ONE LAP AROUND HOUSTON OR BUST!
by Douglas Milburn
The Driver is lost in mental arithmetic, figuring that our average speed at this point is somewhere down around fifteen miles per hour. He begins to wonder if a circumnavigation of Houston in one day is possible, when both crew members shriek in unison. "U-turn!" they shout. Which is how we wind up loading a three-foot carved wooden Indian head that seems to weigh about 600 pounds in the back of the Wagoneer. The Navigator thought it would look great in her husband's garden (as it turned out, her husband did not share her enthusiasm for this roadside objet, and it was shipped off to a cousin in San Bernadino). What price art? In this case, a mere $35. The Driver strikes up a conversation with the salesperson, who is Joe Henley, son of the sculptor, Wiley Henley. Yes, the Wiley Henley of Canyon City, Colorado. Mr. Henley works with pine and chain saw and charges up to $300 for his pieces. The family winters in Willis, Texas, which accounts for Joe's presence on I-45. The Driver asks Joe if his father ever sells at events like the Westheimer Art Festival. "No, never," Joe says, "he doesn't like crowds." Having done our esthetic duty for the day, we continue south on the freeway to the tune of Vivaldi flute concertos. It is somewhere along here that The Navigator produces the line that will sum up the entire circumnavigation. "The weirdness," she observes, "doesn't stop." Indeed. Indeed. Houston, even out here on the edge, is infectious, contagious, and a presence to be reckoned with.* * * * 103.7 miles. 12:14. West on FM 1488, passing Ol' J.W.'s Country Store and a hand-lettered sign reading "DEADNROAD." The Driver voices his concern about our average speed and whether we'll make it all the way around the city today, an observation which dampens everyone's spirits. Like Magellan, we have not give much thought to thepossibility of failure. But the sheer energy pouring out of Houston will not let us worry for long. Here comes another home-made sign: Geodesic Domes--Homes 356-5029, next to a small clearing in the forest containing a terminally cute strip center called Bear Branch Square. In addition to a pizza parlor and a beauty shop, the curlicued wooden development also offers a childcare facility (The Land of Oz) and a bakery (One Smart Cookie). Here we are fifty miles from downtown and it feels like the heart of West University Place. Bear Branch Square disappears in the rearview mirror and we're back in unadulterated bucolic—brilliantly green pastures against a rich backdrop of pine forest, rolling hills, grazing horses, tiny ponds with catamarans (don't ask) in them, the whole scene dappled by spring sunlight flashing through scudding clouds. 112.9 miles. 12:27. West on FM 2920 into the town of Tomball. The Driver bores his crew members by telling them how Tom Ball was a nineteenth century politician who ran for governor on the prohibition ticket and blamed his loss on the fact that the town bearing his name had five saloons. We pause to pay homage at the Tomball Community Museum Center (open Thursday 10-2, Sunday 2-5, 255-2148). The Museum's Griffin House, it turns out, was built by the Pillot family as their first home. Their third house is one of the gems in the Harris County Heritage Society collection in Sam Houston Park. Getting nervouser and nervouser about the distance left to be covered, we zoom west from Tomball, crossing the commercial bedlam of Highway 149. Here we leave the pine forest behind and enter the coastal plain. 120.3 miles. 12:36. South on Cypress-Rose Hill Road. The Photographer's stomach is heard rumbling from the back seat. Everyone is again subdued, waiting for food. The Driver refrains from comments about how the Germans settled this part of Harris County in the late 19th century. Nor does he go on about how one of the secrets to Houston's success is the size of its county (1,723 square miles, compared, for example, to Dallas County's 875). He also conceals the fact that this is the highest part of the county, at 300 feet some 260 feet higher than downtown. Rolling south on Barker-Cypress Rd. through more pastureland, we catch repeated glimpses of new subdivisions going up to the east. We are truly on the edge here. At Huffmeister Rd. we come upon a huge Houston Lighting&Power service center in the middle of nothing--HL&P knows what's coming... 127.7 miles. 12:45. We jog left on the Hempstead highway, passing a seemingly semi-deserted Texas Instruments facility, then turn back due south. Bulldozers are in evidence--subdivisions cannot be far behind. 131.1. 