Sunsets, a Bowl of Texas Red and More Hard Labor

 

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Ice storm cleanup continues a full three weeks after we began but we have also made time to enjoy what the area has to offer.  Top of the list are sunsets.  After moving to the heavily wooded area of North Georgia in the late eighties, we have been severely deprived of sunsets that were worth writing home about.  Now that we are back in Texas, for the time being, we're taking in all the proper sunsets we can.

That's our rig in the foreground.
We're in a great place for enjoying the sun as it sets on the lake.

Outside of the campgrounds the lake is surrounded by very flat farmland.  In fact, before the San Gabriel River was impounded by the Granger Dam it was flat farmland right up to the river's banks.  While the lake is billed as being about 60' deep, that really only applies to the area directly above the river channel.  A large part of the surface area really isn't much more than waist deep.  The result is quasi-infinity pool effect when watching sunsets from the water's edge.

Granger Lake at sunset.

Another craving we took care of immediately upon entering Texas, and too many times since, is authentic Tex-Mex cuisine and chicken fried steak.  But something we were still missing out on was a bowl of Texas Red Chili.  We have now taken care of that, in classic 'low places" style.  We made the one-hour trip to Austin's State Capital campus and went to the northwest corner and got in line for a table at the Texas Chili Parlor.

Some would call this place "rustic".

Some would call it dilapidated.

But as every chili and bar-b-que connoisseur knows, this place 
is a DIVE.

We had never heard of the Texas Chili Parlor until this day.  It was a coincidence that the TV was tuned to a channel we don't normally watch.  It was a Saturday morning and we were looking for something to watch while having a late breakfast.  The show was a Texas themed travel show and on this day they were showcasing the Texas State Capitol.  A former senator they were interviewing said that state capitol history was not complete without a trip to the Texas Chili Parlor.  Their little piece on it did it for us.  We knew what we were going to do that Saturday.

The table behind me is where they filmed the TV show.

Those are State Troopers at the register.
There were many in for a bite, all of them from the 
guard detail at the capital.

Posting pictures of food is not a routine thing for me.  I've only done it twice before in the last eleven years of this blog.  The last time being in July of 2018.  But when we get into something that is unique, at least to us, I put it in a post for my own use when I am browsing through the blog for a trip down memory lane.

The Texas Chili Parlor makes its own tostados and award
wining salsa.  They aren't gratis, you have to order them as a side.

Cyndee got a chili-slathered baked potato with a side of jalapeno 
mac 'n cheese and salad.

Mine was a Texas Chili Parlor version of a Frito pie.
Those are big chunks of meat.  No ground meat in these guy's recipe.

Since we were literally at the edge of the capital we couldn't pass up making a visit after putting the chili feed bag on.  We both really like the polished red granite and architectural details they used to build it.  It is truly a grand old building.

The Texas State Capital is an impressive sight no matter how 
many times you have seen it.

But, like I said in the title, we are still doing hard labor.  The removal of broken tree limbs from the ice storm seems endless.  All the work done by hand has now created collections of limb piles all over the public day use areas and campgrounds.  All the piles were located such that mechanical equipment could access them to be picked up and hauled away and the time has come that those piles are having to be dealt with.  Que the tractor, mini-excavator and dump trucks.

This mini-excavator could reach branches we couldn't by hand.
Besides being dexterous it was surprisingly powerful, lifting and 
carrying huge, heavy branches.

The min-ex loading a twenty foot tandem axle dump trailer.
I spent a couple of days driving this rig and dumping loads
at several of our huge burn piles. 

Our tractor and one of the two dump trucks that made dozens 
of trips with loads stacked eight feet deep, hanging over the sides and 
up to ten feet out the back.

Dump truck driver for the day.  This is a 1980-something
International Harvester and took a ton of work on the fuel system 
to get it to run, barely.  But the dump bed was wicked powerful, it could lift
a house.  Therefore it was loaded with the biggest, heaviest oak limbs.

The open campgrounds and day use areas are looking pretty good but there is still a ton of work left to do on the yet to open areas.  We'll have to get them finished up by the time they open in April.

I'll finish this post with the way I started, a sunset on the fertile plains of Texas.