For several reasons, my husband and I ran away from home. It was planned, loosely, but mostly it was to spend several hours in the car together. We have learned that in Texas, it’s better to have a rough destination in mind, so we chose two.
The furthest point of our itinerary was a little town named Strawn. When he and I were first talking about buying a house in Texas, and we had realized that living in the Metromess of DFW would be intolerable, it had been the town he’d pointed at on the map and said “look, a little town in the middle of nowhere would be ideal.” We bought a house much closer to community, and had jokes about road-tripping to Strawn just because, and this was the trip. You see, there’s not much out there, but while doing the Google map explore, we’d seen that a restaurant looked intriguing. Mary’s Cafe is a down-home feel. Don’t go unless you are hungry. The food is worth traveling a couple of hours for!
However, Strawn was the apogee of our trip. We’d set off from home pointed in the direction of Throckmorton. A tiny town, pop. 727, it is a county seat. The reason I wanted to visit wasn’t the beautiful courthouse, that was a pleasant surprise. No, it was a whimsical closure of a typewriter’s journey.
I got the idea from Jesse Slater, an up-and-coming writer. He’d commented that he struggled with revising on the computer, but if he did his first draft typewritten, it forced a revision when he transcribed to the word processing program. I know Dorothy Grant does a similar process writing longhand. I struggle with revising my manuscript, I learned to type on a manual typewriter, and besides, I’m a sucker for beautiful old things.
I wanted one that was in working order, knowing I don’t have time to rehabilitate a typewriter or anything else for that matter. So I searched eBay carefully, and noted that the seller not only provided a photo of typing he’d done, but that he described it as having belonged to his grandfather, who wrote many snarky letters to his local politicians on it. Amused, I sent an offer, with a comment that I wanted to use it for my writing. A small counter-offer later and it was mine. But in the messages we chatted.
He was tickled the machine was coming back to Texas. He told me the family ranch was long gone – under a lake, as the demands for water due to the Metromess grew – and he’d moved out of his beloved home state. His grandfather had lived in Throckmorton, ‘not far from you,’ he’d commented as he prepared to ship and saw my address. ‘I’m glad it’s going home again.’
I couldn’t resist the story. We were already planning the road trip, and it would be a fun thing to add. The typewriter came back, briefly, to where it had started in 1949. It was well over 100F when we reached town, the streets were sleepy and empty, and I perched the machine on a curb near the veteran’s memorial to take a photo commemorating the occasion.
It works well, has a new ribbon, and I badly need to re-train some muscles. It is so satisfying to clatter along until the ding! sounds off. I’ll be writing a cowboys and Indians story for the library anthology, due end of September, and I plan to draft it on this. Seems very appropriate.
We opted not to go home, because the kitchen is waiting a new countertop and unusable over the weekend. Tuesday! It wil be grand to have it all put together again. We stopped for the night in Mineral Wells, a small city west of Fort Worth. I’ve driven through it, taking route south from home to avoid the big highways and their traffic snarls. I’ve also been to the Fossil Park just outside of town to dig tiny ancient creatures, and found trilobites there. As we pulled in to the hotel, my husband spotted something.
Intrigued, we looked it up. Turns out we were resting for the night at the gates of what had been Fort Wolters, the US Army helicopter training base from 1956-1973. The helicopters dated from that era. They are partly wrapped against damage (Texas sun is no joke) but I could tell they were early examples.
It was a lovely day. We learned that he is healthy enough now to spend a day in the car driving, with frequent breaks. Which means the big trip to see parents in Kentucky is a go. We got much time uninterrupted to just talk. And I found unexpected places and history to fold into stories at some point in the future. I stopped at most of the historical markers on our route (one was further up a gravel road than we wanted to risk) because they are a fascinating glimpse into forgotten history.
Mad Genius Club 
17 responses to “Road Tripping”
I lived just outside Mineral Wells for a while. You should check out the Crazy Water Festival. It’s in early October.
