Category Archives: Driving

Stockbridge, Massachusetts

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Not long ago, I wondered how accurate the lyrics of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre” were on one specific point. I had my reasons.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in, it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track

Seems like a convenient rhyme, but that’s not all. Google Maps tells me that the site of Alice’s Restaurant is about a half a mile from a railroad track. I didn’t save the scale on this map, but the distance is correct. This is mildly amazing. Who expects geographical accuracy from a song lyric?

That morning, April 14, I’d extracted myself from Midtown Manhattan via various sorts of transport, retrieving my car at long-term parking at Newark International, and planned to spend the night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Though New England isn’t large, it is molasses when it comes to driving through its densely settled areas, and first I had to get out of New Jersey and New York, then cross Massachusetts. All that meant an all-day drive. Stockbridge, Massachusetts, former home of Alice’s Restaurant, was a stop along the way.

Near the eastern edge of New York state, I cruised north on the Taconic State Parkway.

That sounded good, I thought when I noted the name on a map. It was. Budding greenery, smooth driving, no trucks. Or that many other cars, the further north you go. Construction started about 100 years ago, at the urging of then private citizen Franklin D. Roosevelt. The parkway is in the same league as the Natchez Trace Parkway or the Blue Ridge Parkway, though only about a quarter as long as either.

Once I’d gone far enough north, I took connecting roads to the Massachusetts Turnpike. Stockbridge, which is slightly south of the turnpike, counted more-or-less as a midway point on my day’s drive. As I entered town via Massachusetts 102, I noticed a tower. A stone tower, exuding 19th-century New England sturdiness. Its clock was wrong.

The Children’s Chimes Tower, a 19th-century bell tower built on the site of the town’s original church. A 19th-century replacement for that church stands near the bell tower, looking as New England as can be.

The First Congregational Church UCC. Remarkably, it was open.

Musicians were practicing, or rather seemed to be wrapping up a practice. They paid no attention to me as I looked around.

Jonathan Edwards was the church’s second pastor. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards? Yes.

Across the road from the church and freestanding bell tower – which doesn’t chime, except in the summer – is the town cemetery.

“One of the earliest burials was the first minister, John Sergeant, who died in 1749,” says the Stockbridge Library. “Members of the Mohican tribe who joined the church also were buried here. Twenty years later, discussions began about ways to enclose the burial area to keep out cattle, horses, and pigs. It wasn’t until 1853, however, that a new organization in town, the Laurel Hill Association, took on the responsibility to clean and protect the area.”

Route 102 turns into Main Street, with its shops, hotels, and other establishiments.

And, around the back (off Main St., that is), just a half a mile from the railroad track, is Theresa’s Stockbridge Café.

Closed for the day.

US 1 New Jersey

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Driving the entire length of US 1 is more logistics that I want to take on at the moment, or maybe ever, but I figure I get a little of the same satisfaction doing it in sections. US 1 from Trenton to Newark, which I drove the afternoon of April 10, isn’t what anyone would call a scenic road, but that I’d say it’s better than the New Jersey Turnpike, whose main scenery is tail lights of other cars.

US 1 in New Jersey is four or six lanes most of the way through, generally is a divided highway, passing large cross streets, retail agglomerations, railroad tracks paralleling for a time, car dealerships, sporadic stretches of forested or other undeveloped land, thick traffic through New Brunswick especially, more than a few Jersey lefts and an uptick in spaghetti interchanges the closer you are to Newark. Stops were for traffic lights, but not too much for simple congestion. Take that, New Jersey Turnpike.

During the drive, I chanced on a radio call-in show that asked callers for stories about crashing wedding receptions, sneaking into off-limits places or other common enough rule infractions, such as taking food into movie theaters. One man claimed to have crashed a reception with a couple of friends, none dressed for the occasion; the father of the bride took a cotton to them and made sure they were well fed and good and drunk before long. One woman claimed to take entire meals to the movies and eat them there, and never being asked to leave. Now this was local radio, a real New Jersey thing to talk about.

Jan had told him many times, “It was you to me who taught:
In Jersey, anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.”

“Tweeter and the Monkey Man”, a group effort but clearly a Dylan song, is a brilliant example of a pseudo-ballad. A ballad tells a story, right? A pseudo-ballad seems to tell a story, but at some point near the end of the song, you wonder just what happened. Lyrically, not all of the pieces of the puzzle are available. “Crime and other weird behavior in New Jersey” is about a specific as you can get in this case.

