Kelly on Texas Travel

I grew up in a tiny town, deep in the forests of East Texas. When the nearest city (and I’m being generous with that term) is 30 miles way, you spend a lot of time in the car. My family thought nothing of driving an hour just to see a movie. What else were we going to do, go cow tipping?

My dad always enjoyed going off the beaten path whenever we were driving somewhere, just happy to watch the scenery pass by as he drove us down winding dirt roads. That was all well and good unless you were hungry and just wanted to get to Casa Olé already, or you really needed a restroom. With my dad at the wheel, you quickly learned the art of side-of-the-road-peeing and careful-squatting. To this day, I always keep a travel roll of Charmin in my bag on road trips. It’s saved more than one of my friends from an accident in the rental car.

Driving and road trips have always been a part of my life and a long-time love, provided that I have some company. I get bored easily. I don’t just love to take trips; I love to plan the trips. I love to find out what makes each little town along the way interesting. Does the town have an exceptionally large rocking chair? Did Elvis ever eat at the local diner? Is there a book store where I might bump into Larry McMurtry and perhaps pester him for an autograph (I have unsubstantiated reports that such a book store does exist)? I need to know these things and get a picture of them.

All little towns have a “thing.”: a museum dedicated to the Columbia space shuttle crash, a series of large rabbit statues scattered throughout the city, or even art installations in the post office! Almost every town has something. I say almost—I can’t think of anything in my home town. We were supposed to convert the old train depot into a museum, but my high school GT program never really followed through on that. Museum-building probably shouldn’t be left to 15-year olds.

My mission in life, and for this site, is to find the interesting, the odd, the amazing, the unbelievable hidden just off the main road throughout this fine state. If you never leave the highway, you’ll miss the cool things. You won’t see the random castles or the Stonehenges (plural, there’s more than one). And I suppose that’s true in life too. If you just go on first impressions or that first glance, you usually miss out on something amazing. You may miss out on a beer-drinking goat.