One hump or two?

Hunting for some good fried catfish for lunch brought me back to a place I spent part of my teenage years, Mansfield, Texas. We did find some catfish that I’d rate as ‘passable’, but after lunch we stumbled onto a surprise.

Mansfield (1865) was built around a water powered mill that refined corn and wheat, and later was home to what my teen-aged friends and I knew as ‘The Famous Kow Bell Indoor Rodeo’ (1959). This was a great place to see your friends fall off of various livestock and on the odd Saturday night watch the motorcycle races, once again seeing your friends fall face-first into the dirt. Sadly, the Kow Bell Arena has been replaced by a high school.

All around Mansfield are rural roads overhung with ash, oak or willow trees; beside these roads you may see groves of old pecan trees or dense underbrush punctuated by redbuds. There are also the remnants of

Camel near Mansfield, Texas

homesteads, some still with the requisite cattle, horses, pigs, chickens and so forth. However, near the corner of FM2738 and CR528 we were surprised to see two camels. One was hiding in a ditch, but the other was out enjoying a nice lunch. They may have been rescued from something as romantic as a caravan or as mundane as a failed circus, but for now they are residents of Mansfield.

There are a bunch of little towns around Mansfield, such as Rendon, Retta, Venus, New Hope, and Lillian.  All of these have historic cemeteries and some have interesting downtown areas.












©2013 NearNormal Design and Production Studio - All rights including copyright of photographs and designs, as well as intellectual rights are reserved.

Following the muse or just amused?

Cynthia, blog author

Welcome to The Near-Normal Traveler. It seems that's what I've been for a very long time, following the creative muse where ever it leads. Journeying around the world has taught me things that I would not have learned any other way. The adventure of getting from one place to another, the mystery of locales both far and near, and interactions with residents have given me inspiration for my research and my art.

When you come to this blog, you’ll get the most recent update of my travels; generally these will appear weekly. Under Pages, on the right, you’ll find tips I've learned through traveling, reading travel guides, and looking at oodles of websites. These pages will remain stable; once I have enough information for a new page, I’ll add it there.

No matter where I go, things are never ‘normal’ but there is always something to inspire and amuse me. I’m hoping that this blog will do the same for its readers: inspire and amuse.

To be continued . . .























©2013 NearNormal Design and Production Studio - All rights including copyright of photographs and designs, as well as intellectual rights are reserved.