In October, I’d spent a few hours wandering Yale’s stately lawns and buildings and the nearby cemetery. So it only stands to reason – if I’m the one doing the reasoning – that I also visit Princeton, a short way off US 1 not far from Trenton.

Stately buildings.

Early spring on the stately lawns.

Not the best collegiate manhole cover I’ve seen – that would be at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois – but not bad.

Speak to the organ grinder, not the monkey.

A variation on, “Never hold discussion with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room,” which is widely attributed to Winston Churchill.

Princeton is west of US 1; Grovers Mill, New Jersey is to the east, also not far. I had to go there, too. Specifically, to a small park on a small lake in the unincorporated Grovers Mill. A short park trail includes information about Grovers Mills’ claim to fame: in Orson Welles’ version of War of the Worlds, it was the first place the Martians landed.

There’s a sizable plaque, a little bit hidden away, but I found it.

The township of West Windsor, in an unusual display of municipal imagination, erected the memorial in 1988, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the broadcast. Sculptor Thomas Jay Warren did the relief.

The entire script is on line.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars. The battle which took place tonight at Grovers Mill has ended in one of the most startling defeats ever suffered by any army in modern times; seven thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars. One hundred and twenty known survivors. The rest strewn over the battle area from Grovers Mill to Plainsboro, crushed and trampled to death under the metal feet of the monster, or burned to cinders by its heat ray. The monster is now in control of the middle section of New Jersey.

Pine Barrens Disorientation

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Down in South Jersey earlier this month, I didn’t see the Jersey Devil. I did see Mighty Joe.

He counted as my introduction to the Pine Barrens, standing at a convenience store on US 206 in Indian Mills, Shamong Township, New Jersey. His story, which Roadside America tells well, began in Spain – really? – though immigrant Mighty Joe apparently has spent most of his existence in New Jersey as a commercial mascot of one kind or another. He’s still that, but also a memorial to the son of the store’s owner, Larry Valenzano, according to the sign on the gorilla’s chest. The younger Valenzano, a body builder nicknamed Mighty Joe, died of cancer in 1999.

I didn’t stop for Joe heading south on US 206. Can’t stop for everything. I figured I wouldn’t see him on my return to Trenton either, since I was planning to return on smaller roads through the heart of the Pine Barrens, after visiting Atlantic City. All went according to plan, until I actually got into the heart of the Pine Barrens fairly late in the afternoon of April 9.

Considering how close you are to Philadelphia and New York, it’s remarkable how remote the Pine Barrens feel. The region, I understand, is the largest surviving forest on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine’s North Woods, totaling over 800,000 acres.

The region is also called the Pinelands. It certainly fits.

Remote, maybe, but still plenty of signs of human habitation, past and present. I stopped to take my bearings at a wide place in the road, and noticed gravestones.

French Cemetery, named for a number of people buried named French, not for their nationality. “One of the oldest burial grounds in South Jersey,” the stone asserts. Could be, but I have no way to check that.

Interesting little spot anyway, northeast from Egg Harbor City and past the Mullica River and near the Wading River. Or was that the actual location? I was traveling on marked county roads, but pretty soon I started seeing county road signs covered with black plastic bags, next to newer signs. I can only guess, but I think that meant a recent change in the numbering of the county roads.

That further meant that both my paper and electronic maps were wrong – in as much detail as they had anyway, which wasn’t a lot. “Lost” is too strong a word, but I’d say I was disoriented in a web of meandering, ill-marked roads. I stopped more than once among the pines of the Pinelands to try to figure out a better course.

Then it occurred to me: I remembered seeing some of the exit numbers on highways near Trenton had been changed, too. I’m speculating, but I think that had something to do with my GPS going just a little funny in the head the night before. Damn it, New Jersey.

Eventually I worked my way back toward Egg Harbor City, a sizable town on US 30, which connects with US 280, which goes straight back to Trenton; the way I’d come. That’s how I was able to stop to see Mighty Joe.

Even so, I happened across a few places in the Pinelands to stop, especially Batsto Village, site of the former Batsto Iron Works.

