Memorial Day weekend. Three days to try to put some stamps in our Texas Independence 175th anniversary passport.
After a bit of research, I decide we need to visit Goliad and Gonzales. We'll stay in Victoria because they have more choices, and it's close to several stops we'll make on Sunday.
We rise late -- when did I come to believe that 7:30 is late? -- but still manage to hit the road by mid-morning, pretty good for me nowadays. I used to have the traveling thing down. Knew exactly what needed to be packed.
Now, I pack most of the needed items, then remember I forget something, then remember I forgot something else, and finally remember I forgot one last thing. Then, after we leave the house, I'm likely to remember something else and have to go back.
But not this time. We manage to pack everything with limited remembering and don't have to return for anything. Won't have to buy anything on the road, either.
The wind blew strongly from the south, and I fought it the whole way. One of the bad parts of owning a square car, I suppose. After leaving the Interstate behind at Waco, the adventure began.
Sharon's dad and I used to occasionally have a discussion about the best way to travel. I used to favor Interstates and U.S. Highways with bypasses. He like to travel the state highways and farm-to-market roads. The trip was the thing, not the arrival. I've come to appreciate that point of view.
Like traveling through the town of Rosebud, where a painted sign at the city's edge proclaimed, "We call it home."
Now, I'm sure they meant that in a positive way, but as we drove through the town, I was reminded of the phrase, "It's not much, but we call it home." That's usually uttered ironical when referring to spectacular digs, or honestly when the home really isn't much. Rosebud fits the latter category.
On the Interstate we would have missed the road sign in LaGrange that showed a nearly vertical truck on a steep incline on the left and a wavy line on the right -- not the usual "curves ahead" wavy line, with a couple of curves, but multiple curves.
"What does that mean?" I asked Sharon. She didn't know for sure. A short way later, we see an exit for trucks, so we figure this incline is pretty steep, but still aren't sure about the wavy line.
Turns out the steep incline has multiple switch backs to enable vehicles to climb the hill -- as I'm sure you've already figured out. A road that could have been at home in San Francisco.
And of course, we're behind a large truck that's lumbering up the hill, straining to do 20 mph.
In Halletsville, we pass a Cobra attack helicopter near the side of the road raised about 10 feet in the air. We have to turn around and find out what that's about. Can't do that nearly as easily on the Interstate.
Turns out the helicopter is part of a memorial to Vietnam veterans from Lavaca County, with a fairly large number of names listed.
And almost all the towns have cool houses, like the green Victorian we saw in Cameron, or a spectacular structure like the courthouse in Giddings that's being restored.
You just don't see those sights from the Interstate.
The day ends in Victoria. While driving to a restaurant for supper, we pass a large field nearly covered with flags, a relatively recent Memorial Day event apparently created as a fund-raiser/Memorial Day tribute by a local soldier. Residents can purchase a flag in memory or in honor of a soldier, or buy a POW/MIA flag, and the profits are used for Warriors Weekend, which provides wounded veterans from the war on terror with a fishing weekend each year.
A book that lists the placement of each flag along with the donor and the soldier being honored lies on a stand at one end of the field, and each flagstand bears a ribbon with the name of the honoree attached. One lists a soldier from the Revolutionary War.
The road alongside the field is under construction. Had I known that ahead of time, I probably would have given into to the old urge to find the better, faster route.
I'm learning.
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