11NOV07 - Columbus, TX

Today we departed Sharon and Tim’s to begin the drive back to our empty house in Houma, LA. We have decided to be in close proximity to the kids at least for the holidays. Normally when we make this trip we head due east on 290, through Austin, and then try to skirt north of Houston, doing the drive in two days. This makes for two extremely long driving days and kinda defeats the purpose of relaxed RV’ing. So we decided to take three days to make the trip, with no portion longer than four hours, or about 240 miles. We also decided to change our route to take us southeast until we connect with I-10 east leading to Houston, a city we dread driving through with an RV. Another factor in our decision was that Corrie had to drive the Benz back from Kerrville to Houma. We had hoped to sell it before the RV adventure began, but it didn't happen. So now are taking it back to Louisiana to clean it once again, and hopefully sell it.

Anyway our first overnight was in the town of Columbus, TX, about one hour west of Houston right on I-10. Columbus is a pretty typical small Texas town that had a brief spell of prominence based on cattle and the arrival of the railroad. And as was also somewhat typical the new cattle barons decided to show their “class” by building a very large and ornate Opera House. What is unusual about the Stafford Opera House funded by Robert Stafford, was that Mr Stafford had the entertainment portion of the building located entirely on the second floor so that the first floor could be devoted to businesses like his bank, thereby guaranteeing a positive cash flow. He also had his house build next door with a special window in his bedroom that allowed him to watch the show in the Opera House from the comfort of his own bedroom.

Trivia – The first district court in 1837 was presided over by Robert McAlpin Williamson, why was he called Three-Legged Willie? (remember this is a family show)