Most of the open-air museum buildings are 19th century, but the Batsto Iron Works had roots that went back to Colonial times. Some enterprising early NJ settlers found bog iron in the area. By the 19th century, the iron smelting was doing well enough to support a company town, including of course the boss’s house.

The company store.

The company paid in script until the workers were organized enough to demand legal tender for their labor. Unlike at Fayette Historic State Park in Michigan, the actual industrial facility, the 19th-century blast furnace, is long gone. The place has a good-looking lake, however. Created by a small dam on Batsto River to harness the water for the sawmill.

A vista that says New Jersey? Yes, but not the New Jersey of song and story.

Back in Egg Harbor City (pop. 4,442), I chanced across the Egg Harbor City Cemetery – another reason to leave the GPS inactive most of the time. If the box tells you where to go, you’ll miss minor misdirections that take you to unexpected places.

I’ve come up with my next approach to traversing the Pine Barrens. There will be a next time, provided my health holds out. That’s always a contingency these days, but anyway the approach can’t be as rational as trying to plot oneself on a map, or even follow the directions from a machine.

The region isn’t that large. That is, provided your car is gassed and in good running condition, since walking out of the Pine Barrels, even following surfaced roads, seems like a bad idea unless you’ve prepared yourself to do so. Assuming you drive, pick a direction – say east, toward the morning sun – and head that way, hewing to the direction as much as possible. It won’t be too long before you come to a reliably numbered state or US highway. Or in that case, the Garden State Parkway.

Sounds doable. Unless you encounter the Jersey Devil.

Lucy the Elephant

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New Jersey flummoxed the GPS system I use occasionally in my car. Twice.

And I mean occasionally: only twice on this trip of nearly 3,500 miles through nine states, both times in New Jersey, and both times the Garden State proved too much for mere trilateration to distant satellites. Later, during a disorientation in Poughkeepsie, NY, I would have done well to use the system, but was too hardheaded for it by that point.

Most of the time, I don’t need it. My alternating use of paper and electronic maps is generally enough. However, GPS can simplify the task of trying to find a specific place – a motel, usually – in an unfamiliar urban area after dark. Provided, it seems, you’re not in New Jersey.

Approaching Trenton on the evening of April 8, I figured that would be the time to turn over navigation to the system. For a while, it seemed to give good directions. Then it told me to enter one of the local expressways, which I did at the point indicated. A few seconds later, the machine gave directions that absolutely made no sense: turn left at the next light. What? I was on an entry ramp of a limited-access expressway. A few more directions bore no relation to reality on the road, so I switched it off, went to the next exit, and found a place to stop and consult Google Maps. I’d been sent away from Trenton.

All that was just an unpleasant memory on the morning of the 9th, as I made my way using paper and electronic maps to the Jersey Shore. It wasn’t until later, during another misdirection in New Jersey, that I got an inkling of what might have happened. Never mind that for now. Eventually – and not too long, New Jersey isn’t that big – I passed through Atlantic City and headed south to my first destination that day: Lucy the Elephant.

“Built of tin and wood in 1882 by James V. Lafferty as a publicity stunt, Lucy was modeled after Jumbo, P.T. Barnum’s real life ‘Largest Elephant on Earth,’ ” notes Atlas Obscura. “Lucy is much larger than Jumbo was, and stands 65 feet high, 60 feet long, 18 feet wide, is made of nearly one million pieces of wood, and weighs about 90 tons.”

Not just a publicity stunt, but a seminal one by a real estate developer, so much so that he was awarded a patent for the structure. “Land speculator” is perhaps more descriptive, but anyway Lafferty had a chunk of ocean-adjacent property he was looking to peddle south of Atlantic City, itself only a pup of a resort at the time, but certainly an up-and-comer.

Never mind real estate, Lafferty is pretty much remembered for the marvel that is Lucy. As he should be.

“Most of South Atlantic City at that time was a combination of scrub pine, dune grass, bayberry bushes and a few wooden fishing shacks,” says the Lucy web site. “Once Lafferty hit upon the Elephant idea he enlisted the aid of a Philadelphia architect named William Free to design this unusual structure he felt would attract visitors and property buyers to his holdings… Lafferty always claimed that before the work was finished the cost skyrocketed to $38,000.

