Seeing the USA in our RV

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New Mexico has reintroduced us to the heat as we continue our eastern drive into the northwestern part of Texas and note an absence of reservoir water. The NPS staff at their Fritch HQ are helpful and we make a short visit to the Albetes Flint Quarries National Monument for an explanatory video of how natives used this valuable rock to fashion arrowheads and other tools. We also learned about the Meredith National Recreation Area and had a chance to drive through Wheeler, TX, the county seat of Wheeler County, named for early Texas jurist Royal T. Wheeler. More cattle were in feeding pens along the roadside as were sorghum fields depending on constant irrigation. This country is obviously farm and cattle land and the economy also depends on the pumping oil wells. We did notice some new gas drilling rigs being set up.
We decided to spend the night in a Good Sam park in Elk City (with 50 amp service for our air conditioners to counter the Oklahoma heat) and use the following day to visit the nearby Washita Battlefield National Historic Site and Wildlife Refuge, Black Kettle National Grassland and the Sayre Rotary Club. The Battlefield displays a little told story of how LtCol George Custer attacked a peaceful Comanche village, massacring women and children as well as the warriors, instead of their intended target of a warrior band. It put new perspective on the Battle of the Little Big Horn four years later. The Grassland headquarters provided info on this valuable land and pointed us toward the Wildlife Refuge, another jewel of preservation and information. At the Rotary Club I learned about the personal impact of the drought on local cattle owners, having to sell their animals without the ability to feed and water them, which was the reason we saw so many animals in the feedlots west of here. We also learned that the container trucks we saw on the road are hauling waste drilling water and solutions and that directional drilling for natural gas is replacing oil drilling and opening up new finds (as they were doing when we visited South Dakota). I also learned that the wind generators placed along the nearby ridge line are owned and operated by European companies (using satellite technology) and the only piece made in the USA are the blades. So much for local jobs.

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