Texas is Back!

[Mulerider]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

Five years ago if you asked me if I was taking the wife and grand daughter for a day trip to Caddo Lake on TEXAS ou game day it would be unthinkable. This year that's exactly what happened.

Ok, since Caddo's my stomping grounds, I have to know: did you go to the State Park, or launch at Uncertain?

[proximity]

ot but this "spencer rattler" sounds like a name that came straight out of varsity blues or something. i guess truth really can be stranger than fiction...

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by Mulerider

Ok, since Caddo's my stomping grounds, I have to know: did you go to the State Park, or launch at Uncertain?

Didn't launch, just drove around. My wife grew up in Marshall, she basically spent every weekend on a boat on Caddo with her dad. Big Pines is where we'll eat next time we're there, we hung around a bit there. I want that wall sticker that says> Uncertain, TX. A quaint little lake with a fishing problem (or something like that), it's for sale around town I hear. When we move out that way it's going in my garage

We'd planned on eating at Fugler's, since I've never been. Due to a hungry grand baby we ate at Cajun Tex in Marshall. Highly recommended btw, it's the 4th time we've eaten there

We've eaten in Longview over the summer at least a dozen times before school restarted. Fisherman's Market is our favorite... also another good seafood place just east of White Oak on hwy80. Don't recall the name but great food

If you recommend any others, let me know. Next spring we'll be out there quite a bit.

[Mulerider]

Fisherman's Market is always good. I like it better than The Catch. Dudley's Cajun Cafe on Hwy. 80 is consistently good. I've only been to Copeland's of New Orleans on 4th St. once, but it was good, too.

I haven't tried the Cajun place in Marshall yet. I'm a sucker for Neely's, lol. Love those Brown Pigs.

When I go to Caddo I normally launch at the Hwy. 43 bridge and fish the river. Sometimes I'll just cruise the river and Alligator Bayou. Harder to cruise the main lake now with the giant salvinia problem.

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by Mulerider

Fisherman's Market is always good. I like it better than The Catch. Dudley's Cajun Cafe on Hwy. 80 is consistently good. I've only been to Copeland's of New Orleans on 4th St. once, but it was good, too.

I haven't tried the Cajun place in Marshall yet. I'm a sucker for Neely's, lol. Love those Brown Pigs.

When I go to Caddo I normally launch at the Hwy. 43 bridge and fish the river. Sometimes I'll just cruise the river and Alligator Bayou. Harder to cruise the main lake now with the giant salvinia problem.

I think we passed by Dudley's, we'll have to try that

The seafood place we go to east of White Oak on 80 is New Pier. On your side of lake Lavernia, on the right side of the road

We looked at a couple of houses on Melton and Noel in Longview. Decided against it, but really liked the immediate neighborhood. It's a nice, quiet bubble of a neighborhood but the surrounding area seemed like a high crime area.

I don't own a boat but I'm told it's a requirement out there. Both my neighbors here near Dallas were geeked up when I told them we put a bid on a house in Marshall, planned to move (we're staying put for another year- we were outbid and we want the grand baby to stay in her pre school until she's 4 or 5)). The neighbors want to fish on Caddo Lake so bad it's unreal. Both say it's the best fishing within 5 hours of Dallas, hands down.

[Mulerider]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

We looked at a couple of houses on Melton and Noel in Longview. Decided against it, but really liked the immediate neighborhood. It's a nice, quiet bubble of a neighborhood but the surrounding area seemed like a high crime area.

I grew up in that neighborhood. Still some nice houses there, but you're absolutely right about the surrounding area. You may have seen this, but just in case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A164rFlmNF0&ab_channel=newsflash40

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by Mulerider

I grew up in that neighborhood. Still some nice houses there, but you're absolutely right about the surrounding area. You may have seen this, but just in case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A164...el=newsflash40

Never saw that. Good stuff.

Henley talked about the bond between him and his dad, my wife and her dad would talk for hours on end about weekends spent fishing there. She tells me you don't experience Caddo Lake unless you're in a boat. We've driven out there several times, and I believe it

She never learned to swim yet would launch a boat in her teens and spend all day out there. Crazy... lot of stories from her and her dad before he passed.

[Mulerider]

If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend one of Bill Moyer's Walk Through the 20th Century episodes he did for PBS back in the 90s. It's called Marshall, Texas; Marshall, Texas. It compares the Marshall of the early 20th century to the latter part of the century. Part of it was filmed on a private cemetery on my family's land.