“By 1881 Lafferty was placing advertisements in area and Philadelphia newspapers offering building lots in ‘fast booming South Atlantic City.’ Lafferty eventually extended himself too far in his land deals both at the Jersey Shore and in New York and by 1887 sought to unload his South Atlantic City holdings. He offered the Elephant and other property for sale and found a willing buyer in Anton Gertzen of Philadelphia.”

Lucy wasn’t the only elephant for Lafferty: he had others, even larger, built for Coney Island and Cape May, but they didn’t survive, and one proposed for the Columbian Exhibition in 1893 that was never built. Lucy almost didn’t survive to our time either, following a familiar arc of survival to the mid-20th century in an increasingly dilapidated state, then facing demolition. Citizen activism saved Lucy, setting up a nonprofit and finding the money for restoration, and now she attracts roughly 40,000 visitors a year.

She stands on Atlantic Ave. in Margate City, NJ. A fairly ordinary street but for a few details.

Lucy the Elephant, Margate City, NJ

Looks, I’m glad to report, are free from the street and from the grounds. An interior visit at Lucy has an admission. While I didn’t do that, I supported Lucy through the purchase of postcards and a magnet across the street in the gift shop.

Margate seems happy these days to have Lucy around.

Lucy is a stone’s throw from a pretty nice beach.

Sunny that day, but a mite chilly. So I had the place practically to myself on a Thursday. Once upon a time, I understand that Margate had a boardwalk, like Atlantic City and a lot of other Jersey Shore towns, but the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 destroyed most of it, and Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 finished it off.

Unlike the boardwalk, Lucy abides.

Like I said, a stone’s throw from the beach.

Nor’East Drive ’26

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Howard Johnson, it turns out, is serious about renovating its rooms retrostyle. What says Howard Johnson midcentury, the heyday of the much-diminished chain, better than orange? – a lot of orange.

I’m just old enough to be nostalgic for midcentury motels. Maybe I’m just the right age, since as a kid, I didn’t have to concern myself with the details of getting to the motels or paying for them. I was along for the ride and the stay. I did, however, starting with the Cave Vacation of 1972 at age 11, concern myself with packing – my own stuff, but also the items everyone would need, put in the trunk of the car. To the mild amazement (I think) of my mother.

The Portsmouth, New Hampshire Howard Johnson, whose full brand name these days is Howard Johnson by Wyndham, checked a lot of the other boxes besides raw orange overload.

Not sure if these are precisely period lamps, but they remind me of the period.

The room had a modern TV, naturally, and as befitting our time, a lot of outlets, including USBs. Unfortunately, there was no bottle opener attached under the sink. Or a gossamer paper ribbon around the toilet announcing that it had been sanitized for my protection. Just quibbles. The room had the right feeling.

I found myself in New Hampshire in mid-April headed east to Maine. Some days earlier, on April 7, I’d left metro Chicago by car for the Northeast again. I returned on April 24 after 3,499 miles on the road. Dang, I should have gone that extra mile we’re always hearing about.

After visiting the Northeast last October, I hadn’t intended to return quite so soon. Then Lilly and Dan scheduled their engagement party for April 11, 2026, in Midtown Manhattan, which meant a return to New York City at least. The easier (and cheaper) thing to do would have been for all of us to fly there, spend a few days, and then fly home.

I wanted to go to the party, of course, but that approach to getting there didn’t appeal – so I drove by way of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where I squeezed a day into my schedule to look around. Yuriko and Ann flew in the day before the event, and we attended the party in the upstairs Manhattan Manor room of Rosie O’Grady’s on 51st, between 6th Ave. and 7th Ave. I’d never heard of the place before, but eventually learned that Rosie O’Grady’s is a sentimental favorite of Lilly and Dan’s when they visit New York. That only goes to show that one’s children have, or should have, aspects of their lives you know nothing about.

We had a large time that evening, meeting members of Dan’s family and many of his friends, and seeing many of Lilly’s friends for the first time or the first time in years. My nephew Dees was able to attend from Austin and my nephew Robert and his fiancée Meredith came from Brooklyn.

That wasn’t quite it for NYC – my nth visit, Yuriko’s third and Ann’s first – since we had another day and a half to kick around. We spent time strolling in a budding springtime Central Park and at MoMA and in a couple of Greek diners and one of the locations of the delightful Angelina bakery. All in all, an enjoyable time, all too short. Yuriko and Ann flew home, but I made my trip just a little longer.

