|
 
Saturday, November 17, 2001 - Goodbye Texas
67 miles. Silsbee, TX to Merryville Museum, Merryville, LA
We got up early, at 5:00 because we had a long day
ahead of us. The spacing was bad for today, the only known motel or camping was
in DateRidder, LA, which is 94 miles from Silsbee. We decided that we were going
to have to find a place to stay in Merryvile instead.
We continued riding thru the vast pinery that this part
of Texas is. The original forest was longleaf or Southern yellow pine, but this
resource was logged out by 1950 and it does not regenerate well or grow quickly.
Hence the industrial forest of Loblolly Pine and hybrids harvested on rotations
of 10 and 20 years! Most of the land here is owned by big lumber companies that
picked up this land during the Great Depression for a song.
Initially along T-92 we started to find small land
holding for the first time in our trip thru Texas, but most of the land still
belongs to the timber companies. After a surprisingly good pizza in Spurger
(pop. 482) at the Exxon station we turned east and rode for a number of miles
past excellent forest that owed its existence to the Big Thicket National
Preserve along the Neches River.
The first two hours of the ride were cool enough for
riding tights but it was clear and turned into a wonderful, sunny afternoon. It
has been an unseasonably warm Autumn in this area and we hope it continues, but
the rain in Central Texas may yet catch up with us. The riding now is very easy
with the terrain mostly level. We can just get on our bikes and pedal without
exhausting ourselves with long climbs.
The forest also gives us protection from the persistent
east winds and with the sun dropping lower in the sky with each passing day,
even at its zenith today, we rode in considerable shade. Additional towns passed
thru were Kirbyville (pop.1884), Bleakwood (pop. 300),and Bon Weir (pop. 475).
After crossing the Sabine River we left Texas after 24 days and well over 1000
miles and entered Merryville, LA (pop. 1235) looking for a place to camp but
with none indicated on our map.
We made our way thru the town and at an intersection
someone asked us if we needed help. We asked if there was any camping to be had.
The woman said, "Yes. Follow me.", which we did. We ended up at the
local historical society building where we met the MPD officer on duty and were
plied with lemonade. We are camped right outside the museum and the place even
has warm showers; what luck! We also learned a great deal of local history and
who better to teach you than members of the local history museum? All in All we
had a great time in Texas and this id the time to be down here, in the Autumn
when the heat is gone and the weather is fine, There is still about 11 hours of
daylight so you still have to do what you want.
|
