With apologies to my author friends Billy Kring and George Wier, and all the other Texans I know, if I don’t see the Lone Star State again for a decade or so, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit. The damn state just never ends!
You drive and drive through hundreds of miles of mountains, deserts, high plains, and piney woods, and you’re still in Texas! Enough already! Too much of anything is too much, and we’ve had way too much of Texas.
At least our second day on the road was shorter, just 504 miles from the oil fields of Odessa to the green countryside around Marshall, on the eastern side of the state.
One thing I will say for Texas is that they have some very nice rest areas along the highways. We stopped at one that had a neat display inside that included this replica of an old time Texaco gas station.
There was also this nice old set of wheels. The attendant on duty said it is a favorite photo opportunity for travelers, and that folks are welcome to get in it to have their picture taken.
Going through the Dallas – Fort Worth area is never fun because day or night, one can always expect heavy traffic. We stayed on Interstate 20 and worked our way through several traffic jams before we finally made it out the other side.
When we got to Marshall I was tempted to push on another 35 miles or so into Louisiana just to have Texas behind us, but as I wrote in yesterday’s blog, when we do that we sometimes find ourselves going much further than expected and regret it. Besides, after our 647 mile drive the day before, we were tired and wanted to get off the road early enough to relax before bedtime.
And I’m glad we did, because Marshall turned out to be a very nice little town full of friendly people and with a lot of history. While we were there I managed to get a couple of stories to share with our readers in an upcoming issue of the Gypsy Journal.
We also discovered a great restaurant called Cajun Tex. It’s one of those hidden gems the locals all know about, and the food was delicious. It definitely gets added to our Favorite Restaurants book!
Thought For The Day – I am not always rude and sarcastic. Sometimes I’m asleep.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
We love Marshall. Spent time volunteering at the Caddo NWR near there. They say that area is “more Cajun than Cowboy” and they are right. The little town of Uncertain is right on Caddo Lake. Because the state line is right near the lake, it’s said that the name of the town came about because the early settlers were “uncertain” if they were in TX or LA. The area can keep you busy for over a week.
As for west TX, I used to sleep from Austin to El Paso, telling Rin to wake me up when we were back in civilization.
I agree with you about driving through Texas. I have used that in my presentation about RVing in Morocco when we drove to the southern end which not many people do. I said it was longer and more boring than driving through Texas.
As a Texan one of our favorite bragging rights about how big Texas is that from the La.border to the N.M. border is the same distance from Miami to Chicago. Another note about Marshall is that there are more famous actors from that area than in other city in Texas
I think the late, great, John Steinbeck felt much the same about driving through the state of Maine in the book he wrote on his travels with his dog in his camper. I think that book is titled Travels with ?Charlie – not sure about the dog’s name. But it’s required reading for RVers, imho.
We are so thankful your daughter is recovering, and we’re praying your DIL will be well, too.
Now you have me singing, “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star–the big red Texaco star.”
I was raised in Texas. We travel from Florida to Texas every April to visit family. I smile every time we hit the state line leaving Louisiana, and the first mile marker is 857.
Once upon a time, there was a restaurant in Marshall called The Hamburger Store. Did you happen to see it? Their specialty was PIE, and my goodness was it good! We actually ate lunch at 10:00 am because by lunchtime the pie was gone!