walterman

walterman9999

walterman

I started writing on Trip Advisor (bad site) and changed to TravBuddy that was much better. It was bad luck when TB closed. I have fun on my YouTube channel.

I was not a chemist, but a chemical hazard specialist, and a first responder. I retired from the State of Texas facility in Galveston to 100% disability in 2005. Then I moved back to my home area in East Texas.

I live on the small Walters Tree Farm outside of Nacogdoches, Texas USA. I am retired to be a simple farmer and traveler. Retirement is a tough job, but somebody has to do it (LOL).

I am a naturalist and am very concerned about the future of our planet and humanity.



North America » United States » Texas » Rusk December 2nd 2023

It was a perfect sunny day for a Caddo Native American festival. I arrived and saw that there was large attendance there. The Hasinai tribe of Caddo were very peaceful farmers that arrived there about 700 AD. They started building their three large earthen mounds about 1000 AD and finished about 1250 AD. Around 1300 AD they disappeared. The mound I visited was their burial mound; and the two larger ceremonial mounds were much farther away and I did not walk to or photograph them on this visit. I admire the Caddo, and other Native Americans for living well with nature and not overstressing their environment. The first thing I did was to visit their Visitors Center to see their exhibits and speak with the Caddo people. They did not have a visitors sign in log ... read more
Caddo Mounds State Park
Caddo Mounds State Park
Caddo Mounds State Park

North America » United States » Texas » Nacogdoches June 10th 2023

June 10, 2023 was the 33rd. Nacogdoches Blueberry Festival. Its hot outside, but I wouldn't have it any other way. In the downtown area churches (and other organizations) actively handed out cold bottled water to the people attending. The Blueberry Festival is centered around the Nacogdoches Visitors Center, a great place to get historical information and see its exhibits. Every year in front of the visitors center is parked the very nicely restored Tipton Ford Blueberry truck. There was some live entertainment and a selection of vendors. This is the largest annual festival in Nacogdoches and everybody had a good time. Every year I see some old friends that I have not seen in years. Just South of downtown is Festival Park where they had the Blueberry Festival auto show. I liked best the old coops ... read more
Indian water filters
by Vistors Center
Visitors Center

North America » United States » Texas » Jacksonville October 23rd 2022

I drove North on US Hwy 69 passing through Alto, Rusk and Jacksonville, Texas. On a high ridge just North of Jacksonville I made my first stop at a picnic area and rest stop on the East Side of the highway called Loves Overlook; with a very nice viewing area and rest rooms. In 1904 Wesley Love purchased land there and planted a 600 acre peach orchard. After Wesley died in 1925 his wife donated 22 acres to the State of Texas for a state park. This site turned into a great place for travelers to stop and visit. At the overlook I had a chat with an old local employee of the State of Texas about the exact location of the ghost town of Larissa (my main destination) with negative results. I drove a short ... read more
Larissa Cemetery
Killough Massacre Site on Cherokee County map
Killough Massacre Obelisk

North America » United States » Texas » Diboll October 13th 2022

I was in Diboll, Texas on minor business and found two old country cemeteries (on my Angelina County map) on Texas Hwy 1818 East of Diboll. Both had an active Christian church with a maintained cemetery. The first was the Prairie Grove Church and Cemetery. This was founded in the 1800s with its cemetery. There were some interesting and expensive granite grave stones. Two of of the markers showed that the person resting there were Masons. I drove a few miles East and found the Pine Grove Church and Cemetery. This is a newer facility then found in Prairie Grove. I wanted a pic of inside the Pine Grove Church. Since the glass window had glare and a strong reflection I tried my old method. I placed my camera directly on the glass window to get ... read more
Prairie Grove Church
Prairie Grove Church
Prairie Grove Cemetery