Will do! It’s not that far from home.
lovely tale of a lovely trip with your husband
Just curious, how do you get new typewriter ribbons in this day and age? I haven’t seen one for sale around here in 25 years. I do still have my mother’s typewriter I played around with when I was a kid, last used about 30 years ago until I got my first inkjet printer to replace the dot-matrix one.
I ordered a pack of two from Amazon for $8. This machine takes a universal spool, which makes it easier. But I believe people are 3D printing the spools for different models and the silk ribbon is mostly the same across the board.
Nice story. I like the idea of taking a road trip just for some private time. I’ve had a lot of long interesting conversations that just happened to be on the road, but it hadn’t occurred to me to do so deliberately.
We learned years ago the best way to have uninterrupted conversations was to be in the car. For about a decade we’ve taken road trips so we could talk, until the last couple of years his health prevented it. This was very good to do it again.
That’s a great writer’s typewriter, and a real workhorse. I had no plans whatsoever to buy a manual typewriter until I saw that model at a flea market several years ago. Dependable, transportable, and a joy to write with.
For many years (decades, starting in college) my husband and I would take road trips for the ostensible purpose of fishing, hunting (incl. organized pack hunting: fox, rabbit, related dog shows), antiquing, checking an area out (we’ve lived in several places) and we got to know several destinations well. (You can car-follow a foxhunt, by understanding where the fox is likely to go, and getting to a viewable location ahead of him). Sporting interests are great as an excuse to cruise around. Rivers live in nice places.
Without family/close neighbors, it became difficult to do overnight trips once we had dogs (and you keep being offered unsuitable or retired dogs in pack hunting circles), and once we retired and did our final relocation to the 1812 cabin on the big old farm-reverted-to-mountain-hollow (which we had bought long before (in a brief and uncharacteristic moment of sanity) with my inheritance from my mother), it became too difficult to continue the family road-tripping. And now, I think there won’t be any more — my husband has too much trouble getting around.
I remember all the road trips fondly. Always found it strange that my contemporaries after college in the ’70s failed to appreciate that it was a lot cheaper and aesthetically more pleasing to get furniture in New England by antiquing for the unfashionable real thing instead of buying crap from Macy’s. And, of course, we have a lifetime of incidents to share… (Driving back from the Gaspé peninsula in Canada after salmon fishing while trying to maintain conversations in Pepé-le-Pew level French all the way to Connecticut…, and wondering just what the hell species a local bar counter pickled delicacy actually was, when it was alive — the Canadian rural French term being unlookupable pre-internet.)
That sounds like a terrific trip. I may do a road trip to Mississippi later this year and will research some historical markers along the way. My mother’s typewriter that she used in college was sold in our estate sale last year. I have some mild regrets, but I had it for decades and never used it.
Sometimes just getting away from everyday places, seeing a new corner, and breathing is the best thing you can do for your spirit. New sights, smells, tastes seem to revive the spark inside, especially if shared with best friends, good friends, or even “just” interested fellow travelers.
I miss Texas
I’ll be happy to ship you some 106F weather. I’ll even toss in mosquitoes and 50% humidity at no extra charge!
113 here, but no humidity. Want some smoke from wildfires in the neighboring states?
No fleas is a plus.
We’ve got the smoke, thanks. Not as thick as y’all have it this year, but NM, CO, and Canada are generous about sharing. And we got more than our share back in February – March from the local wildfires.
I’m not sure about fleas. They might have been imported over the years.
The summer heat and lack of humidity here breaks their life cycle chain. But I remember in Austin one year it was so brutal I was bathing in flea powder. Not the dogs, me.
WE’d have the occasional “Ride To Eat” at Mary’s, but something always came up and I missed out, though I have ridden past it, and the lot was crowded so I didn’t stop. I thought I’d possibly been to Throckmorton, but that Courthouse is not the one I’m thinking of. I’ve been out around Breckenridge, and Albany, on various other rides. We used to go to the “Times Forgotten Steakhouse” in Nocona, but they’ve closed. I hear “The Orange Giraffe” is pretty good.
I miss Texas a lot. Sis still lives in Burleson, and she and her husband have a place up on Possum Kingdon Lake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkwD5rQ-_d4 Toadies- Possum Kingdom