Road Trip April 2005: East Texas Wildflower Tour
Route from Plano:
I-75 North to McKinney, 5 east to 380 to Greenville, I-30 east to Mount Pleasant, 271 south to Pittsburg, 11 east to Linden, 155 southwest to Big Sandy, 80 west to Dallas, back north to Plano
This was a one-day getaway to see the wildflowers and just to get out of town. We started late Friday, and caught the tail end of rush hour. Going through McKinney, we passed the Bolin Oil Co. and Wildlife Exhibit, one of the places on the Future Adventures list. I also need a list of the odd business combinations we've seen.
Greenville was a ghost town, with nothing open downtown at 8pm - we had hoped to find a restaurant. We ended up stopping at a 24-hour "home cooking" restaurant on the interstate where Doug got chicken fried chicken that looked and tasted like a pre-manufactured food unit. My veggie plate was a little better.
We overnighted at an Executive Inn in Mount Pleasant that wasn't very pleasant. It happened to be on the main road from the Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant, and the truck traffic was noisy, as was the room's heater, which rattled every time it came on and kept Doug up all night.
We headed south in the morning after stopping for breakfast at Burger King - the free breakfast at the motel consisted of weak coffee and those cinnamon rolls in the cellophane wrapper that you usually find in a vending machine. Once again, no cafe open in the downtown area. You would think that a place known as the "Sweetest Town in Texas" would at least have a bakery open on a Saturday morning.
On the way south to Pittsburg we passed the Pilgrim's Pride headquarters and stopped on the shoulder to get a picture of the giant Bo Pilgrim head. In the sitting area underneath, there is a statue of Bo with his favorite chicken. However, apparently only employees get close to that because access to it is behind the security gate.
We stopped in Pittsburg at the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Center Museum, which is in the old train depot. We got a lesson in Morse code and train communications from a very nice man there who was a telegrapher at the station when it was still in operation. The depot was restored by a group of men in the town, and is a great place to see - mostly because of the Ezekiel Airship they have on display. Apparently Reverend Burrell Cannon from Pittsburg built this airplane and flew it before the Wright brothers ever got off the ground. He got the idea from the description of a flying ship in the book of Ezekiel.
From Pittsburg, we headed east on highway 11 and soon started seeing more wildflowers - mostly crimson clover with some Indian paintbrush and phlox mixed in. The loop through Avinger, Linden, and Hughes Springs is supposed to be one of the best wildflower tours around, so I expected to come upon a good field of flowers to get out and wander in, but we never found one. Consequently, I have no wildflower pictures from our wildflower road trip.
We stopped in Linden, known as "Music City Texas" for no apparent reason except the mural on one of the buildings downtown and the fact that Don Henley lives somewhere nearby. Once again, nothing open.
From Linden, we headed southwest on 155 toward Lake O' the Pines. We stopped at a produce stand in Avinger and got homemade salsa and pickled okra and asked about a place to eat lunch. We had to go all the way to Cedar Springs to get to the nearest open restaurant, an all-you-can-eat catfish place that has some of the best hushpuppies I've ever had.
After lunch, we continued on 155 and picked up highway 80 at Big Sandy. Heading west, we passed through Mineola, the "Birding Capitol of East Texas". The town was busy getting ready for the annual Choo-Choo Chili and Bean Festival.
The next stop was Grand Saline, a town on top of an enormous salt mine. I was looking forward to seeing the Salt Palace there, billed as the only building in the United States made entirely of salt. In actuality, it is a metal shed building that they've put some salt on, but just the two sides that face the road. They did have some interesting pictures inside, though, and I got a free piece of salt. I found out that this is the fourth Salt Palace. The other ones were much more interesting, but they dissolved.
We made a quick stop in Terrell for a cherry coke icee, but got out fast because the Heritage Festival was in full swing and it was too crowded to drive around. Terrell is worth a day trip in itself - there are some beautiful old homes there. From there, we headed home.