Showing off Texas

A California turned into a Texas cowgirl

Although our Texas visitor, Dylan, was born here and has been to Fort Worth a few times, she’s apparently not seen much of the rest of Texas. As we drove to and from Tomball for the weekend, we had a great time showing it off. She was charmed by the wildflowers, which I think may be a bit past their prime—they were good but not spectacular. And she was impressed by one Longhorn we saw with really long horns.

Our first stop was at Czech Stop in West where we loaded up on sandwiches for lunch in the car. She was excited to find there is a Czech Stop cookbook, although none of us bought it, and she says she wants to go back to buy some of the breads. But she went “Oh, yes,” after her first bite of a cream cheese kolache and gave her pastrami sandwich a favorable rating.

On Highway 6, Dylan was charmed by the town of Calvert, so on the return we stopped for pictures and speculated on what some buildings had been. In the car, Dylan read up on the history of the town and learned that it was once a thriving railroad and commercial center. A Jewish woman named Ella Oscar, mostly known as a vibrant force on the Waco music scene, was responsible for many of the Victorian buildings in downtown Calvert.

I tried to show her the Steamboat House outside Marlin, but trees have grown up and pretty much hide it from view. Built in 1858 by a professor at Austin College, the structure has twin turrets in front and galleries on either side, giving it the appearance of a river steamboat. Today the house, restored to perfect condition, is part of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum complex and is toured annually by 40,000 visitors, including schoolchildren.

I guess no trip to Texas would be complete without a stop at Buccee’s. Both Jacob and I chose to remain in the car, but Jordan, Christian, and Dylan went in for a long time. Dylan emerged with a T-shirt and keychains for friends. Jordan brought out lunch for all of us—this was Sunday. Mine was a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich with some kind of bread that was too much bread, tomato, mayonnaise, and jalapenos. Who in the world puts jalapenos on a turkey sandwich? I promise to boycott Buccee’s hereafter.

Back in Fort Worth, Jordan determined that Dylan had to have some chopped barbecue, although we’d had barbecued brisket with all the trimmings on Saturday. Last stop on her Texas tour was Railhead. And that’s how a Left Coast person saw Texas.

On the other hand, there were our New York relatives who were astounded that we drove four hours to get to the reunion. “Without a stop?” they asked, and Christian got the idea they thought we should have stopped overnight. Aunt Amy told me their idea of a road tip is a half hour, max an hour. They delighted in walking their grandkids down the road to the stable to see the horses—first that the youngest had ever seen. Uncle Mark asked if there was a big city between Tomball and Houston, and we explained it was all city. As we left to drive home, one of the cousins asked if we would be stopping at the “Czechoslovakian Stop.” We assured her we would. Reminded me of Uncle Mark’s first experience with Mexican food—he asked if the taco meat was potted pigeon.

Joking aside, it was fun to show off Texas to people from both coasts.