Let's go to Stiles, TX!

This is a story about true cities, though the trip is a combination of various trips.

Heading north on TX 137, just west of where it splits off from Ranch Road 33, one passes this mileage sign. Let's go check out Stiles!



Stiles is located on TX 137, north of Big Lake. Continuing the 6 miles to Stiles, one comes across the road to the old cemetery.


Pulling to the side of the road, you will see the historical marker the state planted about the cemetery in 1970.


Seeing as there is a road to the cemetery, it is only a mile, and the cemetery is on county land, let's go check it out.

Turning west onto the cemetery road, you will find a dirt road and lots of oil wells. Proceed until you come to a junction.


Following the sign, turn right and continue to the cemetery.





William Branch is the only veteran of the Spanish American War buried in the cemetery


I have no idea what the story is, but this was certainly a tough 8 days for the Moody family. Three daughters died, on August 12th, 16th, and 20th. The cause of death are listed on the USGenWeb Project website.


Looking toward the North East from the cemetery, one notices this old building. Let's go check it out!


Go back out the way you came, and continue north on TX 137. After the road turns to the west, you will see a historical marker on the left.


So the building is the original courthouse! Nope. That is actually the 1911 courthouse. The original one was a frame courthouse. It was replaced with a new one in 1911 with stone quarried near by.

You can get a pretty good view of the courthouse from the highway.



Let's go check it out. Continue down TX 137 until you see the sign telling you to turn south to the courthouse.


The road loops around the courthouse. Feel free to park and walk around the structure. It is fenced off.

The building was struck by arson in January of 1999.

The courthouse skeleton and the cemetery are all that remain of the town of Stiles. You can read more about the fire at western-ghost-towns.com

So what happened to Stiles? Well, the railroad went through Big Lake instead of Stiles and oil was discovered in Big Lake. So in 1925, the county seat moved to Big Lake. Let's head south on TX 137 to Big Lake.

The flowers are pretty.


Big Lake is known for the big lake that is south of town. It is a playa lake and has been used for thousands of years by animals and humans. A while back the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory conducted a study on a bison kill site in the Big Lake.

The new courthouse, built in 1927, was built in Big Lake, at East 3rd and North Plaza avenue. With the lack of a railroad and losing the county seat, Stiles became a ghost town.

Dinner Talk

Last night I had dinner with some friends and acquaintances. One of the ladies at dinner was the wife of a Marine officer. Naturally the discussion between her and me turned to military talk, the quality of various PX's on military bases in the area.

Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge revisited

This past week I have revisted the Balcones Canyonlands NWR to do some trail running. I also took my camera and took some photos. I uploaded them onto a previous post. Take a look at this beautiful piece of land.

http://alookatthelife.blogspot.com/2009/04/balcones-canyonlands-national-wildlife.html

Younger Days

I went to HEB today and while shopping I saw the Jello pudding cups. I hadn't had any for years. I am lactose intollerant and had to stop eating dairy products. I have recently found some pro-biotic pills that help and have rediscovered the wonder tastes of dairy. I have fallen in love with milk shakes and now have reignited the flame between me and Jello pudding cups.


I'm going to go eat another one.

Construction Meets Art

Saw this story today out of North Carolina.

'Monster' Puts Student Over a Barrel

An N.C. State University student faces criminal charges for what is best described as a "barrel monster" built out of construction barrels that towered for a while over Hillsborough Street.

Raleigh police believe the monster was the brainchild of Joe Carnevale, a 22-year-old junior majoring in history. It had a short lifespan, up for less than a day on May 31.

Made of construction barrels being owned by a contractor working on the Hillsborough Street round-a-bout project , the monster sported a wide, toothy grin and pointed an extended finger at motorists on the thoroughface near the university's campus.

While I certainly do not condone theft or destruction of private property, his work is quite amazing. Below are the exhibit that got him in trouble as well as some other art from the blog, nopromiseofsafety.com

Day at the Museum

Today's afternoon expedition was to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. It was my first time to go. I had heard great things about the museum, but never made the trip to visit.


The museum is three floors that outlines the story of Texas, from the early days of the Natives to the Spanish explorations through the Mexican and Texas revolutions, continuing into the Civil War, the development of agriculture, the impact of ranching, the discovery and exploration of oil, and into the 21st century. There is even an exhibit on the history of Texas according to Hollywood!

I enjoyed the museum. Some of the things I really enjoyed were the original documents on display. Many of the letters, treaties, newspaper articles, and other interesting and important documents from the history of Texas were displayed. I enjoyed getting to see these on display.

I felt for the most part, the museum was nicely laid out, moving in chronological order within several different topics. The only part I felt was not laid out well was the first floor. I felt that as I moved around the exhibits, I jumped between the pre-Columbian Natives, the Spaniards, and the French without any coherent order. Though it may have been I didn't follow the correct order!

I love museums and am very slow when going through them. Today I spent over an hour per floor and didn't get to finish the museum in the four hours I had.

