Crossing from Louisiana into Texas, two things were immediately noticeable, both the roads and the speed limits got 30% more-generous. As Jon said to me last night, everything is bigger in Texas. I sped, at 75 miles per hour, past countless schools, churches, and that highest ranking American official, The Dollar General.
It was nice to go so fast on the back roads, but these rural speed limits come with a gotcha (as in got you but thankfully not me, yet). As one hurtles downhill toward the little towns, put on your brakes; the speed limits drop and police multiply, lurking in well-worn clever little spots.
One such town I slowed all the way down for: Newton, Texas. They were setting up a band and selling Christmas cookies in the park. I bought a gingerbread man, took a pic of the cool old courthouse, and, since the band was a while off from starting to play, I continued on to Woodville.
Woodville, and this whole area, is aptly named. I did not know Texas had so much forest. From the interstates one just sees all the land the people have cleared out and paved over. These forests were not the wide, type 1A forest like we see back in Nevada City, but rather tangles of tally skinny pines and bushy oaks.
As for the people of Woodville, I only met one: hotel proprietress, Mrs. Patel. I otherwise spent the evening in my room, crocheting and watching Christmas movies. People tear the Woodville Inn a new one on the interwebs, but what are they really expecting for $38 bucks a night? I was happy to have a room with a mostly working TV and to snuggle into the patina of decades, knowing all the items had off-gassed their new manufacture decades earlier.
Were the carpets dark on purpose to hide the years? Sure. Was the mirror a little cracked, furniture chipped, and the side chair ripped? Yes. But the linens were clean, the extra deep tub spotless, and Ms. Patel was very nice to change my room to one with a working heater when the first one was 60 degrees and falling. For what I saved in Woodville, I will splurge in my next stop: Fredericksburg, Texas. Talk to you next in the Texas Hill Country.
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