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Published: July 15th 2019
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We got a late start this morning. We were up at 6:30 AM, but decided to spend some time making changes to our trip itinerary. We decided to spend more time in New Mexico and then head for Colorado. Our good friends Bob and Gloria offered us their lodge in Winter Park, and having been there twice already, we jumped at the chance to go there again. It is such a wonderful place in a wonderful town. So…after making new reservations and cancelling others, we were off at 9:30 AM and 87 degrees, heading west through Hill Country toward western Texas.
The drive today was eclectic. It began through flat lands over roadways bleached white by the southern sun and adorned beautifully with leafy green trees. And on a day when the sky is mostly blue with just a few wisps of white cotton shaped like anything your imagination can think up, it was a pleasant sight to behold. We saw a lot of land that seems to not have any purpose at all, and we saw a few horse and cattle ranches, though we did not see any cows. And as we moved further to the west, the land
began to roll, and we found ourselves in the Hill Country of Texas. It is truly beautiful, with imposing jagged pink and yellow walls of limestone along the road side, created when they cut through the hills to allow the road to pass through. And the hills got bigger as we moved on. I began to noticed that the green grass turned to yellow and the plants were small and laying low to the ground and I knew that this was desert grasslands…kind of half way between green pastures and arid desert. The hills became mesas, covered with broken rocks and peppered with green plants, looking like jimmies on an ice cream sundae. And the further we drove, the mesas grew into expansive plateaus with rocky faces reaching for the sun. There truly is great beauty in these landscapes and they adorn our southern states with majesty.
Further down the road we came into an immense oil field that went on for miles and to the north and south as far as the eye could see…just acres and acres of oil wells with their heavy hammers dancing up and down in their efforts to pump up the oil from
below. Some were working hard and others were sitting very still, and I wondered why that was. After consulting Google, I found out that the owners often turn off their pumps when oil prices are low because the cost of running the pumps exceeds the price they get for the oil. But I love watching those in motion. There is something very interesting about these pumps as they seem so graceful in their movement while they appear to pound the ground like hammers.
In the midst of it all, we drove through a small town of 18K called McCamey, where the sign says “Our town is so small that we had to borrow a horse to make a one horse town”. And this one-light town is a place where the oil wells exist in harmony with hundreds of windmills posted on the plateaus that stretch for miles in the distance. Yes, Texas is oil country, but they create power from the wind, too. And time marches on.
In McCamey you can eat at Cleanas Kitchen, buy flowers at Wild About Flowers, Dine at Benoits, visit V’s Fine Liquors Drive Thru and shop at Grady’s Western Supply. And a
bit down the road is Tara’s Twinkle Toes. Now your guess is as good as mine as to what that was…pedicures? Or maybe a dance studio? I have no idea.
As we approached Odessa, the soil began to turn a bright brick red and the silver sage was scattered all around and I knew this was closer to being the real desert of the southwest. New Mexico is right around the corner. We arrived in Odessa in late afternoon to find a massively sprawling city, some areas right out of the 50’s and other areas new and modern. There are no tall buildings here…most are only 1 or 2 stories high. We drove around for miles and miles and never left the city limits…this place, with a population of 116K is Texas Big.
Tomorrow, Silver City, NM.
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Norman Darrer
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Silver City NM
Been there twice; friend from Brooklyn moved there many years ago...a famous cartoonist...not a large downtown