Rivers, Roadrunners, and Solar Panels! Oh my!

May 14, 2022

Today’s drive took us through some parts of Grimes County that were new to us.

Grimes County is located within the Gulf Coastal Plains along the transition between the East Texas Piney Woods and the hardwood forests and prairies of Central Texas. The county is sparsely populated, with wide-open areas of pasture and farmland.

Our journey began on County Road 125, which starts off of FM 1696 West in Bedias. The few houses near town gave way to large sections of pastureland, with a few hedgerows along the road. Most of the woods were in areas surrounding creeks.

Most of this season’s wildflowers have already gone, but there were a few patches of flowers here-and-there. Shortly after turning onto CR 123 we came across this interesting arrangement of bull thistle that had gone to seed:

While driving along CR 123 we saw a roadrunner hunting on the roadside. These birds tend to shy away from people, and it seems to me that they are becoming increasingly rare. This one wouldn’t allow us to approach it closely enough to get a picture, so we continued on.

This part of Grimes County is cattle country. There are lots of large, open pastures with few trees but once we turned onto CR 126 we started to see more woods.

It was along this stretch that we saw another road runner. It’s a bit of a treat to see one, but two so close to one another is very unusual in our experience–we were far enough away from the first encounter that it was certainly not the same bird. We approached slowly, but it kept moving down the road away from us.

It flew up into a tree on the left side of the road, then flew across the road into another tree, where Kristi managed to get this shot:

There were no coyotes in the area that we knew of, and no anvils were dropped on our heads.

We continued along CR 126 and then turned onto CR 128, which took us to FM 39, just south of Iola, Texas.

Staying on CR 128, we crossed FM 39 and began the second part of our journey, which would eventually take us to TX-21 in Brazos County.

A new neighborhood is being built in the area around FM 39 and CR 128. The homes looked nice and have big yards. CR 128 ends at CR 127, where we turned left, then immediately turned right onto CR 161. CR 161 took us to Lake Grove Cemetery.

Lake Grove was a small community that existed sometime during the late-19th and into the early-20th centuries. Land for the cemetery was donated in 1874. Some family members of an acquaintance of ours are buried here.

The heat kept our visit short, so we retreated to the air conditioning of the truck and headed back the way we came on CR 161, turning left onto CR 162.

Grimes County has been an energy producer for many years. There are several oil wells, and it once had an open-pit lignite mine that provided fuel for the Gibbons Creek Electric Station near Carlos. The electric station was recently demolished, but a gas-fired plant still operates near Roans Prairie. The lignite mine has been reclaimed.

Grimes County’s wide-open pastures, abundant sunshine, and proximity to urban areas makes it an ideal location for solar power generation stations. The most recent solar power facility is currently being constructed in the vicinity of the former community of Mesa, Texas, located at the intersection of CR 162 and CR 164. When completed, the plant will cover 2,700 acres and produce over 524 gigawatt hours of power per year using more than 650,000 solar panels. The site will be capable of providing energy to 47,000 homes.

Continuing west on CR 162, we crossed over FM 244. Here, the terrain begins to descend into the Navasota River valley. There are more wooded areas along this part of the route, interspersed with open vistas of the valley.

The woods became thicker as we approached the river.

The Navasota River forms part of the western border of Grimes County and is flanked by several stillwater lakes in this area. I am not certain of the origins of these lakes–they appear to be tributaries that probably fill during floods but may also be oxbow lakes formed by the meandering path of the river.

A short distance from the lakes is the Navasota River!

Soon after crossing the river we began to see signs of civilization. The road changed to Long Trussel Road, and shortly thereafter the pavement started. The name again changed to FM 2038, which then intersected with TX-21.

It is once again lovebug season in East Texas, and we drove through quite a few on our drive to Bedias. So, after picking up some dinner we ran the truck through a car wash, then headed home.