Everyday it is important to learn something new. Today I learned more about the history of the great state of Texas.

Listening to Coast to Coast

A few years ago, I learned about the show Coast to Coast AM. I heard about it from a friend who use to listen to it while driving from Waco to College Station around midnight. He told me about the show because a caller had called in about the weather machine. We did some research on the weather machine and found that the Montana Militia testified about the weather machine before congress.

Crazy, but true.

NWO Admits Weather Control

Since I never stayed up late at night, I never listened to Coast to Coast. Several years later I was driving across the country late at night and listened to the show. It is quite entertaining. Where else can you learn about the lizard people who are actually running the universe? Or that UFOs are demons? Or that UFOs actually cannot be demons because demons are spiritual and do not require a physical means of transportation? This kind of education is lacking in the schools!

Now I often stay up late to listen to the first hour of Coast to Coast AM. The entertainment is amazing and the education is, um, second to none.

UFO Phil, a regular on the show who writes UFO related music, has a song called Listening to Coast to Coast. How true this song is.

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

This morning I had the most interesting bus ride I think I have ever had.

I normally ride the bus to work as it saves me from having to pay for parking and the fare is free for me when I am in uniform. The bus route I take goes from my house to my office without having to transfer. It is normally a 45 minute ride staying on surface streets, but this morning, we shaved 5 minutes off the time by adding an unexpected reroute and transfer.

The bus ride started out weird. When I walked to the bus stop 5 minutes early, the bus was already there. I boarded and notice the bus drive was not there. He boarded at our departure time. However, we were soon blocked by a wreck in the road.

The accident had the right hand lane blocked and the police and firefighters were tending to the accident scene. Traffic continued in the left lane around the accident, but for some unknown reason our bus could not. So we sat for about 20 minutes until the accident cleared up.

While we waited, a bus company car with a manager pulled up and talked to our driver. The driver then got on the bus and asked where everyone was going. Those who were going to be getting off before or at the north transfer station were to go in the car. He told the rest of us that he would just drop us off and not worry about the route. I assumed that this meant he would only stop when requested.

The wreck finally cleared and we continued on the route. Soon, the bus driver took a detour and got on the expressway. I walked to the driver and told him my bus stop and asked if we were still going to go there. He said that he wasn't going there and was going to drop us off downtown. The stop he was going to drop us off at was about 15 blocks from my office. I asked him how I was to get to my office and he said to take a 1M bus. Weird, that is what this bus was until the driver decided to reroute us.

We got downtown and the bus driver pulled up to the stop. He called back "Hey chief, come here!" I walked up and he pointed to a stop across the street and said to catch the next 1M at that stop. I thanked him and crossed the street to catch the next bus.

Soon enough, a 1M bus came and I rode it the 15 blocks to my office. Stepping off the bus, I glanced at my watch, trying to figure out if my boss would be OK with the excuse that the bus made me late. 5 minutes early.

The wheels on a bus go round and round. Going round and round town is faster than a straight line.

Community

This past fall I spent a lot of time in College Station on the weekends. I began attending Grace Bible Church's Saturday night service. Ross King often times leads worship at this service. It was the same message as Sunday morning, but on Saturday night.

I really liked the service for multiple reasons. It was on Saturday night. When the sun sets, I don't like to do much, so it was nice to have this service to attend at a time when I would normally just be doing nothing. It was a very casual setting. I didn't have to get dressed up and could came dressed just as I was. The service was small and so it had community. I would often times see the same people there every week and got to know several of the people. The service also included an intermission fellowship time between the worship and message portion. Of my reasons for attending the service, the biggest reason was community.

Ross King taught us a song one night called Community. We sang it several times and you can read the lyrics at the "Your Mercies are new Every Morning" blog. I really like the lyrics, the message in the song. It is a prayer to God for Him to teach us how to be community. How to be one in Christ. How to be one in purpose and to take care of each other. What a great day it will be when the Church is finally one in community and in Christ!

I long for community. I want to belong to a community of Christians where I feel like I actually am a part of the Body. The church I attended in Midland was a good church. However, I never felt like I was a part of it. I attended every Sunday and sang in the choir, but felt like if I didn't attend one Sunday, no one would really know. What I felt was worse was that the community ended as soon as the service was over on Sunday. I didn't feel like anyone was really concerned about me outside of church. I didn't feel like anyone wanted to really know me.

After the first Saturday night service that I attended that Ross King led worship, I went home to look into his current endeavors. I knew he was a pastor at Community Church in College Station as I had attended the church for a year in college. Back then, the church met at the Hilton, then in a school cafeteria on Sunday mornings. The church now meets in Grace Bible Church - Southwood campus, on Sunday nights. In reading about the church, I found that they met on Sunday nights for dinner, worship, fellowship, and to study God's word. During the week they met in small groups for fellowship and worship. This seemed like what a church community should be like!

