One of "Those" Days!

You never know when something will turn into a "Grandpa Venture."  This day started out lazy with a good rain falling just before dawn.  It was good weather for sleeping late so we did.  After a leisurely breakfast and checking to make sure it was too muddy to work outside, it looked like a good day to get lots of inside painting done or perhaps finish the income tax work.

However when I mentioned the possibility of a little drive to Grandma she began packing her bag.  Our first stop was at the Grandview Bank to make a deposit.  Before long we were driving through the Baylor campus and doing a loop around the Waco circle.  It was too early in the day to stop at Rudy's Bar-B-Que so we headed out on highway 6. Unlike our trip to Enchanted Rock a few weeks earlier when we saw no wildflowers at all, today the roadsides were blankets of color.

Last month as we drove back from Galveston I had noticed a huge smokestack and lots of construction cranes off to the west of Riesel.  This would be a good time to investigate.  A sign on highway 6 indicated Broadway St. next exit.  We were amused to find ourselves on a little one lane road that went around behind the Riesel cemetery but the street sign definitely read Broadway!  We followed this lane across the railroad tracks and before long turned onto Rattlesnake Rd.

We could see the construction site in the distance and soon a gravel road led in that direction.

TU is building a huge generating station near the Lake Creek Lake.  There was a much older plant already on the other side of the lake and acres and acres of land with signs indicting TU ownership.

From the construction site we continued into Marlin where we stopped to observe the Falls County courthouse...

and the city firehall.  

By this time the local Church's Fried Chicken stand looked really inviting.  The food was very good.  After lunch and a fuel fill up we headed west on FM712.  It was not on the new Texas map that Grandma had just bought to keep in the car.  We stopped for a few minutes in the old community of "Bucksnort" to remember days of long ago.  



We soon came into level lush farmland with fields of corn.  We must be in the Brazos Valley.  The next sign indicated a turn to the county park at the Falls on the Brazos.  We registered at the office as directed by a sign nearby and drove around the gravel road to a small parking area.

The falls would be insignificant by most standards but on a lazy river like the Brazos that only falls about 6 inches or less per mile, this drop of about 4 feet by my estimate is enough to provide the name for the county (Falls County).  This looks like a good place for a day trip later this summer with barefooted grandchildren.

Now all that was left for the day was our drive back home.  We had filled up with gas in Marlin and had a good tailwind driving north.  By the time we made it home the computer read 57.5 miles per gallon in our Toyota Prius!