September 2010

We've just returned from a motor trip west to visit my grown children in Texas and the to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary in a unique way.  We didn't really keep a log of our trip, so my memory will be tested.

I learned that despite Georgia's new ordinance banning texting while operating a motor vehicle, some people simply must use "thumbtyping" as a means of ignoring the fact that driving really needs concentration.  I had overtaken a car on I-20 west of downtown Atlanta and was passing when the car drifted into my lane.  Only quick reflexive action by this 68 year-old driver avoided a collision with a car aimed at mine by a twenty-something lady with her mind on something else.  A quick toot of my horn and a shake of a finger (naughty, naughty forefinger shake, not that other cruder digit) brought her back to reality long enough to return to the proper lane.  The only other avoidance maneuver I had to take on our trip was when a car was merging from the right and another changed lanes abruptly on my left flank as I tried to get out of the way.  A quick stab on the brakes and yank on the wheel brought a gasp from my bride and saved us the ignominy of a fender-bender in Mississippi.


A beautiful weekend with my daughter and her husband, some Texas BBQ and grilled sausages, iced-tea and potato salad, grandsons from age 10 to age 32, my son who is far closer to 50 than I care to admit, and a birthday cake my daughter made from scratch to celebrate the anniversary of her own birth, all contributed to a rather pleasant time.  Two of my older grandsons apparently had some conflict in scheduling and were unable to join us, so we didn't get to see any of the great grandsons.  Maybe next trip.


All around America are towns with strange names. When I was a kid, Hot Springs, NM changed its name to honor a popular radio quiz game and is still known as Truth or Consequences.  In North Dakota, a couple of towns were to be inundated when the Garrison Dam was completed and Lake Sakakawea began filling, so the US Army Corps of Engineers moved the folks from the old towns to one completely new town.  I've always been amazed that the USCoE was able to avoid combining the two names, Sanish and Van Hook into Vanish, but the new town is still known as New Town, ND 58763.

Government Ditch
through
Caddo Lake

There is a town in the eastern piney woods part of the nation's second largest state that had piqued my interest before we ever left Georgia, so we deliberately left I-20 at Marshall, Texas, and drove seventeen miles into the country to visit the town of Uncertain, TX 75661.  A population of around 150 souls, each apparently with his or her own version of how the town came to be named.  It is home to the Graceful Ghost, the only wood burning steam paddle wheeler left on earth, but a Tuesday in September isn't the best time to draw a crowd of tourists to Caddo Lake, so Sara and I took a tour of the lake on a pontoon boat rather than pony up serious bucks to cover the minimum of 5 adult tickets at $20.00 each. In the future, we'll plan another tour when the minimum will be assured, but our private tour was spectacular and our tour guides were informative - "Caddo Lake is one of thirteen areas in the United States protected by the Ramsar Convention (of which I'd never heard until Cap'n Gibb told us it is an international treaty to protect wildlands), flora and fauna consisted of: 189 species of trees and shrubs, 75 grasses, 42 woody vines, 216 kinds of birds, 90 fish and reptiles, and 47 mammals."

All BS aside, a tour on Caddo Lake is truly spectacular.  It's fed by the Red River, notable in song, and in much of the part that is in Texas is a forest of enormous bald cypress trees.  Channels, both natural and man-made, provide the way for boats of just about every size.  Our tour was interrupted briefly by a flotilla of boats from the local Sheriff who were protecting the filming of a large, high speed boat racing through the "Government Channel" pictured above.  The channel was cut years ago to provide a means of transporting cotton downriver to New Orleans.   We didn't get to see the boat at speed, but later it did pass by and the operator (driver? pilot? boatsman?) waved at us on at our pontoon boat.  

Bald Cypress

Power Boat

Sometime during our tour, I asked if there were maps of the channels because, to me, just about everything looked the same, but at the same time, every turn was different.  Cap'n Gibb pointed to a marker post with a metal sign and said that each post like that had a unique GPS address to enable finding one's way.  Not having graduated from my road atlas to GPS, I just nodded knowingly.

At another point, we came upon an older couple, he in overalls, she in a granny dress and wide hat, fishing from their little jon boat powered by an electric trolling motor.  They allowed as that they'd caught enough for dinner.  I asked Cap'n Gibbs if he supposed they had a GPS and he allowed that they probably knew their way.

When our tour ended, we said goodbyes but only after the English lady who ran the tour office gave a bottle of Champagne to celebrate our wedding anniversary, a fact that I had mentioned when I booked the ride, hoping for a discount.

In the years past, Sara and I have celebrated the passing of another year of matrimonial bliss with dinner at a nice restaurant. We'd planned to do the same on this trip, so after the tour of Caddo Lake, we drove on to Monroe, LA and a hotel. Once settled in, I dug out the computer and looked for a restaurant that I'd noted before we ever left Georgia. Described as "Overlooking the beautiful Bayou DeSiard," I formed a mental picture of an elegant sort of place and called for reservations, although I figured they wouldn't be necessary on a Tuesday night. Wrong. The place was packed, jam packed, hardly the place for a quiet, romantic dinner on our anniversary, but the waiter was friendly, the food quite goods, and the wine crisp with a taste that was "rich, full, round and persistent" whatever that means.

The following day found us motoring across the rest of Louisiana, then Mississippi, Alabama and finally back in Georgia, hitting Atlanta at rush hour.  We were doing well until somewhere far ahead of us, a young man in a Dodge pickup apparently lost control of his manly ride and, by the skidmarks, spun backwards across three lanes and collided hard with steel guardrail upon which his truck sat perched as Sara drove by and I gawked. By the time we got there, there was no indication of any other vehicle being involved, but the level of damage to the late model hemi-powered pickup seemed to say that there was at least one other auto that may have already been hauled off.

I truly like traveling by car, even to places I've visited before.  We don't go to Texas as frequently as we really ought to, but the way is familiar.  In years past, I've driven long distances without maps, once traveling from North Dakota to Kansas to Arizona to Maine without having a map in the car.  I can still drive to Texas and New Hampshire without the need to consult a map, although now I have one.  Perhaps someday we'll pay that extra to get a GPS and spend weeks figuring how to make it work, but not until one can get you to my house.  The last time I check those little miracles out, they still got confused by a highway that was built twenty years ago and could not lead you to our little spot of heaven.   

That's all.  Thank you for reading this far.  Oh, yeah, one more thing.  I'f you click on the pictures, they'll enlarge to be viewed more easily.

Please feel free to comment, whether your are friend, family, or a complete stranger.