I'm going to sound like a sourpuss and I don't mean to. I love bluebonnets. I love seeing them by the side of the road, in the highway dividers, and of course, on people's lawns or sides of driveways. I always put out bluebonnets and wait to mow, even though it's unsightly, till they all go to seed, in order to prepare for the next year. 

What I don't like is how visitors to Fossil Rim, either on the way in on County Road 2008 or after leaving, will just stop on the road to take pictures. Quite often their kids will jump out and cross the road to sit in a pile while the car is on the other side of the road. Because County Road 2008 is a little hilly, it's not possible to see on the other side when someone has up and parked. There really isn't a good shoulder on either side for them to pull off the road, so these are accidents waiting to happen and especially dangerous, I believe, when children could be involved with crossing the road if an upcoming car has to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting the parked vehicle. Note that the bluebonnet season is largely over, so at least this issue is dying down for this year until next.

It's been probably 5 years but at one point the Somervell County road people mowed down those ditches (which are on public property) so that the bluebonnets didn't come up. After seeing bluebonnets on the road every year, and they are lovely, it was a little disconcerting to know they weren't going to be coming up again. But after the last years of careless visitors on the road, I think it was a good idea, and the road maintenance people did it several years in a row. I'm sure there are other places in Texas that have shoulders or some way for cars to pull over out of the roadway that are equally beautiful for taking pictures (have said before that it doesn't seem to me that, generally, visitors give much thought to the fact that they're on a public road, rather than on Fossil Rim land, where people live and drive. 

I asked Wade Busch about this, who is now a county commissioner, but previously was in charge of  Maintenance. He said that there are always a lot of complaints about bluebonnets and the roads, but they don't mow anything down.I also called the road barn, and was told much the same thing, that the only time they mow down those ditches is after the bluebonnets have gone to seed. I said, well, but that will cause them to come up again the next year. And why, really, should the beauty of bluebonnets take precedence over a situation that causes a road hazard?

Adding to this that quite often people also stop other times of the year to look at the buffalo. Recently we (hub and I) were behind someone that stopped, not even on one side, but in the middle of the road. Couldn't get around them but if we had tried they were crossing from the right to the left and we could have risked hitting them. That also, of course, stopped anyone from travelling the other direction. (My personal belief is that the nice sign at the corner of 2008 and Hwy 67 may lead at least some people to believe they are already on Fossil Rim property because it's an entrance type sign instead of a direction sign).

I don't know if it would be possible to put up a No Stopping for X feet sign and, honestly, who would enforce it the visitor ignored it? But I'm going to broach that with my commissioner, Dwayne Johnson, anyway, along with the request that the stretch of road by Fossil Rim be mowed.