It has been a while since I was able to take a ride that
lasted more than a few hours. The ride
to Jefferson in East Texas had been planned for several months and was
scheduled to leave on Friday morning and return on Sunday afternoon.
As advertised, the group left College Station at the
appointed time headed for East Texas. I
use the term “group” very loosely here…there were 3 motorcycles and 5
people…two couples and me. Man, did I
ever feel like a 5th wheel.
Our first stop was in Madisonville at Buckee’s to fill up
the tanks as the others had not done that in College Station. Once that was done, we continued east on Hwy
21 towards Nacogdoches. Not too far on
the other side of Crockett, we stopped at a Biker Store. The owner and his wife were very friendly
even though we didn’t buy anything. They
took our picture for their wall and we continued on eastward.
We passed by the
Caddo Mounds State Historic Site on to Alto where we turned north onto Hwy 69
headed north to Rusk. We stopped for
fuel in Rusk and continued on, north on Hwy 110, then Hwy 204 back down to Hwy
259. We again turned north through Mt.
Enterprise, skirted the southern edge of Kilgore and hit FM349 east over to
FM322 which we followed on into Longview.
There we stopped at Dukes Fish Shack.
Sharon questioned the wisdom of eating sea food in the middle of East
Texas but it was very good…mostly shrimp, catfish and frog legs…I had shrimp
and it was delicious.
After lunch…about
2pm, we jumped on I-20 for about 20 miles until we got to FM450 in Hallsville
and headed north towards Jefferson. The
number of small creeks is too numerous to remember as is the small towns. However, there were two interesting names that
stood out…Good Springs and Pirtle Community.
After a series of
turns on other farm-to-market roads, we pulled into Jefferson around 3pm. We parked in front of the Excelsior Hotel…our
accommodations for the next two days…and checked in. After cleaning up a bit, I did a little
exploring while the others took a nap or something. Jefferson is an interesting little town, with
a population of only 2,100. However, it
seems a lot bigger with several good restaurants and antique shops.
The most
interesting store I went into was The General Store. This place still had a soda fountain in
place…although it wasn’t active…and a lot of what looked like original
signage. Inside you could find a lot of
things to buy. It kind of reminded me of
some of the tourist traps down in Galveston but there were also other items to
buy, including a lot of throwback candy and gum and soda. It was a lot of fun to roam around inside.
That night we had
dinner at The Cork Yard. As the name
implies, their specialty was wine but they also had a pretty good menu of
appetizers and entrées. After our rather
large lunch, everyone decided on the appetizers so we orders 3-4 of them and
shared. It was a pleasant night to be
outside and the group had a good time talking and eating. Even thought we didn’t have dinner, we
decided we should have dessert so we headed down the street to The Hamburger
Store where we all had a piece of wonderful pie.
Besides no cable
or internet at the hotel that night, we all had a fairly restful evening. Oh, did I forget to mention that my room only
had a claw foot bath tub with a handheld shower thing. It has been a long time since I took a bath
and it took a few minutes for me to get the hang of it…but I managed. My morning bath went a little quicker but I
did manage to get the floor pretty wet washing my hair. Oh well, I guess they’re used to that.
On Saturday
morning, we went next door to the Bayou Bakery and Café. We ordered breakfast…I had a ham and cheese omelet
which was amazing…and made plans for the day.
Our fearless leader was taking us west to Lake O’ the Pines, around it
and back to Jefferson. The after lunch
we would head east to Caddo Lake.
After breakfast,
we headed west on Hwy 49, hit FM729, FM 726, across the Ferrells Bridge Dam,
then Hwy 259 into Ore City on the shores of Lake O’ the Pines. We followed Hwy 259 further north to the tip
of the lake, skirted the town of Lone Star and then turned south on FM729 again. FM729 offered a much better few of the lake
as we crossed several bayous…that looked like part of the lake to me but what
do I know. When we got to the
intersection of 729 and 726, we backtracked a bit and turned into the Buckhorn
Creek Park where several fishermen were offloading their boats for an early
start to the weekend. We took the
opportunity to do a little more planning.
We decided that it was too early for lunch…considering the
portions of breakfast we had consumed…so we decided to go to one of the nearby
vineyards. We had seen Enoch’s Stomp
Vineyard the day before on the way into Jefferson but there was another one a
bit closer to our current location. We
mounted up and headed to O’Farrell’s Country Vineyard. We arrived at the entrance and 11:45 and
noticed that they didn’t open until 12:00.
However, after a few pictures, it was time so we went in.
The others went
into the wine tasting and small sales office while I stayed outside talking to
one of the visitors and the owner…both retired Air Force. It was very interesting since both of them
retired a few years before me. The
visitor, from eastern Oklahoma, had been stationed at Randolph and Travis
during his career so we talked about those places and what they look like now.
Following our
visit, I sat in the shade with everyone for a while, soaking up the quite
country ambiance. After a while, we
decided to head back to Jefferson for lunch.
Our destination was Kitt’s Kornbread Sandwich shop. By the way, did you know there’s a Lodi,
Texas? Well, I do now. It’s on the road north of Jefferson.
