On to Texas Hill Country

 

Moldering Away in Rural Texas

I have a special place in my heart for the Texas Hill Country. 

Starting from Navasota, for the next six hours I drove across central Texas, skirting Austin and continuing west through Johnson City and on into Fredericksburg.

Originally, about 15 years ago I took my first stab at visiting Texas based on Norman D. Ford’s book on the Hill Country and the Big Bend Areas. With one of my old minivans I headed down I-35 for a 2 week trip to see what Texas was all about.

Still Available Online as a Used Book

On that initial visit to Texas I first had stopped at Fredericksburg and camped at Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park. I participated for three days of "Hell Week" which was a large gathering of cyclists. This event had been going on annually nearly 20 years and as a result, there were scores of well documented bike routes. A cycling friend in Minneapolis had given me a folder full of cycling route maps from previous Hell Weeks and so I was already well prepared.

I wasn’t too interested in the hard pushing groups (we call them "Hammerheads" since they hammer away at the pedals) that I encountered there, but I found the countryside captivating and in its own way, it reminded me of Rural Wisconsin . There were so many quiet lovely low-traffic volume, paved roads that meandered over the countryside. Thousands of miles of these types of paved Ranch roads. So I enjoyed sampling this section of the Texas and linger there for four days.

Hill Country of Texas

Then, I had driven south west to the Big Bend area of Texas near Alpine and Marfa. There, I used the maps from the Norman Ford book and pedaled both on the roads with my road bike and also explored some well documented jeep trails that Ford had laid out in the book. This area was interesting as well and I have visited it on several subsequent trips.  Norman was a very interesting man and cyclist. I had several contacts with him by phone and email prior to his passing.  I wrote up an article about him at Crazyguyonabike .

10 years ago I started going on an annual group ride sponsored by the Twin Cities Bike Club out of Minnesota. Each year we would meet at Marble Falls  to the northeast of Fredricksburg and go on the rides of 45 to 55 miles. It was a pleasure to share these daily loops with good friends from the upper Midwest. After the original organizer withdrew, I went ahead and took over and organized rides out of Kerrville and Fredricksburg Texas, using a number of the old Hell Week maps that I had accumulated previously. This went on for another three years.

Typical Texas Hill County Rural Road

Since COVID hit Planet Earth in 2020, I’ve continued to go down to Texas by myself for the last two years in February and continue to ride those lovely rural bike routes on my own. Not having a roommate to share motel costs with, I’ve shifted back to using the tent sites at Lady Bird although I covertly sleep in my camper.  My sense is that this game is pretty obvious but the park management doesn't seem to care. (Frankly, there were no other tent campers the whole time during my visit.) I set up the tent only to satisfy the requirement for the tenting area. For this, I pay a daily $10 charge which gives me a pretty spot to set up my camp  along with luxurious showering and toilet facilities. Not a bad deal!

While I would prefer to ride with companions and enjoy sharing the views of the countryside and having good chats and camaraderie of friends, the virus has thrown everything up in the air and made it too difficult to bother with. So I dropped the idea of organizing group rides. While I am not anxious for my own health, I realize that other people have concerns and anxieties that I can't help them with, and so now I ride alone. Sigh.

Set Up at Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park

Now, in February of 2022, I had perfect weather for a week.  I hung around the area from February 9-15 and rode the bike every day.  It was good to get my legs limbered up and start to accumulate miles.

Then, on the 7th day, it clouded over a bit and cooled down, I decided it was time to head west and visit Arizona. While Texas is my preferred landscape, the weather here is not as stable as Southern Arizona.....   Last February 2021, I had a fine time in the Hill Country for about five days and rode favorite routes.  Then, I could tell by looking at the weather reports that it was time to head south and west. A cold front was pushing down from the north. Fortunately I got out of Dodge before the Storm of the Century Hit Texas. Freezing temperatures, burst pipes, electrical outages, and high winds made the Hill Country and much of Texas a bit of a basket case in February 2021.

Now in Middle February of 2022, I literally folded up my tent, said goodbye to Ladybird, and headed west.  My next destination, The Deserts of Arizona.

