Retracing Our Steps

January 17, 2022

Rumor has it that the Spaceship Car might be coming home this week! Kristi and I have been pacing the house and wanting to get out and explore again, so we decided that today was safe enough to make the attempt. (Don’t worry, nothing bad happened!)

In a previous post I mentioned that some of the routes off Houston County Road 3610 looked like promising places for exploration in future adventures. Today, we journeyed down some of the roads, and beyond, to see what we might see.

Our adventure began on TX-19 at Low Keels Road, located a few miles north of Trinity, Texas in Trinity County.

Almost immediately after turning onto the road we came up on someone on a tractor doing some repairs at the end of a driveway. We encounter tractors often in our explorations–we are usually traveling through ranch and farm country, after all. This guy, however, seemed completely unaware of our presence. He never once appeared to look back or in any way acknowledge that we were patiently waiting for him to allow us to pass. In his defense, he was likely not used to non-residents traveling down this road, and the tractor was one of those fancy ones with the enclosed, climate-controlled cockpit. He may have been jamming to some tunes.

We waited until what felt like a safe moment while he was moving rocks in the ditch and passed on the far side of the road.

Low Keels Road becomes Ellis Spring Road at the Walker County Line in Kittrell’s Cut-Off. Kittrell’s Cut-Off gets its name from one of the early settlers, Pleasant Williams Kittrell, who was also one of the founders of the University of Texas. This portion of the county is “cut off” from the rest by the Trinity River.

Ellis Spring Road ends at FM 1836, where we found this abandoned house:

Places like this make me wonder about their history. Who lived there? Why was it abandoned? Was it occupied by and loved by an elderly parent whose children moved far away and had no interest in living in the old family home? Did some sort of tragedy occur here? Or is someone just really bad at keeping up with the yard work?

Across the way we found one of those gems that no one is likely to see unless they go on these sorts of journeys down seldom-used roads. One (presumedly) old man keeps a collection of tractors in a field:

FM 1839 is also called Piney Woods Road. We have been on this road before, but this section was new to us. We continued northwest and stopped at Clapp Cemetery to explore a little.

Kristi and I are fascinated by cemeteries. They can provide a glimpse of the lives of individuals and families over a long period of time. They are also good indications of the health and prosperity of a community. We often imagine what the people’s lives were like–especially those who lived through significant historical events.

One grave stood out to Kristi and me. Nellie Huron passed in 1918. She was just a year younger than Patrick was when he passed in 2018. Even though she died a century before Patrick, I believe that Kristi and I can relate to the pain that her parents must have felt.

A short distance from Nellie’s grave are the graves of Eula R. and Hughey C. Atkinson. Eula passed at the age of 24. She was Hughey’s wife and a mother. I do not know these people or anything about their relationship but based on the inscription on Eula’s headstone and the fact that Hughey is buried next to her I would think that they genuinely loved one another. He survived her by over 50 years. How did he feel about the loss decades after the fact?

I often wonder how I will feel about Patrick as the years pass by. If I live as long, or longer than Hughey, what will my grief be like over all that time? My father passed nearly 40 years ago, and I still miss him. My feelings for Patrick are much more intense and will surely continue to be so in the decades to come.

There are many other sad, and some not-so-sad, graves in Clapp Cemetery, but I will stop with these and move on in mine and Kristi’s journey.

We left the cemetery and continued along FM 1839/Piney Woods Road, passing by pastures and through forest.

We eventually came to Chalk Cemetery Road, which we explored during a previous adventure in the area. A short distance from there the road crosses into Houston County and becomes County Road 3610. Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, which we visited before, is near this spot.

Our path diverged from the previous route at the intersection of Houston County Road 3575, which leads to Weldon, Texas.

Of course, much of Texas is Oil Country. Houston County is certainly not an exception. We found these storage tanks on one side of the road:

But where was the oil coming from? Across the road were several pumpjacks:

After spending way too much time being fascinated by arboreal oil wells, we moved along the route.

CR 3575 offers a variety of potentially pretty scenery, however some places have been trashed by uncouth individuals who dump their garbage into the creeks and along the roadsides. All too soon, though, we were on the outskirts of the small town of Weldon. There, we made a brief stop at the entrance to the Weldon cemetery:

And then Kristi made friends with a horse and a donkey across the road!

The first part of our adventure ended in Weldon, along FM 230. So far the route was fairly easy. I think that just about any vehicle with moderate ground clearance could navigate the dry roads with no problems.

The next half is a little more challenging. A 4×4 is not necessary, but good ground clearance is a must. Some of the roads have fairly deep ruts, and a few sections have been “paved” with large stones that might damage the undercarriage if one is not careful. Also, have a good spare tire on hand–the rocks looked sharp.

Heading north from Weldon on FM 230, we turned west onto Houston County Road 3455.

Salem Cemetery is located on the corner. We missed the entrance, though. Another car was coming, and it was too much trouble to turn around.

The beginning of CR 3455 is easy to drive.

There isn’t much along this route–mostly only pastures with a row of trees on either side of the road. There are a few oil wells and quite a few cows.

We saw a couple of trucks along the way and received a funny look from one man who was probably wondering why a couple of strangers were driving around on a remote county road.

After traveling over a bridge and across a very rocky portion of road, we reached a bend to the north located at the entrance to a ranch. The road past the entrance appeared as though it had been virtually unused for an extended period of time. The surface was grown over with some vegetation. It was definitely a public road, though. A little further along it went into a small valley:

The road ends at Houston County Road 3470. We turned right and headed east.

CR 3470 felt even more isolated, even though we knew that we were approaching a paved road. We stopped for a moment to explore a little bit. Kristi found that, despite the isolated feeling, there were beer cans in the ditch and the area smelled like beer. So, somebody must have been partying there recently. Probably teenagers. Darned teenagers!

Our journey along CR 3470 ended at FM 3151. We turned left (north) and headed to the community of Pearson’s Chapel.

We briefly visited this place before, but this time we stopped to take some photos of the Pearson Chapel Baptist Church. The church was founded before 1900, and the community developed around it. Sometime after World War II, though, the community began to decline. There is not much left of it now, except for the church, a few houses, and an abandoned store.

From Pearson’s Chapel we drove to Austonio, then turned south on State Highway 21 toward Madisonville. Along the way we stopped at Rattlesnake Ranch Pecans and stocked up. I took this picture of one of the rail coaches on display behind the store:

I asked the clerk if the owner had any plans for these. She stated that she was not aware of any. Wouldn’t it be cool, though, to turn these into dining cars or venues for special events?

After a very good dinner at Joe’s Italian Grill in Madisonville (we highly recommend it), we headed back to Huntsville. The Moon was rising as we entered town, so we stopped and took a few pictures at Kate Bar Ross Park.

I saw what appeared to be a perfect opportunity to get an image of this statue holding up the Moon, but sadly the parks department had placed a tree along the exact line of sight between the statue and where I needed to stand to get the picture. So, I settled for this image of the statue worshipping the Moon. Or tossing it over the fence. You decide…

Finally, I will wrap up this post with this image of the Moon taken a short time later. People were celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day down in the park. What a great scene for a celebration!