Day #5Feb 23, 2010
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| Went for a great walk on a nature trail in Caddo Lake S.P. first thing in the a.m. Returned to the trailer, packed up and drove south west leaving the park about 11:00 a.m. Followed a route suggested by the TX Welcome folks southwest down TX #43, further on TX #79, further south on TX #77 and finally TX #72 to Choke Canyon S.P. Off the freeways and onto some two & four lane Texas highways. What a pleasant change. Stopped for lunch at a picnic area and met a couple from Quebec on their way to Big Bend. Noticed huge reclamation areas near the highway and then some mammoth new open pit mines – coal! We never realized how large the coal mining industry is in north east TX. It's somewhat abundant in the whole area and runs for miles, in fact still a big industry down as far as Rockdale where we spent Friday evening. Points of interest; an initial look at some big broiler barns in the distance, by the time we passed Brenda had counted 36 on one farm location. Down the road a piece, at what I thought was a limestone cement plant with dozens of hopper cars on sidings – Sanderson Farms Feed Mill! Learned they are the fourth largest poultry processor in the USA – 8 million birds per day through six plants in as many states. As we approached Summerland we noticed a few green houses – like the broiler barns they just increased in numbers to a point where they lined both sides of the road for miles. Learned they are part of the most saturated area of hot house flower raising in Texas. Landscape changed from the pine woods to long rolling hills either covered in low scrub bush or grass pasture ranches. Texas Tourism calls this the Prairies & Lakes Region. We drove for over four hours through this and never saw a furrow turned or an acre of crop. All grass & obviously hay land. Stopped at Rockdale for the night. |
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