Natchez, Big Thicket and an Old Classmate

After leaving Gulf Shores, I headed Northwest thru Alabama and eventually passed across the border and into Mississippi. Plugging ahead at around 63 mph, I pushed across the state. By the late afternoon I approached my old friend, the BIG River. There, paused at Natchez which overlooks the Mississippi River.

Natchez has a dark and ugly history in my mind. It was the heart of slave trade on the Mississippi. The only larger slave market was in New Orleans. But so many slaves came to Natchez both by with the river boat and overland, on foot. 

A Coffle of Slaves on The Natchez Trace

It was the nightmare of every slave in Virginia or Kentucky or Tennessee or Missouri to be Sent Down  River. The plantation systems was especially brutal in the Deep South. 

I remember as a young person reading the Mark Twain novel, Huck Finn.  Twain gave a especially affectionate and respectful portrayal of Jim the Slave and Huck’s best friend. Jim was the wiser, more loving, and morally superior of the pair, as Huck was the first to attest. The reason the Jim ran off with Huck was out of his Fear that Miss Watson was going to sell him to the slave traders and he was going to be sent down the river to the slave market and would be separated from his wife and children forever. He lived in mortal fear of this possibility.

Jim and Huck

This portrait of Jim with this shadow of fear hanging over him, emphasized the evil of slavery in antebellum America and it resonated with me.  So I spent some time walking the old town, looking up the river, and meditating and imagining.  

I wanted to pause at Natchez and try to absorb the feeling of the place. There were two specific slave traders that more than anyone else personified evil. These two men were right up there with any Nazi running a concentration camp. They were Armfield and Franklin .  They bought and sold many thousands of humans, raped many captive women, broke up families and seemed to have a good time doing it.  I urge any reader to hit the above link for the Article from the Washington Post that traces the history of these two particularly terrible men.

Looking Up the River From Natchez

River Front Signage

After walking the riverfront and looking over some of the old houses, I got back in the truck and headed west into Louisiana. 

By then the sun was getting low in the sky and so I drove across the bayou's of Louisiana without seeing too much. After camping the night at Walmart the next day a crossed over the Sabine River and into Texas. One specific item of note is how many logging trucks are in the area. This is a big timber area on both sides of the border.  Many saw mills.  Texans call the woods of this section The Great Pine Curtain.

In the late morning I stopped at the Big Thicket National Preserve run by the National Park Service. After a number of hours of driving over the last 24 hours, my right knee was getting very sore from just sitting in the same position. So it was time for me to get out and investigate the Thicket and do some hiking and flex the knee. The Thicket is a famous local ecosystem which is part of the lore on Eastern Texas and I’ve been wanting to see it for sometime. It’s a mixture of many different microclimates and landforms. Nothing particularly spectacular but very special. This is particularly true for anyone interested in the variety of biological systems that can be in close proximity to one another. 

Kirby Hiking Trail Loop

So I spent about half the day, in the Big Thicket, hiking trails and quietly taking it all in. It was good for body and soul. Then, in the later afternoon, I climbed back into the truck and drove until after sunset and into the night. Eventually, I parked at a Walmart north of Houston, Conroe, and called it a night.

The next morning I stopped near Navasota, Texas to visit an old friend from high school whom I hadn’t really seen in over 50 years other than for about 10 minutes at our 50th high school reunion. We spent about 24 hours together and thoroughly caught up on one another’s lives. Besides endless chatting, we drove around the rural area.  One spot we visited was which was Washington-On-The-Brazos the location where the Republic of Texas was founded.  My friend wanted me to walk thru their museum.  Very interesting. 

Founding of Texas Museum

She told me that Texas revolted when Mexico decided to end slavery.  This isn't much discussed by Texans but she's emphatic that this was the original motivation for independence. It doesn't fit the romantic narrative and so it glossed over....  That Slavery Subtext seems to be so much a part of this area's early history.  This portion of the trip has brought the institution of slavery forward in my mind.

My Friend's Living Room

A very good visit with my friend!  She has an interesting home which is a barn/house combo. She has a large living room/event space for weddings, conferences and other gatherings.  Very interesting.

It was so good to get to know her.  We both agreed that as teenagers we didn't really comprehend one another or many of our other classmates.  Now, in our early 70s, we were both hungry to learn each other's story and timeline.  A wonderful retrospective.

