Poetry

East of the McLendon-Chisolm area lies the community of Poetry. I'm not sure if it's a proper town or city, but it's on maps, and they have a water tower.

They also have a bunch of dirt roads.

Allegedly.

I'd ridden all over west of there the day before, and had a good enough time that I figured I'd go back out and wee what else I could find.

Just like the day before, I drove up to Terrell...

...parked at Ben Gill Park, and headed north.

Somehow the wind was even stronger. We had 50 mile per hour sustained winds that day. I considered turning around after the first 15 minutes, but I figured: "How often do you get to ride in wind like this?" I can always turn around later. The wind was from the west. Almost due west. I was pretty amazed by how bad the crosswind was when I was heading due north or south, but also by how much it helped if I was going even slightly east. Like if I was headed north-northeast or south-southeast then I got a noticeable kick.

Like it had the day before, it really felt like Texas out there. Big open sky. Farms and ranches everywhere. Lots of cows.

My first bit of alleged dirt was a right hander off of the main road. It was an old FM road, and it looked a lot like the corridor of the NETT at first. Like there ought to be a trail there, but it doesn't get a lot of use. It was kind-of blocked at first, but it didn't look like it was specifically blocked to keep people out, rather just that it was blocked because it was a convenient place to pile stuff up.

Past the blockage, there was a corridor, but it was moderately overgrown.

It certainly wasn't any worse than some sections of the NETT though, so I pressed on for a while. Eventually I ran into some barbed wire strung across the road though that kept me from going any further. There were fenced pastures to either side of the corridor and gates just this side of the barbed wire. It looked like somebody had put it up to prevent cattle from wandering down the trail, more than to keep people off of it, but who knows? There weren't any signs. If it doesn't say don't I might, but not in this case. The corridor ahead didn't look too inviting. I figured I'd try it from the other direction later. Maybe there was a reason it was blocked, like a bridge out or something.

Further north there was plenty of gravel.

And north of that the road just became dirt.

It was super sandy up there though, not the typical blackland clay that I was used to.

The road got super rutted at one point. I'm not sure I'd have been able to make it down it in my truck, even if the ruts were clear of water. I had to walk a few times and one time I sliped down into a rut and buried my wheels up over the rims. Fortunately, it was sandyish and didn't cake up like the cookie dough to the south does.

That dirt road had led west, and coming back east was supposed to be another dirt road, but it had been recently paved, except for a tiny bit near a cemetery. Like one block of it was still gravel. I have no idea why they left that one little bit unpaved, but I rode it.

The Campground Cemetery...

...was adjacent to the Campground Church...

...which was looking pretty bent from the side.

There was, apparently, a move to save it.

But, I couldn't tell whether they were in the process of saving it or not, or if they once had but are now facing round two. It reminded me of the church in Ladonia that had fallen apart, gotten restored in the 70's, but was now falling apart again.

Heading back south, I picked up the other end of that corridor that I'd abandoned earlier. A gravel FM road out there just became dirt, then became grasstrack.

Eventually I came to a T. If I continued the grass was taller and less inviting, but it still looked like people went that way sometimes. It led in the direction of where I'd had to turn around earlier too. If I went that way, I'd be able to figure out what the deal was. But it was wet and rutted and muddy and the soil was way less sandy than what I'd ridden through north of there. I did not feel like getting mud caked up on my tires, so I left it for next time, hung a left, and headed east on better dirt.

That eventually led to the highway and I took that most of the way back into Terrell.

It was bluebonnet season, and they were growing all up and down the sides of the highway.

Bluebonnets, fields of yellow flowers, and that horrible clay. Then yin and yang of the roads east of Dallas.

I made it back into town, but I kept having to ride directly east for a block or two at a time as I snaked my way through neighborhoods back to the car, and the wind was just punishing. I'd gotten in just under 30 miles, but they were so much harder than the day before.

That wind, man. That wind.