North America » United States » Texas » Nacogdoches October 4th 2022

Today I attended a Beto O'Rourke rally, running for Governor of the State of Texas, at Cowboy Jacks Saloon in downtown Nacogdoches. Beto was attending rally events elsewhere in East Texas. Beto's wife Amy was the speaker at the rally. Like Beto, Amy O'Rourke is a very intelligent caring honest person. Amy spoke to us and answered questions from the attendees. Texas desperately needs Beto to finally start taking Texas into the 21st century; and securing voting rights for all Texans, including minorities. Another major issue is Beto O'Rourke will restore the God given rights to all females in Texas. Beto cares about Mother Earth, and wants a better world for our children and for future generations. Commentary: The current governor of Texas is Ab-butt who has done nothing for Texans in eight years, except for ... read more
Beto O'Rourke rally
Beto O'Rourke rally

North America » United States » Texas » Nacogdoches September 17th 2022

The Old Town Rig Down is a new small festival held at Festival Park and the nearby Nacogdoches Square. Note: This whole area was blocked off for the safety of the many people on foot. I started my walk at the Nacogdoches Square where they had many nice semi trucks without their trailers. The many food vendors were found on the square. The downtown Visitors Center was open with employees giving out good information of Nacogdoches and Texas history; and has many historic artifacts. The Visitors Center has good clean restrooms open to the public. I walked downhill to Festival Park to attend the festival. There were many beautiful semi trucks (with their trailers) lined up for viewing. Many of the semi owners were there to chat about their big rigs. They had a very good ... read more
Nacogdoches Square
Nacogdoches Square
Nacogdoches Square

North America » United States » Texas » Nacogdoches March 28th 2022

I found on the internet reasonably priced trail rides at the Roselake Ranch and made an appointment for today. The ranch is in the NE corner of Nacogdoches County near the small historic town of Garrison. The lady, an experienced rodeo barrel racer, gave me a good safety orientation including verbal and physical commands, and my body positioning for uphills and downhills. I was the only paid rider and had a custom enjoyable ride. At a difficult uphill section I lost my hat. After the ride that nice lady went back and got my cowboy hat for me. This was a good day for me! This is a multi purpose ranch with horses, cows, pigs, and even emus. They had very small horses for childrens rides, and other events and rides for children for the Christmas ... read more
Roselake Ranch
Roselake Ranch
Roselake Ranch

North America » United States » Texas » Nacogdoches January 17th 2022

The local weatherman at our local ABC station in Tyler, Texas informs his viewers when the International Space Station is visible over the "Piney Woods" of East Texas. I had time to pick out two nearby locations where I could shoot the station coming and going. I started my shoot with my camera on a tripod. When changing location I managed to seperate camera from tripod, hence the squiggle in my results. It was a nice clear cool evening for viewing the International Space Station. note: these pics were two second exposures.... read more
Space Station
Space Station
Space Station

North America » United States » Texas » Nacogdoches December 9th 2021

I am no real astronomer, but on the internet I saw that over a five day period the moon would be alligned with Saturn, Jupiter. Venus, and Mercury. (No chance I could shoot Mercury.) I could only tell the planets by their relative position with the sunset and the rising moon, as per the internet information. With my simple camera I could not shoot Saturn with its dim light though it was visible to the eye. I pointed my camera to the SSW for my pics by the pine forest. To the SW was the past sunset with Venus clearly visible. I used my zoom to get the almost half moon with Jupiter to the right. (My pic looks like a full moon, but that was due to the limits of my camera.) Venus was off ... read more
Moon-Jupiter
Moon-Jupiter

North America » United States » Texas November 13th 2021

I drove into Henderson on South Main Street for a short easy walk to Heritage Square for the Syrup Festival. Just before reaching the festival secured area I reached the Howard-Dickinson House, built by the Howard brothers in 1855. The Howards were carpenters and brick masons. They were the major brick makers for the area, and many old homes and businesses standing today in Henderson were built with Howard bricks. Martha Howard was a cousin to Sam Houston, and President Houston visited there often. I walked into the secured area (keeping the autos from the street festival people) and got to thr traffic light where the four Main Streets (North, South, East, and West) met at Heritage Square. There vendors were selling food, rides for children, tee shirts, crafts, nic-nacs, and lost of other stuff. There ... read more
Syrup Festival downtown
Syrup Festival
Opera House




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