I am currently attending a church that I feel has a strong community, much like I was looking for after studying about Community Church. The church is The Well in Buda. I am disappointed that I will only be a part of it for a short time. I look forward to finding a similar church in my future locations.

Even though I am only going to be there a few weeks, they have made me a part of their community. I was invited by a person I had only met once before. Going there, I was immediately welcomed and made a part of their community. People wanted to talk and get to know me. They invited me to join their Bible studies and group activities. They made me part of their community, even though I would only be there a few weeks. They have community.

Are you taking the time to build community? Are you taking time to meet and know the strangers in your midst?

Last fall, I met a girl at the Saturday night service. We spent some time together but since I was only in College Station a few days a month and leaving soon for Rhode Island, it was hard to develop a long term relationship. We did get to spend time together and learned about each other, despite knowing our time would be short. Shortly before I left, she said "Thanks for taking the time to get to know me."

Getting to know someone takes time and effort. Some people say it is an investment. If it is just an investment, than it does little to invest time and effort in to knowing people who you may never see again. But that isn't what we are called to do. God tells us to take care of strangers because we were once strangers in Egypt. God tells us that we are all part of the Body of Christ. When you meet a fellow Christian, do you see them as a member of your community? When you see a stranger in your midst, do you remember to take care of them, even if it is just to greet them? You may never see the results of your time and effort, but it can make a difference. People have made a big impression on me in the time and effort they have spent getting to know me and involve me in their activities even though I will be leaving in a couple of weeks. Though she may never know her impact, I will warmly remember the kind words of my friend, "Thanks for taking the time to get to know me."

People have made an impact on me. I hope I can reciprocate the same to others.

Teach us to be community Jesus
Teach us to be community
Unify our hearts as one
Unify our hearts as one

I Might Steal to Buy Some More (2nd Item)

I originally said this about sudoku, but lately I've been making milk shakes out of soy milk and Breyer's lactose free ice cream. They are amazing.

Jouney to the Center of the Earth.

In Jules Verne's book, Journey to the Center of the Earth, the German professor and his party travel to the center of the earth via volcano tubes. Yesterday, some friends and I traveled similarly, except we traveled via a cave and only went a few dozen feet below the surface.

Yesterday we traveled to Longhorn Cavern State Park. Our journey began in Austin and we traveled to the park via US 183, TX 29, and US 281. At the junction of TX 29 and US 281 lies the town of Burnet. My friend Chris, the driver of the vehicle, maintains a collection of county courthouses, so we stopped so he could photograph the Burnet County Courthouse.





We also attempted to visit TeaLicious, but it was a sit down restaurant and we didn't have the time. So instead we went to the antique shop.



We then continued to the park.

Our first stop was the visitor center to purchase our tickets. Tickets were $12.99/person, with a $1 discount for active duty military. Tours are every hour from 10AM-4PM on Saturday's, and vary on other days, so be sure to check the schedule on their website.

Since we had 55 minutes to kill until our 2PM tour, we explored the park. We found lots of interesting buildings built by the CCC in the 30's.

The CC Pavilion includes an exhibit on the CCC.




This observation tower was built by the CCC. The sign said it was built for water and observation.




After exploring the buildings, it was time to explore the cave. We headed to meet our tour guide, Josh.



Josh briefing us before we entered the cave.

One of the things he told us about was how Sam Bass had hidding $2 million in the cave that was never found. He said if we found it that he would be happy to split it 60/40 with us. Well the kid in yellow was pretty smart and realized that that meant the guide was taking a larger cut of the treasure. He called Josh out and said that it should be 50/50. Josh disagreed so the kid in yellow threw a rock at him.

The rock slinger


The main reason you need the guide is that he has the key.

Josh led us into the cave and we spent about 1.5 hours on the tour. Many of the formations are below.

Formations

Abe Lincoln.

The Wishing Well. They use to let you throw pennies in it, but the copper was contaminating underground water sources.


Sam Bass' Bootprint

Bear nose. They let you rub the bear nose, which is why it is darker.

Calcite crystals.

My favorite formation, the rockweiler!

Whale flipper.




One interesting tidbit about the cave, it is supposedly haunted. Now I do not claim to believe in ghosts or the paranormal, but there is certainly things that occur that we cannot explain. I use to not even want to hear about this stuff, but recently have been listening to Coast to Coast AM, a late night radio show that explores the paranormal. Because I listened to it, it has made me more interested in hearing the stories. Longhorn Cavern has some stories.

The first story we heard was by the gentleman in the visitor center. He told us that he once saw a lady in a white party dress. He didn't know who she was but knew she was a ghost.

The other story we heard was by Josh, our tour guide. He said he was changing light bulbs in the cave once and was the only one in the cave and had locked the gate. While changing light bulbs, he was hit in the head with a rock. I inquired if it might have been the kid in yellow.

Everyone made it out of the cave, but saw no dinosaurs, treasure, or ghosts.