Texas Tough

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Texas Tough!

Driving from San Antonio to Fort Stockton you first pass through Texas “Hill Country” It is very broken scenery alternating between rolling hills and patchy flatlands covered with brown wild grasses and rocky outcroppings; it is dry and sparse until the hills appear covered with pecan, oak and sumac. There are also rivers and streams.

The Hill Country gives way to “El Despoblado” the place of desolation, christened so by the Spanish. It is harsh and dry and it makes me think of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. I can picture the Comanche shooting arrows down the pass at the wagons attempting to pass through. There will be no fishing here John.

I know those cowboys had to be tough to drive cattle through this country for sure. Reputation for toughness restored!

There was a wonderful area not far from Ft. Stockton with hundreds of wind turbines that were used to generate electricity, probably to pump water or oil, because in this area you see lots of oil mules, pumping away and there is little water. But the sight of all of those huge wind turbines was impressive. Photos were hard to get because the colors bled out against the sky, but I will post them anyway.

Texas must have the greatest variety of scenery and ecosystem diversity than any other state in the Union - and no you can not secede. You will just have to put up with the softy liberals in our much smaller states, it would be a very boring world if we were all alike and I know some of you cowboys like yogurt even if you won’t admit it.

We spent the night in Ft. Stockton and tomorrow it is on to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

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Photos

Sheep
Black faced sheep - still enough water for domestic animals

transition area
after this stretch it became really dry

Flat and dry
You could see the mountains in the distance

wind turbines
hundreds of turbines up on the ridges

wind turbines
generating electircity to pump water or oil?