A large portion of my newest contemporary lesbian romance novel CITY SPIRIT, COUNTRY HEART takes place in the fictional town of Lamppost, Texas. If you were to look for this town on a map, you wouldn't find it. But there are two real-life towns that inspired Lamppost.
After my parents divorced when I was a kid, I found myself moving around a lot with my mother and two younger brothers. One town that we ended up living in for about a year was Bellevue, Texas. I recently had the chance to stop by Bellevue (population 343, as of 2016), and I took some pictures for this post.
One of the town's noticeable features is its powder blue water tower. I parked at the closed post office and snapped this shot:
As a kid, I always wanted to climb up to the top of it, but I never had the guts to do it.
Another memorable feature of Bellevue is the fact that none of its roads are paved. They're all gravel, including the roads that go right by the school:
After my parents divorced when I was a kid, I found myself moving around a lot with my mother and two younger brothers. One town that we ended up living in for about a year was Bellevue, Texas. I recently had the chance to stop by Bellevue (population 343, as of 2016), and I took some pictures for this post.
One of the town's noticeable features is its powder blue water tower. I parked at the closed post office and snapped this shot:
As a kid, I always wanted to climb up to the top of it, but I never had the guts to do it.
Another memorable feature of Bellevue is the fact that none of its roads are paved. They're all gravel, including the roads that go right by the school:
I have fond memories of walking up and down these gravel roads with my little brothers to kill time during the heat of summer. There wasn't much to walk to; at the time, there was only one gas station in operation, and only one restaurant. We used to amble down to the gas station in the afternoon and buy candy with the coins we'd earned for doing our chores. The gas station is still there, but the original restaurant closed down and is replaced by a newer one. Other than that, there are still a few churches, a post office, and (much to the disgust of most of the town) the out-of-place porn shop just down the highway. Needless to say, my brothers and I were never allowed to visit the sex store!
The second town I based Lamppost on is Jacksboro, Texas, where we also lived for a short time. It's larger than Bellevue (population 4,347 in 2016), and it has an actual town square with a courthouse. There's more to do in Jacksboro, but it's still got that small town vibe going on. I haven't been back to Jacksboro in years, so I don't have any pictures, but if you want to check out the city's web page, --> here's the link <--.
CITY SPIRIT, COUNTRY HEART is available now at the following retailers:
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