12:49. A startling sight appears to the east--a unique view of the skyline. The land is barren here and flat and what you see is a thin horizon line, with only the tops of the tallest downtown and Galleria buildings poking above it, a good 35 miles away. It's disconcertingly similar to the first view of Manhattan you get coming in from central New Jersey. South, south, we keep on going south, at some speed. It occurs to The Driver that another way to define this route--and thus the edge of the city is "beyond the traffic." Which is where we are. If we shifted over to the next road to the east, we would be back in it. Here, the Wagoneer plunges reliably on, unimpeded by other vehicles. The closer we get to I-10 the more frequent the subdivisions—and their ancillary strip centers—become. The Photographer claws at the window as we hurtle past Twinkle Little Stars, another childcare center. "No," The Driver shouts above Vivaldi, "We've got to get food!" But Houston waits for no man—and no stomach. At 138.0 miles we stumble across Brentwood Park, a new subdivision— complete with community center and jogging trail. Trees, however, have not yet arrived. The effect of the few isolated homes silhouetted against the big sky is that of the Riata ranch house in Giant. We meet a Sears Service truck going in, so apparently at least one of the houses is occupied. The Navigator recalls that parts of Orange County--the old Irvine Ranch--looked like this in the 60s. With thoughts of sugarplums—or at least chicken fried steaks—filling their heads, the crew finally reaches the Katy Freeway and turns west to the town that gave the freeway its name. 151 miles. 1:21. Food! We pull up in front of the Country Cupboard in what's left of old downtown Katy. We get the $3.99 lunch special (meat and two vegetables). The clientele belies the "country" surface—you look around the cafe and realize that Katy-as-little-Texas-town is gone and that Katy-as-Houston is here, and that one of these thirtyish men intensely wolfing down fried okra may be the Gerald Hines of the 90s. The talk in Katy is all airport—about the plans for the new westside airport which, as this day's Katy newspaper says, "will put this place on the map." The citification of Katy is further confirmed when we stop at a convenience store on the way out of town. In the window is a big neon VIDEO RENTALS sign, and inside is a revealing selection of movies (Never Cry Wolf, Where the Buffalo Roam, Texas Chainsaw Massacre). 155 miles. 1:57. A turn to the south on FM 1463 plunges us into Harris County's impression of West Texas. Suddenly it's all cattle and fancy fences and big entrance gates announcing this or that "ranch." A West Texan by birth and up-bringing, The Driver silently scoffs. In the true perspective of West Texas, where any property of less than ten sections (that’s ten square miles to the rest of the world) is considered little more than a backyard, these "spreads" should at best be referred to as ranchettes. Houston seems a long way off when it's abruptly there again. We round a corner and, headed east, are faced with Transco Tower on the distant horizon. Another turn sends us past Hines Wholesale Nursery—millions of black pots filled with boxwoods, aspidistra, and xylosma, waiting for homes in the eager clay loam of millions of Yuppie Houston yards. Anticipating the yelp from the back seat, The Driver shouts, "No! We'll never make it back to Morgan's Point if we keep stopping!" With images of Juan Fangio pushing his Ferrari relentlessly along the backroads of Italy in the 1952 Mille Miglia, The Driver urges the Wagoneer onward. Even The Navigator gasps when we fail to stop at "Covey Trails—A Private Aviation Community," where the houses have hangars instead of garages and a runway instead of an alley. Zip, zip! Faster and faster, passing a Jewish Community Center Day Camp across the road from a house that appears to have a huge aviary in its back yard. With a nod at a stop sign, we turn south on FM 723, zooming across the Brazos River, which looks wide and deep and extremely muddy, into Rosenberg, "Home of the Czech Festival." At The Navigator's insistence we slow enough to cruise the old main street, passing a sort of Czech-Gothic storefront now functioning as the Rosenberg Memorial Baptist Church, Felix S. Randle, Pastor, which is across the street from a mint condition 30s movie theater, The Cole, now showing Spanish-language films. A left turn on Highway 90 takes us back into it—Kinney Shoes, Fiesta Mart, Radio Shack, Budget Furniture. A railroad underpass is the boundary between Rosenberg and Richmond, and the change is instantaneous. Richmond, a little town that didn't, is pure 19th century, with heavy Old South overtones. We hastily cruise its lazy downtown and do a quick turn through the cemetery past the graves of Mirabeau Lamar ("Second President of the Republic of Texas") and Jane Long ("The Mother of Texas"—don't ask). Then it's on to Crabb River Road. The sun is already headed toward the western horizon and we have miles to go before we sleep. One Lap Around Houston Part 4 >>
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90.1 miles. 11:30. Left on I-45. The freeway feels
like home—the signs, the strip centers, the madcap drivers. We're back in it, and
everybody relaxes as we whoosh past a line of entrepreneurs hawking end-of-century
artifacts (van seats, bean bag chairs, velvet paintings) from their cars parked on the
shoulder.