One day is South Texas. The next is Central Texas. The day after that? Cosmopolitan Dallas. Yee-haw.
I rolled into Dallas in time to pick Pa Wetzel up at the little airport. Neither one of us was particularly happy about the car I was driving: Ma Wetzel’s big station wagon.
“I’m just going to have to get her a new Prius,” he was saying.
It was another long day, too. Meetings with lawyers, doing family business, and then catching a train home. Cost of that ticket? Certainly less than a tank of gas in the truck, that’s for sure.
Rolling through Ft. Worth, the Cotton Exchange building, just visible at the south edge of downtown. Ft. Worth’s station itself, more than a hundred years old. The building next to the historic station now has a big sign, “Fort Worth Rail Market.” Wasn’t so long ago, that was just a dead freight terminal. Southbound, Temple’s [that would be Temple – Killeen – Belton in Bell County, next to Ft. Hood> station, the largest Santa Fe depot west of Chicago. Huge rail yard.
Ever try explaining lifestyle choices to a lawyer? “Train?” “Yeah, it’s actually almost as fast as flying these days.” If I was on American Airlines, it is faster than flying. And the seats are bigger. And there’re fewer restrictions on baggage and carried items. More families. Leisurely lifestyle. Then, when I arrived in Austin, I walked from the station. “Walk?” Ah, ferchrissakes, it’s about half a mile. In the darkening twilight? It’s beautiful.
There’s a hotel/motel, high rise: in Corpus Christi (Bayfront/Shoreline), in downtown El Paso (I-10), in Dallas (Mockingbird and N. Central), and what reminded me of these hotels, other than having seen them all in the last few weeks, is that I’ve stayed at some of them, too. There’s a hotel/motel, just west of the station in Ft. Worth, too. Same architecture. Wouldn’t be surprised if it had been – at one time – like all the others – a premier Hilton.
The one in Corpus is my favorite. We used to do shows on the top floor. In February, when the breeze is kicking up over the bay, the building would sway. Cool. Buffeted and battered by off-shore winds, swaying to the tune of an inch or more. On the top floors, that a more than a little discernible.
Steve Fromholz penned his Texas Trilogy, and I think about that song, especially the Lyle Lovett version, as the train rolls through Bosque County, which, I might add was rather beautiful, in the late afternoon sun.
Taylor, Texas: home of the Ducks.