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| 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.
