system went straight to hell. FDISK FORMAT REINSTALL. And then bed. I'd deal with installing everything Sunday.
Saturday was a fun and enjoyable day, despite the way it ended. But still - how often can you say you had fun on the first anniversary of your parent's disowning you?
(Yeah, they took me back - but only after I got laid off)
SUNDAY
The day began with a full reinstall of everything. Dammit. I inked in AWFW #13, and finished it when I finally got everything that I needed installed. By that time it was ALREADY 11 PM. I finished Episode #13 VERY late, and I hadn't even begun inking (and in some cases finishing pencilling) Closetspace #2. I pushed it off until Monday...late on my deadline, but tI'll make it all up Wednesday. Despite how rushed and hurried and harried I felt, AWFW #13 is so far my favorite strip. Carrot said she thinks the shadows get cooler every time we see them. Aadroma said it was Deep. I likes. Things are definitely getting off kilter in a way I hope'll make for a decent cliffhanger.
MONDAY
I finished inking up Closetspace #2, but I'm taking my time on it. A panel I didn't really like disappeared on me, forcing me to redraw it. It came out a lot better. Hopefully I'll have Closetspace #2 finished completely. Wednesday I need to kick butt and draw up CS and AWFW. Yeesh...this is hard.
I put in a resume for this today:
Graphic Designer Web Designer Versatile and detail-oriented graphic designer with 2-3 years experience to support busy Marketing Department. The candidate must be knowledgeable in both online processes and print production. Position requires proficiency in Web Design including; HTML, Dreamweaver or Frontpage, Photoshop, Illustrator, Pagemaker, and Flash. Qualified individual will be expected to create and maintain the company website, shoot and manipulate digital product images, prepare digital art files for print production and have a working knowledge of offset printing, color separations, and preparation of electronic files for output. Other responsibilities include the ability to produce catalogs, advertisements, and store signage from concept to completion. Send your resume, and salary requirements to: jobs@universitycoop.com or fax to 322-7025
The only thing I don't know is Flash, and I hate Flash sites any ways. If I don't get this job I'm gonna cry.
DAMN this was long....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-04-30 03:56 am (UTC)Hm.
Date: 2002-04-30 05:05 pm (UTC)BTW, evil luck again on the job. :)