Namely, I had another large time, this one in Boston, with my friends Rich and Lisa and Steve. That was slated for a week after the party, so I had a few days to spend between NYC and Boston. Where to go? Maine. Geographically not between those major metros, but nothing is that far apart in New England, as all drivers who grew up in Texas know.

After my visit with my Boston friends on the weekend of April 18-19, I took a (fairly) slow drive home, passing through western Massachusetts and stopping in upstate New York long enough to visit historic places I couldn’t in October because the federal government shutdown. From there, I traversed Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana again, along a somewhat different route than I’d come. Of course.

The last night of the trip, I stayed at another Howard Johnson. It had the location I wanted, in western Ohio, and the price wasn’t bad, but I was also curious how orange it was going to be. The answer: not quite as much as the Portsmouth property, but more than most places.

Including the same circular mirror array. Wyndham must have gotten them in bulk.

The unusual thing about the Lima, Ohio Howard Johnson is its sizable enclosed atrium — visible from my room’s balcony, also unusual in a limited-service hospitality property.

I asked the clerk if the property had been something else, once upon a time, and she said it had, offering a name I didn’t recognize and don’t remember, though I expect it might have been an independent property trying to make a go of it. Tough going in Lima, I bet.

GTT ’26 Details

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Time for spring break. Back to posting around April 26, when it might actually be spring in northern Illinois. There have been a few days recently when I’ve been able to sit out on my deck comfortably, which is my idea of spring, but not that many.

The recent trip to Texas seems like a while ago now. As usual, though, there were many details. A lot more than I can convey, but here are a few more.

Faces

At the National Funeral Museum in Houston, one display featured, chronologically, 20 photographs of Abraham Lincoln. The third to last one, from February 1865, is one you don’t see much.

On a wall in downtown Nacogdoches, familiar figures from Texas.

I didn’t work out who this was supposed to be, in downtown Houston. Better that way, I think.

Signs

This place in Austin, well known to Tom, serves most delicious tacos.

Bastrop: Cobbling runs in the family.

Belton.

Structures

A re-creation of an ancient Caddo home.

Durst-Taylor Historic House & Garden in Nacogdoches.

The Old Stone Fort Museum in the same town, which is made of stone, but was never a fort. On the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University. Recommendation to the university: if you want people to visit the place, provide just a little unrestricted parking. A little visitor parking anywhere on campus would be good.

Then again, the university seems determined to move the structure anyway — which might mean taking it apart, and then not putting it anywhere where because such a move would cost too much.

A place that has seen better days in Houston.

Downtown Lockhart.

The Southwest Museum of Clocks & Watches is permanently closed, alas.

Items

Cosmic in Austin is a bar and a collection of food trucks that surround an informal plaza with a lot of tables and chairs and shade. It’s a very pleasant place, and within walking distance of Tom’s home.

Houston manhole covers.

An artifact at the Old Stone Fort, but from San Augustine, and a hyperlocal soda bottle.

The New Mexico flag near Carlsbad NP.

Landscapes

Not just any landscapes, but within the Sierra Madera Astrobleme in West Texas. US 385 cuts right through the ancient crater for about eight miles, on the way to Marathon. You’d never know but for signs telling you that you’re entering the astrobleme, and one telling you that you are leaving it.

Memorials

The Houston National Cemetery.

RIP, Richard Allen Wilson. I don’t think that I’d ever seen an infinity symbol on a national cemetery stone. That, of course, made me curious, and I checked: it is one of the 98 various symbols that the National Cemetery Administration allows. The list is here.

I’m familiar with most of them, but not quite all of them, such as the Church of World Messianity, which is a Japanese new religion – it’s hard to keep track of all of those – and the Aaronic Order Church, which may or may not be part of the LDS movement, but in any case is an American sect. Hard to keep track of all those, too.

The NCA says: “No graphics (logos, symbols, etc.) are permitted on Government-furnished headstones or markers other than the available emblems of belief, the Civil War Union Shield, the Civil War Confederate Southern Cross of Honor, and the Medal of Honor insignias… Emblems of belief for inscription on Government headstones and markers do not include social, cultural, ethnic, civic, fraternal, trade, commercial, political, professional or military emblems.”

So (for example) symbols for the Loyal Order of Moose or some odd emoji or maybe a grawlix will not be considered, though as a comment about the Army, the latter would be funny.

