By Ernie Williamson
The Bulletin
In 2022, Barbara Cole suffered a life-threatening health scare.
She spent 2023 recovering.
The Brazoria County resident vowed 2024 would be different.
She was frustrated at having to “just sit around.”
So, at age 70, Cole embarked on a Texas adventure: She wanted to visit all our state’s counties.
That would not be a challenge in many states, but Texas has 254 counties, more than any other state. And only 20 percent of those counties are located near major metropolitan areas.
Cole was undaunted. “I wanted to be able to say, ‘look what I did not, what I wished I could do,” she says.
Since she works part-time at the Pizza Hut in Angleton, she could not achieve her goal in one long trip, but she accomplished her mission in a series of trips, sometimes alone, sometimes with family members.
The first trip was on Jan. 7, and the last one was on Oct. 28.
Appropriately, Wood County was the last stop, since “Wood” was Cole’s maiden name.
Her travels have made Cole a booster of Texas tourism.
“People travel to faraway places when we have so many things to see right here in Texas,” she says.
She wonders, for instance, why Texans travel all the way to the Grand Canyon when they could go to Palo Duro Canyon.
Located in Armstrong County in the Panhandle, Palo Duro, with its spectacular views and historical sites, was Cole’s favorite spot in her travels.
Are you wondering how many miles Cole traveled? We will never know.
Cole woke up one morning in San Antonio to find her car had been stolen.
All we know is that she has 22,000 miles on the replacement car.
Cole found interesting people in addition to interesting places.
She exchanged tales of the road with a man who was traveling from Mexico to Canada on a yak.
Working at the Pizza Hut helped Cole finance the trips, and she suspects some customers added a few dollars to her tip if they had heard about her goal through word-of-mouth.
“It was so much fun to share my trips with friends and family,” Cole says. “Creating a memory is worth more than money.”
You probably will not be surprised to learn that Cole has already started on scratching another goal from her bucket list in 2025.
She plans on visiting all 89 Texas state parks and has already visited 29.
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