My usual walks with Goldie, my Catahoula/Leopard mix puppy, take me down Scott Street around Opal lane, up Sledge Street and back. Last week I tried a route I haven’t walked in ten years.
I went down Old Stagecoach Road to Center Street then home. The contrast between the two could not be starker. The Opal lane route is so laid back and wonderful, little traffic, and much brush for Goldie to dive into and explore. On the Old Stagecoach route, we had to dodge large semi-tracker trailers barreling down the road without much regard for a man and his dog, crowding onto the narrow shoulder. By the time we got to Center Street, the scene was populated by oversized homes similar to those one would find at Plum Creek.
With apologies to Charles Dickens, Kyle is not London and Paris at the turn of the last century, but it certain can claim to have a split personality like they did. Everyone who lives in Kyle is well aware of the dramatic transformation that has taken place in the last decade. For the first one hundred years of its life, Kyle had about nine hundred people; then the town exploded. It now boasts a population around 30,000. The largest influx of people comes from Austin residents escaping the increased crowding, and expensive housing.