Cold Beaches

From Tupelo, I continued driving south for another four hours to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Just to the west of Pensacola Florida, this stretch of barrier islands on the Gulf of Mexico is called The Redneck Riviera.  There are sea shore homes, high-rises, hundreds of restaurants, souvenir shops and golf courses from 18 hole to mini golf.  I imagine similarity to how Miami Beach might have sort of been 80+ years ago.  Each year some older properties on the beach are torn down and new buildings, often multi-story, are being built.  The hurricane's periodically come thru and devastate the area. But then the builders come back and repair and build more.  

Redneck or Hillbilly Riviera

I've a friend from Wisconsin who was renting an individual house on the beach, looking down at the Gulf of Mexico. She and a girl friend were hanging out there for the month.  I'd promised to stop by.

Timing is everything and in this case it was, in terms of weather, less than perfect.  I arrived just as the temperatures were dropping into the 40s and the weather was fairly wild with very big waves and winds.  The first 36 hours I witnessed pounding surf on the beach.  Then the wind shifted and the temperatures dropped more.  We spend a lot of time indoors, looking at the cold beach.  When it was not raining, I looked out and saw people walking along the shore in stocking caps, gloves and scarfs.  Not really freezing weather, but with strong winds, it wasn't, to say the least, tropical!

Cold Waves

Never-the-less, I was grateful for the hospitality and good company and lingered in Alabama for three days while waiting for the weather to moderate.

On the third day of my visit, while the weather was still cold and windy but the clouds were clearing out, we drove 25 miles west to the end of the barrier island and visited Fort Morgan. This is another Civil War location. During that war, the Confederates held the fort and used it to block the Union forces entry into Mobile Bay.  It was also a site of battles in the War of 1812 between the Americans and the British.  A very strategic spot.

Fort Morgan, a Star-Shaped Fort

I read that the star-shaped bastion was constructed in the mid to late 1820s. Several thousands of slaves were involved in the building project.  During the Civil War it was bombarded and the interior buildings were mostly destroyed.  

Damage from Bombardment 1864-1865

That evening the Gulf had quieted down almost to a calm.  The winds were still cool out of the north but they were subsiding as well.  The beaches had been churned up considerably and there were mounds of sand where the surf had piled it up.

Quiet and Pretty Beach

It looked like the weather was about to improve, but it was time for me to go.  My philosophy is that Guests, like Fish, Begin to Smell After Three Days.  I was grateful for the hospitality from my friend.  But I guessed it was a good time to Get Out of Dodge.

The Big Rivers

I slept well at the Garden of the Gods campground in Southern Illinois. 

After rising, I went about my morning ablutions, then made a sausage & egg concoction on the camper stove, got dressed and set off in the truck to continue to explore this portion of southern Illinois. I continued southward on the quiet two-lane highway, following the west bank of the Ohio River and eventually came to a town named Golconda, Illinois . This is the seat of Polk County and has a nice looking brick courthouse which was built in 1871. 

There are flood walls that were built around the town many years ago to protect it from being inundated as it had been several times in previous centuries.  I visited in the courthouse and saw old photos of previous floods where the town was submerged. 

Polk County Court House

Court House and Town Flooded

On further reading, it turns out that this is an infamous place where the Trail of Tears  passed through. The Trail of Tears was the forced removal of tribes from the Southeast United States in the 1830s. It brought the Chickasaw, Chocktaw, Cherokee, and other tribes on their forced march from the southeast United States and to their ultimate destination of the Oklahoma territories. The Indians were forced to pause the eastern shore of the Ohio and wait for an the inordinate amount of time for the ferries to be cleared so that the Indians could be transported across. A number of the old and the weak died while waiting for this to occur. Also some of the locals attacked individual Indians and basically murdered them. Then the murderers sued the United States to be paid for the burial of their victims. Grotesque and Evil!

The town itself was interesting to see (only around 700 residents). After looking at the old buildings on Main Street, I drove down to the Shores of the Ohio to view the river. I saw barges being pushed up the river. A fisherman had a couple poles with lines in the water and we struck up a conversation; Tom and I talked for quite a while about the history of the Ohio river. There’s a book I recommended to him titled That Dark and Bloody River; it discusses  the Indian Wars that occurred along all along the Ohio River from above Pittsburgh down to the confluence with the Mississippi. American Settlers were coming down the river in the later 1700s and the Indians were not ready to give up their land without a fight.. It’s a heck of a story and I strongly recommend the book for anyone interested in the deeper history of the area. 

