Missing Texas
November 2, 2009

Halloween has come and gone with no fanfare on my part. The day was used up in driving and the evening was short, hiding from mosquitoes in an RV park that appears to cater to us and our fellows, the transients using I-10 to cross the Lone Star State, just east of Houston. The place was set up nicely for “pull-throughs” instead of back-ins, but was buffeted by the roar of passing traffic. I feel safe in saying that a trick-or-treater has never made the rounds of it.

I do miss a bit the fun of costuming the kids, scooping out pumpkin innards and making jack-o-lanterns. Our tradition was to clean and dry the pumpkin seeds, soak them in soy sauce and roast them for a treat. It seemed a great deal of hubbub for a snack that lasted only a short time, but we all enjoyed the ritual.

We haven’t had trick-or-treaters at our house for years because we’re too isolated and hidden from the road by trees. As the trees grew up, the stream of them gradually dwindled away to nothing, but I use the holiday as an excuse to buy a bag of candy that I like - just in case someone shows up, I tell myself, and later adhere to the “waste not, want not” philosophy.

Now we are to November, the month of Thanksgiving, and I have so much for which to be grateful. We will be at home in a week, where I hope to immerse myself in the family and friends I left behind in July, but already missing the others that we saw so briefly on this trip.

A while back, at an RV park office in Kansas, a book practically jumped out of a rack I was passing and insisted on being purchased. I loaned it to Mom and Dad while we were at the Outer Banks, so have just now read it, and what a read! The title: “The Long Walk, the true story of a trek to freedom.” It is a saga beyond belief relating the 1941 escape from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia and the subsequent unrelenting will that impelled the author and his fellows to continue on when it was virtually impossible to do so. The book was positively mesmerizing; I could not put it down until the end, and I will definitely never forget it.

Today is likely the least eventful of all the ones in the past few months. We are in the midst of our second consecutive long-driving day to scoot us across Texas, surely my favorite state after Arizona. I am convinced I experience genetic memories of some places, this state the strongest of all. Some of the attraction, though, is no doubt due to familiarity after having spent a lot of time exploring here, and to knowing the places of my ancestors. Those who preceded me were many in Texas since the 1830s. As we see place names such as Waelder, Uvalde, Barksdale, Lockhart, Gonzales, Sonora, Littlefield, Fort McKavitt, Batstrop, Bandera and others, it sets a mood of homecoming for those are some of the regions in which my people settled and lived and died.

I never cease to be in awe of the variety of terrain and vegetation across the nation. We’re now back into mountains after the startling low country flatness, but their resemblance to the eastern ranges is confined only to the elevations. What fun to again look around me in a full circle and to see mountains rising near and far. It always makes me want to experience everything between me and the peaks in every direction and to explore my way through each range.

Every section is unique - exciting in its individual sights and smells, even the sky varies from place to place, and each peak, bayou and valley conceals its fascinating secrets to be released to those who seek them.

Fort Stockton . . .

We reached our destination at Fort Stockton about 6 p.m., pretty close to our arrival time outside Houston last night. It was not too bad doing our approximately 530 miles today, although I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it. We stayed at this RV park previously. As we pulled in, the evening was balmy, the nearly full moon rising just before sunset and the park exceptionally pleasant. Perched out here in the middle of the desert, it is a delightful little place - welcoming staff, nice store and pool, full private bathrooms with tubs and showers (what luxury!) and a restaurant that consistently cooks up some of the finest southern cooking I have ever enjoyed. It was well worth the wait to savor that great chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with country gravy and green beans - manna from heaven!

A few other RV parks have their own restaurants, but it’s fairly uncommon, mostly in places that are inconvenient to dining-out places otherwise. We seldom eat out anyway; that’s part of what we enjoy about RVing - being able to travel and still eat our own fare.