Friday, July 19, 2013

Day 3: Little Ghost

The Personville Monument



Let me tell you something about a GPS. It is absolutely worthless if you want to get off the beaten path. A GPS is designed to get you from point A to point B in the most efficient manner possible, which means the largest highways. I hate driving highways. I drive them to work every day. When I am traveling, I prefer back roads, and back roads require a good old-fashioned map. Plus, every time we've tried to rely on a GPS for navigation, it lets us down. Usually we lose our signal and with it, our only source of direction.




With a map, there are no worries. It functions as well as the person reading it. I used to suck at reading maps until Zach told me that I really would have to learn to read a map if we were going to be married. And we've been married for nearly 18 years now. So guess who learned to read a map?!?!



Zach told me that they will probably develop a back roads app for iPhone and I nearly threw something at him.



Anyway.



Personville Cemetary - Just like the sign says



For our trip back home from Bryan, we wanted to get lost one more time. And that meant finding a ghost town. has a neat list of Texas ghost towns, so we chose to track down Personville in Limestone County. At first I thought Personville was named because, you know, a person lived in it. But the founder of the town was actually named Person, so there you go.



Personville was a fairly easy ghost town to find because a road sign still exists and an historical marker marks the spot. But you have to find both of these to find the town. We also found the Personville cemetery.



When hunting ghost towns, be sure to dress appropriately. You know, people aren't still there mowing the grass and whatnot. I wore a dress and floppy wedge sandals and that was a ghost hunting FAIL. Next time I will wear jeans like a sane human being.



Sub-Optimal Ghost-Hunting Attire



Let me tell you, if grasshoppers were worth their weight in gold, Personville would be very wealthy indeed. Olivia was freaked out by them and insisted on being carried piggyback. I was a little freaked out too.



Safe above the grasshoppers, Olivia enjoys a good hike



You could see that Personville was once laid out in a square, the way the roads still come together. A few people still live there, so it's not completely gone. We've been trying to figure out what qualifies as a ghost town. It seems to be connected to the post office. If there was a post office at one time, but it vanished around the turn of the last century, that seems to be a major factor in a town's ghostliness.



After finding Personville, we drove to Mexia for ice cream to celebrate. And took photos of an old movie theater in its downtown--the marquee is amazing.



A Bold Marquee



Vintage, so it's ok?



(The Texas in Waxahachie for instance is missing that certain artistic element that the Mexia has aplenty.)



Waxahachie's Texas Theater



From Mexia we lollygagged back home until Olivia began losing her patience. Then it was back to the highway, back to our routine, and back home.
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