October 9, 2022
Kristi and I took an unplanned drive through the Sam Houston National Forest. This was one of those adventures that started out as a trip to Sonic for drinks, but ended up with one of us asking, “Is there anywhere you want to go?”
The forest has been on our minds lately. With all of the stress of normal life piled upon by extra pressures from other sources, such as work, we’ve been craving a little peace and quiet in a beautiful place. We are fortunate to have such a place located near us.
Our ad-hoc adventure began on 3 Notch Road, which begins off of Watson Lake Road near the community of Phelps. 3 Notch Road ends at Forest Service Road 206, also called Phelps Road. Part of FR 206 is paved, and part is dirt. It runs through some beautiful, wooded landscape.
Most of the forest service roads have spurs that travel off into remote parts of the forest. These spurs are often closed to automobiles for most of the year but are sometimes opened during the hunting season. The gate to FR 206A was open, so we decided to risk the hail of bullets and fleeing wildlife to do a little exploring. (Just kidding. We heard two gunshots while we were in the area, and they were pretty far away.)
This camping area is located a short distance off of 206A. It is big enough for several vehicles and/or tents:
Continuing past the camping area 206A got a little less well-kept. There were signs that vehicles had been down there recently, and we passed one truck that was parked along the road–presumably the owner was somewhere in the woods.
FR 206A sort of ends at a clearing. There is a mound of dirt along the main path of the road. This usually indicates that motorized vehicles should not go beyond that point. However, there was a short road that went around the mound and rejoined the main path beyond it.
The dirt mound is near the bottom of the image below. The road continues through the forest behind the mound.
A side road goes around the mound.
Continuing along the side road. Where does it lead?
Back to the original path!
It was clear that no vehicles had been down this way in quite some time. I checked Google Maps and it appears that the road continues along for a while, then dead-ends at the Lone Star Hiking Trail.
Rather than risk any hassles we might encounter continuing down 206A, and any trouble we might get into if access is not allowed, we turned around and headed back out to FR 206.
FR 206 forks with FR 246. 246 continues as a paved road, but 206 becomes a dirt road.
As I’ve stated many times, one never knows what one will find on these little adventures. This tree caught my eye. My first thought was, “I wonder if anything lives in that hole. Cookie-baking elves?”
Now, I’m not saying that it’s the Keebler Elves bakery we’ve seen on TV, but maybe it’s the headquarters of their Texas Division.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Texas geology. It seems that most movies only show Texas as a barren desert or as mountainous and semi-arid. And while those types of climates and terrain are in Texas, there is so much more. A lot of the state is flat. Most parts are humid. The middle portion of the state is mostly prairie, pastures, and farms. The eastern portion is covered in forests. And except for, perhaps, the coastal regions, the East Texas landscape is mostly gentle, rolling hills punctuated by creek beds and rivers.
It is sometimes difficult to see the variation in the terrain when deep in the woods, but roads and clearings bring out the topography. Below are two pictures taken from the top of a small rise on FR 206.
Dirt roads are, of course, very dusty when dry. The dust that is thrown up by vehicles is scattered along the roadside, covering everything up to several feet above the ground. I pity the poor spiders who thought that the roadside was a good place to build a web! But the dust does make photographing the details in spiderwebs easier.
This little web was located at the spot where I took the two photos above:
FR 206 ends at FR 200. We turned west to head toward 4 Notch Road on our way home. FR 200 is a dirt road, and as we were crossing a dry creek bed, we spotted hundreds of dust-covered spiderwebs on the ground.
I can imagine Bilbo Baggins coming across a scene like this in Mirkwood. I’m just glad that these spiders are small!
A narrow bridge crosses Boswell Creek near the western end of FR 200. The creek was dry at the time that we visited. A couple of large trees had fallen on the south side of the bridge, making natural bridges.
FR 200 ended on 4 Notch Road, which we followed back toward home.
Remember that fork in the road, above? In Part II, about a week later, we took an adventure down FR 246 and beyond.
Beautiful as always. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.