From Colconda  I drove west.  My next destination was Cairo Illinois and Fort Defiance at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers.

Meeting of the Big Rivers
The Mississippi on the Right; Ohio on the Left

Fort Defiance is another spot that is so significant in terms of early American history. The meeting of these two mighty rivers (Mississippi and Ohio) was the blending of two major stories. So many people have passed this point. Some folks came around this point and then headed north back up either of the two rivers. When Lewis and Clark were on their way to the exploration of the American northwest they came down the Ohio River and then turned and went up the Mississippi to the confluence of the Missouri River and then followed that up and thru what is now Montana and then over the mountains and down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.

When Ulysses S Grant was beginning his Civil War campaign of attack on the Confederacy in 1861, he built up his Army at Fort Defiance which is at the point where the two rivers meet. So I wanted to  stand on this historic spot and look up both rivers.

Union Gunboats Running the Rivers

Fort Defiance Map 1861

I spent about an hour at the point of land looking and photographing and contemplating. From here Grant headed back up the Ohio River and then sent gun boats and troop ships up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers to attack both Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. After violent clashes and battles at both forts, the Union took possession from the confederacy and after a short pause grand headed south and ultimately was in a major battle call Shiloh. Eventually, the Union took Nashville.

Grant's Initial Western Civil War Campaign

At some point Grant was back down the rivers onto the Ohio and then turn south down the Mississippi and ultimately attacked Vicksburg  Mississippi and after a long siege and battles the union prevailed and took nearly 30,000 rebels prisoner.

And so it all started from the spot where the Mississippi and Ohio meet. Pretty profound starting place…  I stared and took it all in.  Food for thought.

After lingering,  I got back in the truck and crossed the Mississippi River over to the Missouri side and headed south. At some point I crossed back over into the state of Tennessee and drove on into the night crossing the border into the state of Mississippi and finally found a Walmart at Tupelo and parked my rig on the outskirts of the parking lot, climbing into the back of the camper and went to sleep. 

George Rogers Clark and The Garden of the Gods

Vincennes, Indian has special historical significance.   So, I wanted to pause here on Monday morning and take in the specifics. 

Until five years ago I was not aware of George Rogers Clark who was an incredibly audacious young man (also the older brother of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame).  In 1777, at the age of 25, George proposed to the Governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry, that he, Clark, lead an expedition out to "The Illinois Country" and attack British military outposts on the Ohio, Mississippi and Wabash Rivers and force the British out of the area.  He succeeded.  Improbably, he accomplished this with a small band of around 175 men.  

Clark's Expedition to Vincennes

British Surrender to Clark

For a number of years I've been fascinated with the "Old Northwest" of the early United States.  My home in Wisconsin is near the far Northwestern corner of this region.  The British had dominated the area prior to the American Revolution. (They, in turn, had taken legal possession from the French in 1763 after winning major battles both in North America and in Europe.) 

But Clark's conquest at Vincennes changed the equation and ultimately resulted in the Brits ceding the area to the Americans when the Treaty between the two was established in 1783 (Treaty of Paris).  Without this prior military victory by Clark, the British would not have been likely to concede the Ohio and Mississippi valleys to the United States.  Thanks George!

Land Ceded to The USA by the British
Treaty of Paris-1783

So, I wanted to spend a few hours looking the the National Park Service visitor center in Vincennes, see the elaborate memorial to Clark, and see the location of the fort where the British were at the time of the conquest. A video from Ball State University explains the Story of Clark and the conquest of the British and their Indian allies.

George Rogers Clark Memorial

Statue of George Rogers Clark

After a couple hours at Vincennes I was well satisfied.  I got back in the truck and headed south, driving thru Evansville, Indiana. There, I turned west and crossed the Wabash River and re-entered Illinois.

