sicilian cowboy, post: 420885, member: 705 wrote: Great.....better than stopping to see the world's largest pecan in Sequin.
The Czechs who settled around Schulenberg had a tradition of elaborately painting the interiors of the churches they built. St. Mary's Catholic Church in Praha, Texas, just a half mile off Highway 90 is worth a stop.
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I recommend NOT going out of your way to visit the Prada Marfa "art project" located along Highway 90 in Valentine Texas between Marfa and Van Horn.
imaudigger, post: 420830, member: 7286 wrote: I'd like to buy one of those small oil pumpers and set it up on my property along the road and get it working....maybe start off with pipe sticking up 3 or 4 feet in the air with some odd looking gravel piled next to it....then the following week set up the pumper and get it to pumping.....then the following week stack 3 or 4 oil drums next to it....just to start rumors that I drilled an oil well and struck oil and was getting rich. Nearest oil well from me is probably 400 miles away so it would be a swell rumor to start!
Actually, that was a great real estate scam in some parts of Texas back in the 1920s when oil was being found in unexpected places. The way the scheme worked was to BEGIN a well and then subdivide land around it offering a share of the royalties to lot purchasers. It worked best if the land had cost the subdivider pennies an acre to buy, lot purchasers were in some other state, and they had never actually seen the land. Drawing an oil well on the plat apparently was good enough.
[USER=705]@sicilian cowboy[/USER]
When planning to enjoy the scenery, do not be tempted to drive 80mph or more as the Interstates on your route are more like raceways than highways.
If you have the time to spare, do not hesitate and take a farm road excursion along the way.
A Harris, post: 420907, member: 81 wrote: [USER=705]@sicilian cowboy[/USER]
When planning to enjoy the scenery, do not be tempted to drive 80mph or more as the Interstates on your route are more like raceways than highways.
If you have the time to spare, do not hesitate and take a farm road excursion along the way.
Yes, I'd advise Angelo to take State Highwy 281 to Blanco (excellent lunch at Red Bud Cafe) and then either up to US Hwy 290 and Austin or the more scenic route through Wimberley, Driftwood, and Austin.
From Austin to Dallas, I'd take US Hwy 183 North instead of Interstate Deathrace 35. Hwy 183 takes you through Lampasas and then follow Hwy 281 North along the edge of the Edwards Plateau to Hico and on via Hwy 220 to US Hwy 67. It's true that 281 also takes you through Hamilton, the home of the ugliest county courthouse in Texas, but at least there's the memorial to some school teacher who was murdered by Comanches in the early days before the ugly courthouse arrived.
The drive is mostly through cattle country and there is plenty of sky and some nice bits of landscape.
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Kent, these photos are truly beautiful art. They give my heart pause. Thank you.
Allen Wrench, post: 420627, member: 6172 wrote: Texas looks pretty awesome until I think that it was probably 110 degrees and 96% humidity in all those pictures - and no shade to be found. Otherwise, I'd seriously consider moving there.
As a "foreigner" on this site, I keep thinking the same thing. Those derelict buildings give a hint that maybe something uncomfortable is there that can't be sensed in this virtual arena.
Richard Imrie, post: 420929, member: 11256 wrote: As a "foreigner" on this site, I keep thinking the same thing. Those derelict buildings give a hint that maybe something uncomfortable is there that can't be sensed in this virtual arena.
Richard, what you're mostly looking at in rural Texas is a landscape that simply holds fewer people than it did when the little towns sprang up. Before mechanization, agriculture of all varieties required lots of human labor. It also meant that farms were smaller and farmers were more numerous. In far West Texas, the economy has always run on the margins, and raising wool and mohair is less profitable than ever after price subsidies disappeared. The cattle business struggles along from drought to drought.
The German and Czech immigrants who settled in little archipelagos strung out between the major port at Indianola and, later, Galveston and some inland destination in the general direction of San Antonio or Austin formed local societies that are still distinguishable in the variants of Texas accents. The Czech and German-language newspapers that were once in business aren't still printing, insofar as I know. WWI pretty much did the German-language publications in. The remnants show up in local food culture even as the original version has been blended into the Texan mix of barbecue and business.
The SPJST (Slovanska Podporujici Jednota Statu Texas) hall in Engle is a relic of a time when there probably were Czech-speaking farmers showing up for meetings. Their descendants most likely have other things to do elsewhere.
