April 15, 2023
A lot of our adventures are unplanned and undocumented. Today’s drive was unplanned, and almost undocumented. It started, like so many, at our favorite Sonic restaurant. We were in the Spaceship Car and Kristi was driving when she decided that she wanted to “see some water.” So, we drove out to Lake Livingston.
I was put in charge of navigation, and, after a brief discussion, we decided to drive around the southern half of the lake.
Our adventure officially began at Patrick’s Ferry on U.S. Highway 190. Patrick’s Ferry boat landing is located at the western end of the bridge and causeway that crosses Lake Livingston. This area is also near Batisse Village, a Coushatta Indian community that was located along the Coushatta Trace on the western bank of the Trinity River until sometime in the late 1850s. U.S. 190 and the Coushatta Trace roughly follow the same route in this area.
Route: Around (the Other Side of) the Lake
After crossing the lake, we turned south onto FM 3126, then right onto FM 2457. We drove through the community of Blanchard, and then a short distance west to Scenic Loop, which runs around a peninsula. The loop wasn’t all that scenic. There were some nice houses in a couple of places, but I think the area’s heyday was a long time ago.
I originally had no intention of taking pictures, but then a huge raindrop loudly hit our windshield, and I thought, “I have to record this one for posterity!”
There was a thunderstorm a few miles away, so I wonder if a hail stone might have been thrown from the storm and melted on the way down.
Scenic Loop ends on FM 3126, south of Blanchard. From this point forward the scenery on our drive took a turn for the better.
We made our way down the east side of the lake on FM 1988, passing near the former location of the town of Swartwout, near the dam. From there, we turned west onto FM 3278, which crosses the Trinity River below the dam.
Like most of the large lakes in Texas, Lake Livingston is manmade. Construction began in 1966 and was completed in 1969. The dam is owned by the City of Houston and the Trinity River Authority.
Continuing along the dam road away from the dammed river, we came across The Dam Liquor Store.
The top of the hill, next to the Camilla Volunteer Fire Department, provides a pretty view of the Trinity River valley and the lake.
Proceeding uphill out of the river valley we found another AT&T long lines tower. This one connects Camden, to the east, with Willis, to the west.
FM 3278 ends at FM 222. The small farming town of Camilla, founded shortly after the Civil War, was located here. It gained a post office in 1895, which closed a short time later. The original post office building was moved to the downtown area of nearby Coldspring. The community’s name lives on, however, in some of its area establishments. The Camilla First Baptist Church, originally founded in 1902, is located on FM 3278. Camilla Methodist Church (formerly Mt. Zion UMC) sits near the intersection of FM 3278 and FM 222.
Now on the west side of the lake, we began to head back toward home. We passed through Coldspring and turned north onto TX-156, where a short time later I failed to be a competent navigator and told Kristi to turn left too soon. I had meant to guide her onto FM 946, but instead directed her onto FM 945.
Having realized my mistake, I checked the map for a road that connected with FM 946. Trail Ride Road, a dirt road, appeared to connect, so we turned down it. We were a little concerned about driving along an unfamiliar dirt road in the Spaceship Car, but Trail Ride proved to be in good shape. The only problem was that it was not, in fact, a through road. It ended at someone’s property, so we had to turn around and head back to TX-156.
We eventually made it to the correct road, FM 946, and drove toward Oakhurst, on U.S. 190. Heavy thunderstorms were passing through that area, though. My hope was that they would be gone by the time we got there, but we ended up getting caught in a heavy downpour with quarter-sized hail. We pulled into a church parking lot for a few minutes to let the storm pass. Thankfully we were on the backside of the storm, so it wasn’t long before the rain and hail stopped.
We enjoyed getting out an exploring, even if it wasn’t as interesting as some of our other adventures. But the point isn’t to find the Next Greatest Thing. The point is to have fun. There were a lot of things we saw along the way that we didn’t document, including the Polunsky Unit, several displays of classic vehicles and tractors, and an interesting metal sculpture of a pair of giraffes. Lake Livingston State Park is located along the route we took on the east side of the lake. It’s been a long time since we’ve been there but based on my memory of the place it is definitely worth a visit. I do wish I had thought to take pictures of the hail.
As I stated at the beginning of this post, this was an unplanned trip. Most unplanned trips are close to home, or at least they start out so. I like to keep a list of potentially interesting routes for future trips, but all of those I have currently are fairly far from home. So, maybe our next adventure will be one of those, or we may just ad-hoc one like we did this time.