Texas bulldog at an outdoor restaurant A-OK
Texas so far had been good. Free camping at a nice park was great, the highways were good and the gas was cheap. This really should be Nirvana for RV travelers, at least if you can give up being out in the middle of nowhere with no one around you. But I was heading for Dallas and a mixture of mooch-docking and paid campground camping with my friend. There was definitely some new experiences, both expected and unexpected. Read on to see the first part of my Texas experience.
Texas sunrise
I started my day early, being up with the sunrise. I had to be in Dallas for 11am, to pick up Colette. She was flying in from Calgary to do some dog training and meet up with one of her hunting friends, Tres. The plan was she would take an Uber to a Walmart close to the Airport and I’d pick her up there. Then, it would be on to Waxahachie where I’d be staying at Tres’ for a few days. Tres was going to take us fishing down to Galveston. After that, we’d be heading north of Dallas for Collette’s dog training sessions, but more on that later.
Front yard decoration
I had a three hour drive into Dallas first. The drive in wasn’t that bad. The roads became busier and bigger as I got into Dallas as expected. I didn’t have any traffic jams to deal with, and the Walmart was easy to find. I’d scoped it out in advance on googles. Good thing I did, as the last turn off Highway 121 north is a weird U-turn that is unexpectedly sharp for having just come down a freeway off ramp. But every State has its highway design quirks, this was one for Texas that I did see again several times. Having been forewarned by the googles, I made the turn without issue, having expected a sudden turn from looking at the map.
Pre cell phone contraption
I didn’t have long to wait at the Walmart parking lot. Colette had gotten in on time and out of the airport fast. With traffic not being bad, my arrival at the earliest possible time she might be there turned out to only be a few minutes off her actual arrival. We were going to pull a page out of my first RV adventure with my rental – buy a bunch of stuff we’d need for a second person and get rid of it at the end of the adventure. But the way things worked out, I pretty much was able to use everything we bought, thanks to needing new pillows after my previous cheap pillow purchase turned out to last even less time than I’d thought. Three months before seams rip on a pillow is pretty much of the disposable variety, not a dollar store bargain.
This car is as old as me
We filled my fridge up with supplies. It’s interesting to see how adding a second person with their particular likes in shopping adds up to more than double the food storage. You need twice as much space, plus the space for the extra stuff that only the one or the other of you eat. Fortunately, I don’t use my fridge space completely under normal circumstances, and I had left things pretty bare anticipating a non-camping mindset shopping. Everything fit, with a bit of room to spare, which was good as more food was needed for later when we’d be actually camping.
54th Street has race car decor
I had less issues re-arranging stuff to allow for a passenger riding along. It turns out most of my front passenger seat stuff can just go on the bed above while travelling, then back on the seat when parked. So the pack/unpack for travelling with two wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, although we still had not dealt with the dining area to bed conversion in the back of the RV. That was going to be for another day. First we had lunch at 54th Street Restaurant, just north of the Walmart we were at. It was OK, just another faux pub with a car themed décor inside. Then, it was onto Waxahachie, straight through central Dallas and south on Interstate 35 east.
Backyard camping. Spot the RV in the dark.
Driving through central Dallas can be challenging following the googles instructions, but the direction I was coming through this time was not bad. That was not always to be the case! We arrived to a bigger than expected property. It turns out that there is a backyard all on its own lot. Over the generations, Tres’ family have bought and sold ownership of several lots here, more than one family lives on this lot grouping. In fact, his family has deep roots here. Driving down Main Street, he pointed out various relations and friends going way back living along the way.
Note the home made campaign sign in the window
We went off to dinner at his restaurant/seafood market, Atkins Seafood. I trust the seafood is fresh here, as Tres also runs a fresh seafood transport business, specializing in transporting fresh lobster by truck from the coast inland. He’s figured out a niche, ground transporting them direct live to a warehouse where the lobsters can recover in proper large tanks before being shipped to the little tanks you pick your live lobster out of in a restaurant. It’s a very specialized transport type, but Tres evolved into the business naturally, starting out as a fishing boat operator in the Gulf of Mexico. I wouldn’t say this is an easy business to run. You need to keep your trucks running without delay, as that can mean dead lobsters. That means if something comes up at two in the morning, you’re up dealing with it right there and then.
I’m not a lobster person, but both Colette and I like fresh oysters on the half shell, another fresh sea food item you can get at Atkins Seafood. A couple of orders later, I can say these were some of the best oysters I’ve ever had, as fresh as you can get for being three hours from the nearest ocean here.
An unexpected delight was the margarita I got here. Having the owner at the table certainly helped. Tres made sure the margarita was made with premium tequila, which helped propel my drink to rank with the best of what I had in Baja. I had to have a second one, just to determine if this might be the best margarita I’d had. It was too close to call in my books, even after a couple of return visits with even more drinks had to try and break the tie.
