The temperature was a mild high 60's, with low humidity and almost no wind. It was ideal riding conditions, so I left the SAG guy at home to relax and weave and took off.
Fulshear is one of the little farming communities we ride through and around a lot. It consists of a cross roads, two gas stations, two barbeque places, a small community library, and a couple of small shops along with a city hall/community center. The total population is around 800. By 2010 it is predicted to swell to 17,000 and by 2015 to 35,000 because it will be engulfed by the Houston suburbs. There are already signs of growth along the main east west road that comes out of the existing suburbs of Cinco Ranch and Katy. Along with a couple of new churches, two strip malls mostly unoccupied except for the requisite nail salons, there are a couple of huge new "planned communities" going in. We used to call these subdivisions or housing developments but around here they are "master planned communities." These are the kind of developments whose sequential billboards advertise everything from "houses starting in the 120's to houses starting in the 1.5 millions", with each price area carefully segregated by brick walls or wooden fences and dead end cul de sacs.
Cross Creek Community entrance
The entrance gate to the newest "master planned community" looks like a cross between a zoo or amusement park entrance and an armed fundamentalist compound with an ugly galvanized tin central guard tower, with windows all the way around,(all the better to see the enemy unwanteds coming) and security gates at each side.
The Cross Creek Amenities Center
The "central amenities" building, their rather grand name for the community center and swimming pool area, is built to look like some sort of a futuristic grain silo/pole barn/feed mill/ east Texas farm house. The message is mixed to say the least. What you can't see in the picture is the artificial hill made up of all the topsoil and fill dirt they removed in order to create "lakes and water features" behind the community center.It is complete with wandering paths wending among newly planted, knee high pine trees and a pseudo -Greek gazebo with Doric columns at the crest.
On the return ride I passed through Richmond, another farming community which has already merged with Rosenberg on the west and is rapidly being consumed by Sugar Land and First Colony to the east. The only thing stopping the total blending of Richmond and Sugar Land is the Carl T. Vance Confinement Center for Violent Offenders, i.e., the prison , and it's associated farm fields where you can still see chain gangs in orange jump suits or black and white striped shirts and white pants, hoeing their way across the fields in the spring. The various small planned communities come within half a mile of the prison on three sides. I know that's where I would want to live and bring up children.
On the highway between Richmond and Sugar Land, on the side opposite the prison, is this billboard. Add this to the fact that Martha Stewart is rumored to be the role model for all the Sugar Land "doodahs" and it explains so much about Sugar Land and this part of the Houston suburbs.
Too bad the developers didn't take the billboard's advice to heart and practice a "keep Texas beautiful " policy when they planned their Cross Creek development .
Today's Ride stats
65.32 miles
4:10 ride time
15.6 mph
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