Finally, a less formal memorial, but I’m sure just as heartfelt.

A memorial for Francisco Lin Herrera happens to be near the Giant paintings outside of Marfa. He died in an accident along that stretch of US 90. RIP, Francisco.

Stephenville & Ballinger, Texas

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Regards for Easter. And Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Saturday. Back posting on Easter Monday.

This seemed like a fitting set of images for the occasion.

A 100-foot steel cross rises on a small hill a few miles south of Ballinger, Texas, seat of Runnels County. Couldn’t very well pass that up, considering that we were passing through Ballinger (pop. about 3,600) anyway, toward the end of our drive that day from metro DFW to San Angelo, Texas.

“The Ballinger cross was built by a local construction company and commissioned by Jim and Doris Studer, owners of Buddy’s Plant Plus,” notes the Austin Chronicle. “The company is the only U.S. factory making water-soluble fertilizer for Miracle-Gro. After 20 years of making fertilizers in Florida, the Studers went looking for a drier climate. In 1988, they moved the company to Ballinger, where it quickly became one of the largest employers in the county.”

Jim Studer reportedly had been considering the construction of a cross about half that height, as a token of gratitude for a successful business. Then, during a visit to Florida, he was nearly electrocuted in what could easily have been a fatal accident – and decided to roughly double the size of the structure. A thanks to the Lord for not being offed at that moment, perhaps, but no doubt sincere gratitude regardless, for his thriving business. The cross went up in 1993.

We’d left Dallas that morning in mid-February, skirting the cities on I-20 West, except for a brief stop in the Fort Worth museum district. Specifically, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Yuriko had heard about my visit in 2019 and been slightly miffed, since she too wanted to see the Tadao Ando-designed structure. So we shoehorned a visit for a look at the structure on the day’s itinerary, though not the museum collection. It loses nothing on a second viewing. Gets better.

Go southwest from Fort Worth on US 377 and soon enough you’ll arrive in Stephenville (pop. 20,800 or so), seat of Erath County.

A dairy industry in Erath County? Yes, indeed: sales of $350.9 million in 2022, according to the USDA, by far the largest ag product in the county, and third highest for milk sales among all the 254 counties in Texas, and 24th in the nation. Meat cattle in Erath County are a distant second at $82.7 million that year, so a milk cow standing in the shadow on the Erath County courthouse is just about right.

I had to look it up: number one county in nation for milk production by dollar volume is not in Wisconsin, but rather Tulare County, California, at more than $2.8 billion in 2022. First out of 1,770 counties nationwide producing milk. Now there’s a Jeopardy answer to stump everyone.

We ate lunch in Stephenville at Greer’s, which served a chicken-fried steak to beat all, then took a constitutional around the Erath County courthouse. Starting with one hefty former bank building, vintage 1889.

For Texas county courthouses, James Riely Gordon (d. 1937) is a starchitect, but of course that wasn’t all he did. When he designed this bank, he was 26.

Every town worth its late 19th-century salt has to have an opera house.

Also, a musical favorite son: Milton Brown.

Wiki: “Brown began his musical career in 1930, when he met Bob Wills and guitarist Herman Arnspiger. They were performing at a local Fort Worth dance and Brown joined the duo on a chorus of ‘St. Louis Blues.’ The trio decided to team up to play medicine shows around Texas and Brown landed a regular radio spot on WBAP for the group, where they played a show sponsored by Aladdin Lamp Company, which had the band change its name to the Aladdin Laddies.”

Man, there’s another streaming platform limited series for you: the founding of western swing. Add a fictional love triangle between Bob Wills and Milton Brown and a fictional fetching woman, and some fictional tension between Bob and Milton, who nevertheless produce terrific music to enthusiastic audiences early in the Depression, until Milton dies suddenly in the last episode in a car wreck, as the real musician did in 1936 at age 32. Bob is left to carry on.

Milton’s not the only one honored near the Erath County courthouse.

There were a fair number of plaques like this, too many to read, so I picked one.

Chicago had its art cows (that was in 1999?!?) and Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has its sturgeons, so Stephenville had boots?

You’d think maybe, considering the importance of dairy locally, there would also be — do dairy workers wear special boots? If so, there should be one of those on display too.

More Stephenville.

