a week in texas picture post
I'll save my Texas food post for my next wifi stop, in the hope that this morning i will be able to get one more snack ahead of crossing into Louisiana. Instead, here is a Texas scenery post.
The opening shot is from my RV campsite on Lake Texoma, looking back to the crossing into Oklahoma. These long viaducts are something i associate with the American south, probably because of Miami Vice, Florida Keys, Lake Pontchartrain and so on. In the corner you can see a pontoon boat belonging to one of the RVers. These guys were set up, man. Trucks (plural), boat and fifth wheel trailer were all part of each 50A full hookup campsite.
Next one is an old oil derrick located in the swampy Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge.
Also in the wildlife refuge, a picture of the swamp.
I really loved this place. Still in the wildlife refuge, here is a view of one of the shallow pools criss-crossed by rocky dykes and rusty pipelines.
I can't remember what town i was in when i found this mural. It might have been Denison?
This fucking bullshit. Texas is a state that seems like it has lots of great roads, but that's only true if you drive a car and stick to the highways. Cycling on the highway shoulder is very bumpy and slow because they don't have good surfaces. The so-called farm roads have much better surfaces to cycle on, but there is no shoulder and locals blast through at 75 miles an hour. You will also get "coal rolled" by some jackass in a truck at least once a day. So then you go to the county road. County roads are an utter crapshoot. One minute they're lovely sealed roads, next minute gravel, next minute... What the fuck is this shit.
Here is a gorgeous sunset on Lake Tawakoni. I tried to use my phone's zoom to capture that bird and got a few photos of it catching a fish and eating dinner, but the focus wasn't good enough to share. So you'll have to imagine it from this panaromic view.
I found it really hard to get scenic shots because a lot of the highways either don't run through scenic areas, or they do but you can't stop because it's too busy of a highway. This was a rare little clearing that looked nice where i could stop safely. Not sure where it is, but it's pretty.
In a follow-up to the ranch spider in my Oklahoma picture post, here is another ranch that constructed a scary spider for Halloween.
Here's a little pic of my tent sitting in the Christian glampsite near Hawkins. The little barn in the distance is a reservable glamping hut. It really felt like i was at a festival, but a quiet, peaceful one with no music.
Getting deeper into the Piney Woods, here is a private drive leading off the main route, which was just a dirt road through the trees. The private properties around here farm pine trees and rent out their land to hunters.
Here's a hunting blind located on a pipeline right-of-way. The forests are really interesting down here, the right-of-ways for the pipelines seem wider and better-maintained than the actual roads. I'd love to hike or cycle down them, although it's probably illegal without a hunting license.
I'm going to give you three photos of that amazing morning near the Big Thicket and Alabama-Coushatta Indian reservation. The fog was so thick and oppressive. You have to imagine, it was early morning but the temperature was already very warm. Not a soul out there.
Deeper into the heart of darkness.
My glasses were completely fogged up, so i took a selfie. Look at the moisture on my forehead. That wasn't because i was sweating hard from the exertion, it's just how the air was that morning. Awesome.
The final Texas shot is from the fucking shopping mall in Port Arthur/Nederland next to my motel. The parking lot was incredibly wide and almost completely empty. No shelter anywhere from the rain. No sidewalks. No pedestrian crossings. Multi-lane roads on every side. Drainage ditches deep with water forming moats around every business. It was extremely pedestrian-hostile, but - wearing flip-flops - i splished and sploshed and splashed my way from business to business anyway. I was impressed with the drainage situation. This probably wasn't an epic downpour by gulf coast standards, but it was still very heavy rain, and the parking lot and roads were slanted in such a way that it drained pretty quickly.
Okay, next up is Louisiana. Let's go.
The opening shot is from my RV campsite on Lake Texoma, looking back to the crossing into Oklahoma. These long viaducts are something i associate with the American south, probably because of Miami Vice, Florida Keys, Lake Pontchartrain and so on. In the corner you can see a pontoon boat belonging to one of the RVers. These guys were set up, man. Trucks (plural), boat and fifth wheel trailer were all part of each 50A full hookup campsite.
Next one is an old oil derrick located in the swampy Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge.
Also in the wildlife refuge, a picture of the swamp.
I really loved this place. Still in the wildlife refuge, here is a view of one of the shallow pools criss-crossed by rocky dykes and rusty pipelines.
I can't remember what town i was in when i found this mural. It might have been Denison?
This fucking bullshit. Texas is a state that seems like it has lots of great roads, but that's only true if you drive a car and stick to the highways. Cycling on the highway shoulder is very bumpy and slow because they don't have good surfaces. The so-called farm roads have much better surfaces to cycle on, but there is no shoulder and locals blast through at 75 miles an hour. You will also get "coal rolled" by some jackass in a truck at least once a day. So then you go to the county road. County roads are an utter crapshoot. One minute they're lovely sealed roads, next minute gravel, next minute... What the fuck is this shit.
Here is a gorgeous sunset on Lake Tawakoni. I tried to use my phone's zoom to capture that bird and got a few photos of it catching a fish and eating dinner, but the focus wasn't good enough to share. So you'll have to imagine it from this panaromic view.
I found it really hard to get scenic shots because a lot of the highways either don't run through scenic areas, or they do but you can't stop because it's too busy of a highway. This was a rare little clearing that looked nice where i could stop safely. Not sure where it is, but it's pretty.
In a follow-up to the ranch spider in my Oklahoma picture post, here is another ranch that constructed a scary spider for Halloween.
Here's a little pic of my tent sitting in the Christian glampsite near Hawkins. The little barn in the distance is a reservable glamping hut. It really felt like i was at a festival, but a quiet, peaceful one with no music.
Getting deeper into the Piney Woods, here is a private drive leading off the main route, which was just a dirt road through the trees. The private properties around here farm pine trees and rent out their land to hunters.
Here's a hunting blind located on a pipeline right-of-way. The forests are really interesting down here, the right-of-ways for the pipelines seem wider and better-maintained than the actual roads. I'd love to hike or cycle down them, although it's probably illegal without a hunting license.
I'm going to give you three photos of that amazing morning near the Big Thicket and Alabama-Coushatta Indian reservation. The fog was so thick and oppressive. You have to imagine, it was early morning but the temperature was already very warm. Not a soul out there.
Deeper into the heart of darkness.
My glasses were completely fogged up, so i took a selfie. Look at the moisture on my forehead. That wasn't because i was sweating hard from the exertion, it's just how the air was that morning. Awesome.
The final Texas shot is from the fucking shopping mall in Port Arthur/Nederland next to my motel. The parking lot was incredibly wide and almost completely empty. No shelter anywhere from the rain. No sidewalks. No pedestrian crossings. Multi-lane roads on every side. Drainage ditches deep with water forming moats around every business. It was extremely pedestrian-hostile, but - wearing flip-flops - i splished and sploshed and splashed my way from business to business anyway. I was impressed with the drainage situation. This probably wasn't an epic downpour by gulf coast standards, but it was still very heavy rain, and the parking lot and roads were slanted in such a way that it drained pretty quickly.
Okay, next up is Louisiana. Let's go.