I went to the Park Headquarters yesterday to pay for my 2nd night at Lake Mineral Wells State Park and met an interesting gentlemen who was visiting with the Park Ranger on duty.
He was wearing an old straw hat and was dressed like he was going hiking. I noticed he looked very fit.... he had the face of an older gentleman but the body of a younger man.
We got to talking and it turned out he was an avid hiker.... he related that he had gotten an award 6 years ago for completing 5000 miles of hiking on Texas Trails.....and he was turning 80 years old in 2 months!
He also told me proudly that he had no computer, cell phone or TV. He writes a column for the local paper and is known as an expert on this area and its history.
It turns out this area is the west part of the Cross Timbers area. Because of the rocky terrain, this area was not cleared for farming and contains some of the oldest original forests in Texas.
These old grown Blackjack and Post Oaks are known as the Cast Iron Forests.
According to Mr. Price, Washington Irving, the author of Rip Van Winkle, once described this area of timber as "impassable".
Here's a link to a book on the Cast Iron Forest:
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/fracas.html
....and a Wikipedia write-up on the Cross Timbers region:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Timbers
I spent almost an hour talking to Don Price and was entertained by his historical anecdotes and minimalist philosophy of life.... what an amazing guy!
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