US 67 joins US 377 for a run southwest of Stephenville, through such burgs as Dublin, Comanche and Brownwood. Then US 377 peels away to the south; but we followed US 67 west to Ballinger. That town was mostly a stop to get our bearings, really, but I also did a short walkabout while Yuriko napped in the car.

I made the acquaintance of Charles H. Noyes (d. 1917).

Charles was a young Runnels County man who died by being thrown from his horse while minding cattle. His parents tasked no less than Pompeo Coppin to do the sculpture honoring his memory. Nice work, Pompeo. RIP, Charles.

Caddo Mounds State Historic Site

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Underfoot, ants went about their business in the red soil.

Fire ants? An expert might know, not me. Could be, considering these ant colonies tunnel under the the grounds of Caddo Mounds State Historic Site in Cherokee County, Texas, not far from Nacogdoches.

People, being proportionally bigger, make larger mounds, but for what we assume are entirely human reasons.

“The Caddo selected this site for a permanent settlement about A.D. 800,” says the Texas Historical Commision. “The alluvial prairie possessed ideal qualities for the establishment of a village and ceremonial center: good sandy loam soil for agriculture, abundant natural food resources in the surrounding forest, and a permanent water source of springs that flowed into the nearby Neches River. From here, the Caddo influenced life in the region for approximately 500 years.”

The historic site is large enough to include a winding trail. On a warm, dry day, a most enjoyable walk.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned, but I blithely ignored the warnings and took my walk. Nothing bad happened. A fair amount of life is like that.

Yarn bombing? Here? Why? It might as well have been done by the ancient Caddos, for all I’m going to get an answer to that.

Of course, that tree is gnarly, literally and in the way Jeff Spicoli used the word. So maybe a good candidate for some yarn.

My drive from the historic site to Palestine, Texas, took me on some ill-marked back roads, but we’re not talking the Sahara, so signed roads eventually appear to alleviate any navigational uncertainty. Near the site on Farm to Market 2907 – walking distance, really – is Weeping Mary, Texas, a hamlet that has gotten more attention that one would think, at least considering its small size (pop. 40). “The community was probably first settled soon after the Civil War by freed slaves from neighboring plantations,” the Texas State Historical Association says.

In our time, Weeping Mary is a small agglomeration of standard and manufactured houses and satellite dishes and cars scattered among tall pines, with the church in there somewhere, and it takes all of half a minute to drive through.

San Augustine & Mission Dolores State Historic Site

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From Nacogdoches east to San Augustine, there in the thick of East Texas, is about 20 miles along the highway Texas 21. An excellent drive.

Gary the Builder

Approach San Augustine (pop. 1,920) from the west on the Texas 21, as I did, and you’re certain to notice an unusual wooden structure, as I did.

Roadside America calls it “Major Fun,” and I will say it was a major surprise, since I went to San Augustine knowing very little about the place. RA says: “Gary Brewer, a carpenter, has been adding multi-story decks and spiky wooden things to the outside of his house since 2006. The town has tried to stop him, but the woodwork is all code-compliant. Gary views his house an attraction, and wants people to visit it.”

The tower is at one corner of the county courthouse square. So maybe Mr. Brewer could file the paperwork for his construction by walking across the street. Do you suppose Mr. Brewer the carpenter has a friend named Carpenter who’s a brewer? Possibly.

The rest of the town square shows that many town squares aren’t what they used to be — sporting more than a few vacant storefronts — for all the usual reasons, such as big box retail elsewhere in the county. But businesses cling to life in the courthouse square even so.

Not pictured is the San Augustine Drug Co., a pharmacy near the square, a sizable place that’s more clothes and gift shop than drug store. You can buy ice cream at a counter near one wall. Not quite a classic drug store lunch counter, but distinctive. As I was looking around the store, one of the employees asked if this was my first visit. I told her it was, and she said that first-time visitors receive a cold drink from the counter, no charge. So I sat at the counter and drank a complementary lemon squash, as lemony and delightful as could be.

A Stripling Might Say My Name is the Alternate

A number of the vacant spaces had been recently used as Christmas stores. Even in February, seasonal décor lingered, because why not?

This space wasn’t vacant, exactly, but it was unmarked and its use a little hard to sus. Art space perhaps. The view reminded me of “Texas Sun” for obvious reasons.