A few minutes
later, we pulled into town and found that it was very crowded. It’s amazing how a town of only 2,100 can
become so crowded with no event scheduled for this particular weekend. However, Jefferson is the county seat and I
guess between visitors, town folks and folks from the surrounding area, it can
get crowded. Kitt’s was crowded, even at
1:30 in the afternoon. We found seats at
the bar and perused the menu. Right away
we noticed some interesting items. We
also could not help noticing the pies in the display case when you entered.
We ordered our Kornbread sandwiches…I had the Redneck
Special…bologna and cheese…followed by a slice of apple pie. It was yummy.
I highly recommend it to anyone headed to Jefferson.
With our bellies
full, we headed east to Caddo Lake. One
of our riders grew up fishing at the lake so he was our fount of information
once we got there. One of the
interesting things about Caddo Lake is the town of Uncertain. It’s not much of a town but rather a
collection of trailer parks, RV parks and cabins for people coming to Caddo
Lake. The lake itself, especially close
to the shore, is a carpet of water lilies, so thick you would think a boat
could not get through them.
In fact, the guy
who had spent some of his youth fishing on the lake said that in addition to
the water lilies there are many submerged stumps and/or trees that if you don’t
stick to the marked “highways” in the lake, you could find yourself bailing
fast to keep afloat. We did not take the
opportunity to rent a boat this time…maybe later.
On the western
end of the lake sits the little town of Karnack. Once again, not much of a town but it did
have a nice restaurant, the River Bend restaurant, which used to be a large
boat dock, and a nicer place called Big Pines Lodge. Along the road between the two places there
were a couple of very nice homes…or should I say estates. It’s amazing where people will spend $500K or
more to build a home.
By the time we
had made the circuit on the south side of Caddo Lake, the weather appeared to
be coming in from the west so we decided it was time to head back. We arrived back at the hotel about 4pm,
cleaned up and rested and met in the lobby at 5:30 to head to the local sports
bar and grill, The Franchise, for dinner and the Aggie game.
It had been a
good day with good riding. The roads
around Jefferson are mostly smooth and those that need a little work appear to
be prepped for a new surface. We went
through several small towns…the largest of which had a population of 500. We also crossed numerous creeks and bayous
once again…the largest of which were Hurricane Bayou, Black Cypress Bayou, Big
Cypress Bayou and Little Cypress Bayou.
Needless to say, the area has some cypress trees.
We had a nice
dinner at The Franchise, milking our appetizers, drinks and dinner to manage to
see the whole game that night while it rained heavily outside. Fortunately, we caught a break in the heavier
rain and managed to get back to the hotel without getting very wet. Our landlord had graciously allowed us to
park our bikes up on their porch for the night so we were able to make some preparations
for Sunday morning’s departure.
I slept much
better on Saturday night as I managed to get a room with a shower and a working
television…although the weather knocked out the cable so once again I went to
bed before 10pm…probably a new record, two nights in a row.
On Sunday, we ate
breakfast in the hotel dining room…a very good country breakfast. It was not raining, although it looked like
it could at any moment. Our leader,
after looking at the radar picture on his phone determined that we were on the
backside of the front that had passed through the night before and he didn’t
think we’d need our rain suits all day.
Of course, as luck would have it, we had not even gone a mile down the
road when it started raining. We pulled
over to the side of the road and everyone put on their jackets and we continued
on. As it rained harder and longer, we
got wetter and wetter.
We pulled into a
gas station in Marshall to top off the tanks and everyone got fully dressed in
rain gear. I learned several things that
morning: 1) when you put on the jacket,
put on the pants too; 2) my boots are not waterproof…my socks and inside the
boots got wet in a hurry; and 3) always wear the full-face helmet when
inclement weather is anticipated…this one I had done.
Leaving Marshall,
we took Hwy 59 south towards Carthage, looped around the northern edge of the
city and took FM315 through Clayton into Mt. Enterprise. There we got on Hwy 259 south towards
Nacogdoches. Once again, we skirted the
edge of town on their loop to Hwy 7 and turned west towards Crockett and home.
On Hwy 7 we went
through several small towns like Pollock, Redtown and Ratcliff, plus over the
Angelina River and Neches River and through the Davy Crockett National
Forest. We took the loop around the eastern
edge of Crockett until we came to Don Rafa’s Mexican Food…the only kind of food
we had not had on the trip.
After a good
meal, we hit Hwy 7 headed towards Centerville, passing through the little of
towns of Eunice. We continued on 7
through Concord, Redland and Marquez where we got on Hwy 79 through Franklin
and into Hearne…only 30 more miles to home.
We arrived back in the Bryan/College Station are about 4pm, definitely
ready to be home…although my house was empty save for two little Cocker Spaniel
dogs, eager to play and get into trouble.
Overall, the ride
through East Texas and Jefferson was very good.
We had some good food and good fellowship and I rarely felt like the 5th
wheel I was. We had sun and hot weather,
cloudy and muggy weather and rain…sounds like Texas…and covered just over 700
miles. This trip was a bit
expensive…probably why there weren’t many takers…but it was worth it. There might not be too many more for this old
guy so I’ve got to take advantage of these types of rides when I can. I have my dear wife to thank for encouraging
me to go.
Nothing much on
the horizon for future rides, other than a dinner ride here or there. I need to get back to my ABC’s of Texas tour
soon but hopefully the colder weather and holidays will be here so there might
not be too much more riding until spring.
Until then, thanks for visiting my blog.