Although I had grown up in northern Illinois, I have never visited the southern end of the state. This area is very unfamiliar to me so I wanted to spend some time looking it over.  I especially wanted to pause in the Shawnee National Forest which is administered by the U.S. Forest Service.  I've seen that this has some physical features you usually don't see in the midwestern USA.  I was not disappointed!  After driving a number of miles on some quiet two lane highways, I saw signs for The Garden of the Gods which I had heard of.  I turned off the main highway (Illinois #1) and followed the lovely Karber Ridge Road west, climbing a steep grade up to the high ground of the ridge of the highlands which are cut thru with large canyons and unique rock formations. The rock seems to be mostly a tough, gray and banded sandstone.

Garden of the Gods
(Photo from the Web)

At the Garden of the Gods turn-off I parked the truck and went for a long hike and scramble.  The trees in the forest are almost all hardwoods and with the leaves off, you can get a good sense of the extreme topography.  Getty Images has a good collection of photos from these formations: Here 

The Old Northwest was originally the "Wild West" with massive rivers, great distances, low population density, wildlife including buffalo herds, bears, mountain lions and a number of different Indian tribes.  The history of this place is a subject to contemplate.

Ultimately, I decided to camp up in the highlands of the forest. There were plenty of cheap ($10) campsites.  This time of the year the campground was totally empty.  Not a bad place to stay the night!

The First Day; Baldwin to Vincennes

When I left home at 8:00 AM the temperature was -7°.  We had around 8 inches of snow on the ground.  My immediate goal fort this first day of driving was to get out of the cold and snow.    On the way out of town I stopped at the farm of my friend, Ron, and we chatted for a little bit.  He and my grandson keep an eye on my home while I'm gone.  (Sometimes my grandson stays there.)  After about 20 minutes of chatting with Ron, I climbed back into the truck and was soon on the Interstate.

Rolling Out of Town

In Ron's Farmyard

The Silverado is not that fuel efficient, especially when loaded with all my bikes, gear, tools, water, propane, etc.  I'm lucky to get 14 miles/gallon if I hold the speed on the highway at a steady 65 miles/hour.  (This compares to the Sienna minivan which gets around 22 miles/gallon.) So, as much as I can, I keep to that speed, setting cruise control and letting this be my discipline.  Other passenger vehicles and 18 wheeler trucks can pass me by and steadily do so.  As long as I don't form any traffic backup, I stick to the right lane and tootle along. My eye is on patience and consistency.  I've an audio book on CD by Ron Chernow, a biography of Ulysses S. Grant.  The total time for reading this book aloud is just over 48 hours. I expect that I will be able to listen periodically to this over the next week or two. Also, I've the capacity to listen to podcasts and radio shows.  These audio distractions help the hours pass.

First Three Days of Travel

I took I-94 down past Madison Wisconsin.  Then I followed I-39 further south thru Rockford, Illinois and further down thru Bloomington. A few more transitions via I-74 and and I-57 followed.  

The weather was fine for driving. The sky was overcast but with no precipitation nor winds.  A fine "Blah" day for a long drive and the miles turned over hour after hour. By the time I was in north central Illinois, the snow was nearly gone. The temps were in the low 30s and I was looking forward to warmer weather.  At around 480 miles, the sun set and I drove on into the darkness.  At some point my Garmin was sending me down dark rolling two-lane state and country highways before finally crossing the into Indiana.  

The specific ultimate destination for this first day of driving was Vincennes, in southwest Indiana.  Total mileage turned out to be around 610 miles.  Around 8:45 PM I rolled into town and I found the local Walmart.  After visiting the store, using the washrooms and making a few purchases, I parked the truck at a quiet but well-lit corner of the store parking lot, locked up the truck, and walked around to the back and climbed into the camper.  A long day of driving but I was pleased to have covered a good distance.

Winter Road Trip Preparations

Average Temps in January

The average temperature in my neighborhood in January and February is about 3°F with lows down to -25° at night. Sometimes we can have periods of 5-10 days of sustained subzero temperatures.  Also, the high latitudes of Wisconsin and Minnesota make for very long, dark and cold nights.  The winters are  hard and can run well into April. Sometimes winter seems to run up to nearly 5 months. Ugh!

