Strange Little Town
March 11th, 2009 by PahaskaWe just returned from an Airstream rally at Grapeland, Texas. “Where is Grapeland?”, you ask. Well, it is 12 miles north of Crockett, Texas. “Where is Crockett?”, you ask. Well, Crockett is about 50 miles east of Lufkin, Texas. Oh, what the heck! Grapeland is a tiny dot on the map in east Texas, 220 road miles from my house near Austin.
The first weird thing was the RV park, Salmon Lake RV Park. Hundreds of sites, mostly sitting empty, amid dozens of decrepit old structures trucked in from the surrounding area, interspersed with old cars, old trucks, and farming machinery. All looking much the worse for wear. Turns out that there is a huge bluegrass festival held there and this is window dressing.
Salmon Lake, really just a dammed up pond, sports a mill with a water wheel. Further downstream is a loop of railroad track, about 18″ gage. A locked tunned, made of boxcars, apparently hides a little train.
What made the town strange was that two out of the three restaurants in town treated us like dirt. One restaurant agreed to cater our Saturday dinner, then turned down the check after leaving about 20 of us waiting for 1 1/2 hours for lunch while locals were served immediately. Another restaurant ignored three of us and it took almost 1 1/2 hours to get burgers. The third place, a small Mexican restaurant was the only bright spot with good food and service.
Sadly, on the first morning of the rally, we learned of the sudden death of a unit member who had been at the unit luncheon two days earlier.
The bright spot of the rally was a visit to the “Opry” in Crockett where we heard some of the best bluegrass, 60’s music, and classic country music that I have heard in years. Turns out that Crockett is a mecca of live music with Jerry Jeff Walker and Ray Price scheduled this month.
By the way, we were treated great in Crockett.