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by Mulerider

If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend one of Bill Moyer's Walk Through the 20th Century episodes he did for PBS back in the 90s. It's called Marshall, Texas; Marshall, Texas. It compares the Marshall of the early 20th century to the latter part of the century. Part of it was filmed on a private cemetery on my family's land.

Saw it years ago. Mandatory viewing before I got married...

Wife grew up in Marshall, it was super charged racially back then. Both black and white were to blame. It was bad where I grew up too (Ft Worth when busing came around) just in a different way.

Odd, but the vibe we got in Marshall last summer was very different than what the wife grew up with. She left after graduating from ETBU in the early 90s, it was still bad back then she said. We spent a lot of time there this summer, race is no more an issue from what I saw than in DFW

Speaking of Moyers.. we almost bought a house he lived in 20-30 years ago on Acadia. Not his childhood home. We backed out for different reasons. For the wife the master BR was too small. For me it was the neighbor across the street with too much "stuff" in the yard. I'm from the burbs, I couldn't get passed that.

Great house, went for a song and a dance but needed foundation work + the guy across the street …. If we could move the house a coupla blocks over to Arlington or Ablemarle I'd have bit

[Dahoss2002]

Used to be a gourmet burger joint in Marshall on HWY 80 I think. Hope the covid didn't run them outta business. Great food, reasonable prices, and some really good homemade onion rings. Caddo Lake is a treasure for sure although I always launch at Oil City, La.

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by Dahoss2002

Used to be a gourmet burger joint in Marshall on HWY 80 I think. Hope the covid didn't run them outta business. Great food, reasonable prices, and some really good homemade onion rings. Caddo Lake is a treasure for sure although I always launch at Oil City, La.

We drove into La last spring (during lockdown) to see the far end of Caddo Lake. Very cool. Soon after they were quarantine'ing people coming back so we stopped short of Waskom from then on

Not sure of the burger place, the one place we planned to go to several times and didn't make it for any # of reasons is Fugler's (famous burgers and general store). Just outside town. I've never been there

The one drawback to Marshall is most of it looks economically depressed. Not all but much of it. We want to move somewhere between Tyler and Marshall, that would give us access to pretty much all east Tx +Shreveport. Not much we can't do out there that we can do here other than museums and Rangers baseball. I'm looking fwd to it, but we'll be here for awhile

wife wants a turn of the century house...badly. Money pit- but I can't talk her out of it. Marshall has a ton of them, many in disrepair, some in fine condition. I'll be 95 by the time I finish DIY honey do's on some of those

[Mulerider]

I'm halfway a Civil War buff. Your wife already knows this, I'm sure, but the only female to have her picture on Confederate currency was Lucy Pickens, from Marshall.

The Confederate Senator who rowed out to Ft. Sumter to demand its surrender before the shooting started was Louis T. Wigfall, also of Marshall.

And the Confederate government of Missouri in exile was headquartered in Marshall. That's why you see the Missouri state flag flying with all the others at the Marshall Mall.

Lots of history in that town. My Marshall relatives lived on West Rusk St.

[ElKabong]

She said she didn't know about Senator Wigfall. Cool stuff

When covid is pronounced dead (no longer political) we plan to take an Amtrak trek out of the old railroad station. Lot of history on the grounds. Same for the town, you're right. Marshall was I think the 3rd largest city in Texas during the civil war.

We originally looked in the area of W Rusk, one of the first people we met walking around is a guy who lives on the corner of N Grove and W Rusk in a huge Colonial. Cool old guy, former hippie who still plays the guitar. Laid back redneck, ponytail and all.

[Dahoss2002]

ETEX is beautiful for sure. My father came from Mt. Selman, a small community a little north of Jacksonville. I really like the pineywoods of ETEX. On the subject of scenic drives, I drove to Hot Springs this past weekend. I made that trip many times before we had offtrack betting. I always went up to Hope from Bossier and got on I-30 to Arkadelphia, then up to Hot Springs. This time, on the way back, I think it was Hwy 70 that goes through Pearcy, Murfreesboro, Nashville. I went that way. Slower than I-30, but well worth the trouble. That goes through parts of Caddo Valley/gap, across Caddo River and Little Missouri River near Albert's Pike. ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL and thinking about heading back to Albert's Pike this weekend or the next after I check to see if the park is open.

[ElKabong]

When I was in the USAF a few of us drove thru the Tennessee mountains in Autumn. Breathtaking. The fog, colors, dew on the ground. I really loved it

I loved driving to Hot Springs back in the day, but damn those Ark speed traps were hell , but that's beautiful country