Poser newbie politician
We stayed in Waxahachie for a few days. The plan was to head down to Galveston for some fishing, but that was not to be. Between the weather not cooperating and Tres’ busy schedule, a fishing trip was not in the cards. Instead, we occupied ourselves with some sight seeing and helping Tres with what was keeping him busy: he was running for local council in Waxahachie. (Facebook page) We were being corralled into providing a little bit of election sign labour putting together and putting out a few election signs. Full disclosure: I was compensated with some excellent meals at his restaurant plus a few meals at some choice spots around town.
Country Cafe for breakfast. Always good food, always busy. Tres shook a lot of hands here.
It was an interesting experience to see how you get started in local politics. I got to sit in on one of their planning sessions. It’s very casual, not like they were giving away any big secrets. Going out to eat with Tres had an additional layer in that people he knew would come up to talk to him about his election campaign. This being a local council position in a small city, no one has the budget for polls, or fancy media advertising. Word of mouth, and campaign signs are big though, for both gauging how you are doing and getting the word out.
I kept my ears open and can say there was a lot of support, at least in person at the Country Cafe. There were lots of people coming up out of nowhere who wanted a sign for their business or personal property. That I considered a very good sign (pun!) that Tres had some motivated supporters who would get out and vote for him. It’s who you know, and how many you know multiplied by how well people think of you that is going to get you elected in these small campaigns. Tres being of a many generation family in the area certainly helped with the number of people you know, and seeing him interact with people tells me he is at ease talking to his fellow locals. As of the day I’m writing this, the election date has passed and a look at the results shows Tres Atkins got 64.44% of the vote, a very impressive first time result. Now starts the hard part: governing!
There was time for a bit of sightseeing around Waxahachie, plus an evening show for Michael Murphey at the Texas theatre 
thanks to an extra ticket being available for me. I’m not a fan of country music, but cowboy ballads are nice. Even I know his song “Wildfire” which is saying he’s pretty famous if I know anything about them. Overall it was a nice set, no country twang to be heard the whole night. The venue is small too, no thousands of people in a stadium mob.
I toured around town with Colette a bit. Southern Roots Brewing Company turned out to have some nice beer, but only a limited menu consisting of pizza. It was good, but didn’t meet the criteria of good beer, good food, good vibe all in the same place. Two out of three ain’t bad. The brewery is located in an old railway shed/station beside the tracks in town, so it has a real history to it.
There was also the Ellis County Museum, three stories of area history and displays. It definitely will take you a while to go through all three levels of the place. One thing I’ve noticed with the museums down here is there is hardly any attempt to keep you away from the artifacts except signs. The amount of historical material they have is huge compared to what I’ve seen in a lot of Canada, I think it’s just a matter of supply exceeding the ability to protect anything other than the most rare valuable items. I certainly appreciated the lack of glass when taking pictures, no glare! One hazard of having so much stuff was that sometimes one item would block another you wanted to photograph, no matter what angle you pick for your photo.
Just a few of the many faces adorning the Courthouse
I must mention the Ellis County Courthouse, the most elaborate exterior of a building I have seen in a small city. You can see there was money here at the time, cotton was a lucrative industry in the late 1800’s. The building has so many carvings you must just walk around the whole thing. Legend has it, the faces are the face of a woman the master carver was wooing at the time. They are happy looking at the time he thought he had a chance with her, then become progressively more ugly as he is spurned by her. There are even supposed to be some “lower lady parts” carved into a section but I never found those. Like I said, there is a lot of ornamentation on this building, even for the day this a very decorated building.
Overall, Waxahachie has quite a bit to offer. You certainly can spend a day or two touring around this small city. It functions as a bit of a ‘burb to Dallas these days, but it is still far enough away to have not lost its small town feel. Thanks to Tres, I met a lot of the locals and found them to be down to earth friendly folk. It’s a conservative place, but not as much as you’d think. More than once I heard old timers griping how all the Californians are moving in, with their social liberal ideas. The place is growing like gangbusters, cheap deals in land or housing are a thing of the past here. I’d say some of that liberal thinking is coming from people escaping Dallas as well – like most big cities it tends to lean more liberal than the countryside around it. The whole mix reminds me a lot of Alberta, with its Calgary-Edmonton liberals versus the rural conservative areas around them. There is a reason I describe Alberta as “Texas – lite” to my American friends.
In the name the beef, the chicken and the smoky pork
We were due to head north for an RV park for me, and some dog training sessions for Colette. Plus I have not even mentioned our day trip into Dallas, a bit of an adventure itself. Join me next time for some campgrounds, dog grounds, and free booze in a dry town! You can see my full Texas photoset on Flickr.
