Day 1
The navigation aids have been quite a boon to me, a person who make the wrong turn just walking out of his closet. Over the years I've slowly learned not to argue with my GPS, even when I'm convinced it's wrong because I'm almost always the one who's really in error.
So, as we're taking Highway 6 from Waco to Bryan-College Station, I'm fairly confident that I have a straight shot. Imagine my dismay when Lisa (I think that's her name) tells me I have a turn coming. I glance at the map, and it indicates that I'll have to move onto a road to my left that doesn't exist.
We keep traveling and Lisa tells me I need to take the next left and go back to some county road, the sign for which we'd recently passed. I dutifully used the turnaround and returned to the county road, where it was painfully obvious that Lisa and the GPS map were woefully out of date and wrong, wrong, wrong.
We pulled back onto 6 and watched the map as we ran out of road -- or so it seemed -- and were driving across a field. Suddenly Hwy. 6 reappeared on the map, and the Cube icon fairly leaped from the field back to the road.
The purpose of this particular route was to take us to Calvert, which we intended to return to on Sunday, where the Internet had informed me I could by a self-guided driving tour booklet at "any merchant."
We parked "downtown" and proceeded to try to find a merchant who was open to sell us a book. This was more difficult than you'd think for early Friday afternoon. We found a store with a quite friendly owner who gave us a rack card with a map of the historical district and who assured us that was what we were looking for.
The Internet had also informed me that Calvert had a Chamber of Commerce, so we thought we might have better luck going there. Fortunately its location was marked on the rack card so we headed that direction. We soon encountered a second shop owner standing on the sidewalk who quite amiably struck up a conversation. We told him we were going to the chamber office, and he told us not to bother. The chamber had a building, but no one was ever there, he said.
We mentioned that we intended to return to see the historical houses, and he lead us into his shop so he could show us the very booklet the Internet said existed. Unfortunately, he only had the one copy. Did he know where we might obtain one? Why, hmm. Probably if we went back the other way, one particular store would probably be open, and if anyone in town had one, that shop owner would.
Sure enough, when we arrived at the store, the wizened owner was in possession of a number of copies, which she happily sold for $7.50 -- please note that the Internet said the booklets cost $5. Ah, nice to know that even in small-town America, profiteering is alive and well. Supply and demand at work.
Having purchased our precious guide -- which will now be part of my estate, to be handed down to my children, with many hopes they won't fight over it -- we proceeded to Bryan. After we checked in, we decided to visit historical downtown Bryan.
The area is being renovated, probably as a result of a grant, with quite a bit being complete. During our wanderings we find O'Connor and Associates, a law firm whose primary attorney is apparently a fellow named Michael O'Connor (I'll post a picture on Flickr soon.)
We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering about and left just as the post-work traffic seemed to be picking up. Despite the presence of numerous restaurants, we decide to eat at a chain place across from the hotel -- and no, it wasn't a Denny's.
When we returned, we discovered that a large Jr. ROTC group was sharing our accommodations. They thumped an bumped a bit, and took over the breakfast area for a pizza feast, but they weren't really as annoying as they could have been.
Saturday we'll head to Anderson and wind up on a much bigger adventure.
I hope to post Day 2 on the morrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment