September 10, 2021
Kristi and I had planned to go to the beach today, but we both accidentally slept too late and decided, instead, to go on a dirt road adventure. Kristi said that she wanted to head up toward Lufkin, so I did a quick survey of the map and found a potentially interesting route.
We ate breakfast at Dee Dee Donuts in Trinity. A Budweiser bus was parked next door, and I felt compelled to take a picture of it because I really like RVs. I wonder if the “this is not a hobby” painted on the side is a dig at microbreweries, like nearby Rusty Gate Brewery, run by our friends, the Scarcliffs. Where would you rather get your beer from? Some random bus, or a fun-loving family with a passion for alcohol?
The lovebugs were out…again…and we went through a swarm of them on the way east from Trinity down State Highway 94 toward U.S. Highway 287. We stopped off in Groveton, the seat of Trinity County, to replenish our windshield washer fluid at a convenience store. (You can tell it’s lovebug season when the washer fluid is in short supply, by the way. You can also tell that it’s lovebug season because there are lovebugs EVERYWHERE.)
From Groveton, we drove back north on U.S. 287 to FM 3154. This road runs through the Davy Crockett National Forest. It starts off paved but turns to dirt where it crosses FM 358. The name changes to North Possum Walk Road.
Those of you from in or around Huntsville will likely recognize the name, “Possum Walk.” This Possum Walk, however, is not related. The name was sometimes used for a community named Crete, Texas, which was established in the 1870s by settlers from DeRidder, Louisiana. Crete is also sometimes referred to as East Prairie, and is now considered a “dispersed rural community,” or “dispersed settlement.” In other words, it ain’t a town no more.
North Possum Walk Road ends at Cross Road, out in the middle of the forest. It’s a pretty little spot. One might be tempted to stop and get out of one’s vehicle and explore a bit. But one might soon realize that one has made one helluva mistake.
Nearly as soon as we stopped at the intersection–it’s always a good idea to stop at intersections, even if they are in the forest in the middle of nowhere–the truck was swarmed by several large, flying insects. There were dozens of them, maybe hundreds! They moved quickly and were quite aggressive. They would bounce off of the glass and the sides of the truck but would never stop moving. I figured we had managed to disturb a nearby hornet’s nest or similar aggressive colony of insects. One of the insects landed on the driver-side window. It was a large horsefly. OK, maybe they’re horseflies, we reasoned, but we were not sure because they never stopped flying. Maybe the horsefly was just a visitor to the party?
After marveling at the sight of these determined assailants for a few minutes, we continued our journey, heading north up Cross Road. The angry swarm was still following us, caught up in the truck’s slipstream. I’m not sure how far we traveled like this, but once we got to a fairly straight, clear section of road I gunned the engine and sped up, leaving the bugs behind. When all appeared clear I stopped again and…another swarm appeared! It was apparent that this was a different group of insects than the ones we had encountered earlier. I brought out the camera and made a video (see below). Shortly after recording the video another, larger horsefly landed on the passenger-side window. Yep, definitely horseflies. HUNDREDS of them! It was like some Hitchcockian horror movie. Only instead of birds–horseflies.
I’ve seen a lot of horseflies in my life. I’ve been bitten by them several times. I’ve been swarmed by small groups of them. But never have Kristi and I seen swarms like these! I would really hate to be caught outside without a bee suit or some other kind of protection around these things. They’d tear a person up! And people actually live out there!
Well, we continued our journey, occasionally stopping to assess the density of the horsefly population along the way. Cross Road becomes Pine Tree Road at some point, and then ends in Kennard, Texas. The closer we got to town the fewer horseflies we saw. We turned onto TX-7 and headed west to Crockett, Texas, then drove through some of the neighborhoods in town. There are a lot of beautiful, old houses in Crockett. Bonus: there are no horseflies.
From Crockett, we headed down TX-19 to Riverside where we ate at one of our favorite restaurants, Daisy’s Diner. I like to think of Daisy’s Diner as a sort of miniature Cracker Barrel Restaurant–there is even an RV park next door. After dinner we stopped by Tallent Sausage and bought lots of meat before heading home.
It was a good end to the trip, but those horseflies certainly left an impression. You might have noticed that there are very few pictures in this post. Neither of us wanted to brave going outside of the truck for a few shots.