There were ghost signs, which isn’t unusual. More unusual is Stripling’s on a building. I have to take an interest in that, an alternate of my name.

“The original town well was dug by slaves on this site in 1860, and a saloon was built over it in 1891,”says the Society of Architectural Historians. “The First National Bank acquired the property, filled in the well, and commissioned this building. Raif Stripling purchased the building several years later and reopened the well as a tourist attraction. In 2003, the San Augustine Historical Foundation bought the property, which is now operated as a gift shop. The entrance canopy’s curious pediment with miniature triglyphs was added to his father’s building by Raiford Stripling.”

You never know what a building has to say.

The Spanish Brought Horses & Frisbee Golf

Not far away from the courthouse, half a mile or so south on US 96, is Mission Delores State Historic Site. Once upon a time, but not for that long, Mission Nuestra Señora De Los Dolores De Los Ais was there.

Mission Dolores has a name that evokes the stone relics of a backwater from the Spanish conquest of the Americas, but I’ve got bad news: the mission seems to have been built of wood, a material not known for durability across the centuries. Modern wooden poles ring part of the site, but otherwise you’ve got to bring a lot of historical imagination to the place.

The actual site wasn’t known until late 20th century archaeology confirmed the location, part of which was destroyed by the building of the highway. The modern state historic site grounds extend far enough to offer a pleasant walk, provided the weather is pleasant, as it was that day.

Gashes in the earth run through the wooded grounds.

They’re something like the ghost signs – ghost trails, you might call them, carved by horses and wagons and Indians and Spaniards and, remarkably, not yet lost to time.

Also part of the park: a Frisbee golf course.

An homage to the fact that the Spanish brought the sport to the Americas as surely as smallpox and horses. If you tell people that with some conviction, wonder how many would believe it?

The Hermann Park Japanese Garden & A Side of Rice

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My go-to data source for gas prices is AAA, which tells me that the national average today is $3.983/gal, and higher in Illinois, at $4.228/gal. As everyone knows, up markedly this month. People have long seemed to believe that the President of the United States has a magic button that made gas prices change. That was nonsense, of course, but now it looks like the administration has found such a button, except it might be stuck on “rise.”

Be that as it may, I’m glad my recent long drives, and long flights, aren’t scheduled for this year. The summer of ’26 could be a time to stay closer to home. Then again, prices north of $4/gal – in fatter 2008 dollars – didn’t keep us from driving to Great Smoky Mountains NP that year.

In Houston last month, I did a fair amount of driving, including in the airport-area industrial submarket. That is, among the warehouses and distribution centers that form part of the sizable metro Houston industrial market, which totals about 700 million square feet (for comparison, metro Chicago’s market is roughly 1 billion square feet). I’m probably one of the few tourists anywhere who gets a kick out of driving by behemoth industrial buildings, but there you have it.

I also drove the short distance from downtown Houston to Hermann Park, a legacy of the City Beautiful Movement and the landscape architectural talents of George Kessler (d. 1923). He was a younger version of Frederick Law Olmstead, it seems, busy in a lot of places, though more important in planning for Dallas than Houston.

Always thought “City Beautiful” is too far a reach. Like most people, I’d say City Pretty Nice or City Not Bad would be good enough, but that’s not the kind of movement name that inspires grand projects.

The Japanese Garden occupies part of Hermann Park. That seems to be the generic name. I made my way there. It’s a pretty place, even in February.

A mix of imported Japanese flora and the pines of East Texas. Hermann Park itself dates from the early 20th century. The Japanese Garden, the late 20th century, a prosperous time for Japan, and when that dustup between Nippon and the USA had mostly been put in the rear view mirror.

Where there is water, there is waterfowl.

Just outside the Japanese Garden are tracks for the Hermann Park Railroad, a narrow-gauge line that makes a loop through the park. I didn’t ride it, but of course thought of the Brackenridge Park RR in San Antonio, the one by which all others are judged (by me).

Just outside Hermann Park is Rice University. I considered Rice, but decided not to go — or I wasn’t admitted anyway, I don’t remember after all this time. As a result, my short stroll this February was my first visit to campus.

Not a very long visit. Rice has some fine buildings.

But also long sightlines. That make for long walks.

I’d already spent time walking around downtown Houston, and then the Japanese Garden. There’s only so much walking even indefatigable sightseers can do.