For the last decade I've typically gone down to Texas Hill Country in the area of Marble Falls, Kerrville and Fredricksburg for a week or twos of road bicycling.  The Hill Country is lovely in the winter and early spring and a bicyclist's paradise.  So many winding, country roads with low traffic volume!  These rides were usually done in the company of other friends from Minnesota and Wisconsin.  We'd often have 15-25 folks together and have wonderful times covering the countryside. Typical day rides varied between 35 and 50 miles.

Since COVID, group rides became problematic. So many people were reluctant to travel.... but I personally didn't have any hesitation to go driving out in the the "Big Empty" on my own.  For years I've used my minivan for various solo forays.  So, in 2020 I loaded up my Toyota Sienna as well as a roof box.  In the van I've taken out all the rear seats and have a raised bed. Underneath the bed is storage for clothing and gear. When driving distances, I'd stow a bike in side the van and then lock it to an exterior rack at night for when I was sleeping/living in the minivan.  

Typically, when traveling, I camp at night on there periphery of Walmart parking lots.  I've black tagboard cut down to fit the windows.  From the outside, no one can see me inside, even when I've lights on.  I've a secure and private little RV.  The minivan gets nearly 22 miles/gallon and so is an efficient way to travel.  I love minivans and have used them for camping/traveling for nearly 25 years. 

In 2020 I drove back to the Fredricksburg Texas area and spent 5 days doing some familiar bicycling routes.  Then I continued west and ultimately visited Southwest Arizona, 'boondocking' in the Quartzsite, area. There are hundreds of thousands are square miles of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) areas where dispersed camping is allowed.  No campgrounds, per se, just a lot of open space.  Quartzsite especially attracts "Boondockers" because of the extremely comfortable weather in January-March area.  Many 10s of thousands of folks gather in the area. I found it very interesting and enjoyed setting up camp and bicycling and exploring the area.

Camping Near Quartzsite On BLM Land

 After getting a sense of the Boondocking Mentality, I thought it would be interesting to try something a little more suitable for the rough ground of BLM and US Forest Service Roads and later in the early autumn of 2020 I started shopping around for an additional vehicle.  I ended up purchasing a 2007 4x4 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 pickup truck. The truck had spend all it's previous years as a utility vehicle for a farm services firm in southern California. It's service history was well-documented on CarFax and it also had no rust.  

From my time in the Quartzsite area, I'd decided that I'd like a Pop-up Camper for the truck.  This category of truck camper comes with a lower profile and center-of-gravity than a regular truck-bed camper. They're also somewhat lighter.  Once you've set up camp, you can raise the camper up and then you have a lot of room, especially for one person.  The camper has a refrigerator/freezer that works off AC/DC or Propane. Also, there is a 3 burner stove as well as a small furnace to take the edge off the cold in the mornings. 

Right away, I had my local mechanic, Mark, upgrade the truck's shocks, as well as install adjustable air-shocks in the rear. Also, I had 10-ply tires installed so that the truck could better handle the weight of the camper as well as all the gear that I cram into the rear of the extended cab.  I did not want to lose control because of too weak of a suspension system. Also, we gave the truck a little bit of a 'lift' so I've a bit more clearance underneath. Before these modifications, the truck handled more like a car; now, it feels more like The Real Deal.

Finally, I had a trailer hitch installed to the FRONT of the truck.  When covering distances, I still prefer to have my bike(s) stored inside the vehicle.  But once I'm at my ultimate destination, I can lock a bike to the front rack of the truck and have it handy for use.  When in Phoenix, I bought a couple solar panels as well as a control system and played with this for charging a 2nd 'house' battery.

Roof Raised and Solar Rig Set Up

This January I went back to Mark and asked that he set up the truck electrical charging system with a Battery Isolator so that it would charge both the truck battery as well as the primary House battery in the camper.  This will hopefully keep the house battery topped up from my driving.  I have fiddled around with the solar system but I'm not fully committed.  I hesitate to drill holes in the roof of the camper in order to install a roof-top system.  I figure while driving down the road I already have a charging system via the truck alternator. So why not have that as well as whatever I can glean from the sun?

Mark Crimping New Wiring Harness from Under
The Truck to the Camper

After Mark completed the battery conversion, I started loading up the camper and vehicle.  My goal was to get rolling on Sunday, January 30th.