sat Jan 14, 2012

Saturday, January 14, 2012…Kathryn’s birthday!

Even though the sky was a bright blue and the sun was shining brightly, 28 degrees is cold.  We dressed in sweatshirts to stay warm and prepared the trailer to leave DeLayne’s  driveway.  We still had time for a cup of coffee with DeLayne and thank him for taking such good care of us and for inviting Odette over last night.  It was almost like 1976 again except there were four short little people missing.   (You must do the punctuation.  I am not capable.)

As we went down the road, the only things breaking the far horizon were water towers and granaries.  Several hawks were lazily circling in the air over the gently rolling green pastures where cows and horses grazed.  Highway 290 is a nice divided 4 lane road with a wide median and speeds conducive for lower trailer traffic travel.  Sandy Creek even had water flowing.  There wasn’t much, but the river was not a dry bed this time.

We have discovered a new Murphy’s Law for travelers.   “Whatever you are looking for is only to be found on the opposite side of a divided highway and with no turn lane in sight.”  Cows, horses, and farm equipment seem to be the major sources of income along this stretch of road.  Non interstate driving is much more relaxing, if you can afford the time to go that way.

A day or so ago, we were reminded that we will not see where the deer and the antelope play until after we see the amber waves.  Fortunately  “of grain” was omitted.   Are bleached blonde tuffs of grass the same as amber waves?

The countrysides are beautiful green pasture lands with herds of cattle and horses free to roam and graze.  These scenes are much more “humane” than some of the “sardine” cowpens we’ve seen along the interstates.  There are watering ponds with actual water.  We rarely ever saw any suggestion of water on other free range pastures.   We passed a ranch that boasted of having angus and brangus cattle.  We’d never heard of brangus cows before.

We stopped in the town of Chappell Hill for lunch at a deli that sold colaches as well as hamburgers, bbq, sausages and pork plates.  The store was also a bakery and they made and sold sausages, canned jams and jellies.  I didn’t get the opportunity to ask what a mawberry was.  It dawned on me that I had on a UNC sweatshirt so Dan took my picture in front of the store.  We thought that was pretty neat.  This store was not the only one we saw that had meats and “made-on-site”  sausages.  Some of these meat markets were big enough to be small grocery stores.

We passed  Brahma Bulls in Brenham.  How’s that for alliteration?

There was only one garage/flea market to be found today.  It was huge with lots of cars and all kinds of tents and booths…on the other side of the divided highway with no turn lane in sight!  I began driving after lunch and I must say Dan does not like to take pictures as much as I do, but he did tell me he saw a sign in Houston that advertised Gentle Dental.  He also reported we had seen some unique wildlife with the dead skunk near a bayou.

We are camped at Sunset RV Resort on Trinity Bay just north of Galveston Bay.  One of our neighbors had his kettle grill warming and I asked what was for supper and he grinned.  We walked down to the Bay and enjoyed sitting near the picnic tables for a while and taking some pictures.  This is a very nice park, too.  We had tried one earlier and the showers that were advertised did not exist, so we went searching for another place to camp.

 As I was cooking our ground beef stroganoff, there was a knock at the door and it was our neighbor bringing us fajitas, homemade guacamole, homemade salsa, grilled skirt steak and short ribs.  I was floored.  When Dan took them a jar of Ann Street peanuts, they wanted to know if we’d like to have more.  People are fantastic, aren’t they?   These fellows are working for a seismograph company.  They work 21 days straight before they have a week off.  Dan asked if they discovered oil, did they get a bonus.  They replied that the boss might! ( can you believe Fran wanted me to ask them “what was shaking? Since there were four of them I did not ask – Dan)

Ta-ta!

Blessings

Texas Traffic Travelers