Texas. It's Not Just Awful.

A beautiful dawning to get out of Hell, Texas

I think I became a little mentally skewed (yes, peanut gallery, have your little laugh) for awhile going through eastern Texas. Perhaps even slightly unhinged. I only know that after the smell of oil - the air is heavy with it - was out of my nostrils and the traffic was sparse and the road wasn't full of crater like divots, everything seemed better. The sun was shinier, the air was sniffier, life was good again. And then came the mountains, their drama something to focus on in the up aheadness. 

There is a Meteor Crater Museum in Odessa (really) but I didn't stop. 

This is where smiles started again. Even the GPS lady stopped freaking out.

Carving out roads. What work was done here!

Lots of mountain ranges, little traffic, nice weather. All good.

I met up with Jack in Sierra Blanca. After a good lunch we headed out to his place. I was glad to follow him, only because the one turn to make comes up in a hurry and missing it could be not a good thing.

There wasn't the dramatic sunset of the last time I was here, but it still has its own beauty. Maybe just being off the road and with an old friend for a couple of days helps too. This was never supposed to be a 'get there' sort of trip, but one does what one does and when I DO get there (Northern California), it will be time for a good long look about!

A good sleep with the weather cooled off means waking with first light. Making sure no rattlesnakes (BUT NO BEARS!!) lurked, I went outside greet the day. 

The sky got dark, the wind came up and we got a tiny bit of rain - a nice bit of weather drama - but that is all gone now. Time to do something that seems important. Like read...or crochet...or make lunch.

Have a seeing sights Saturday. Do something simpatico.

I 20. Always Ready for Halloween

You would think after the Dallas/Ft. Worth craziness it would be smooth sailing west. That's what I thought, anyway. But there is some vibe on this road that just feels weird...

Sunrise yesterday morning. It's just starting here now.

It started with the first gas stop. There was this woman in front of
me, husky sized, in a Wind Energy tee shirt and sweats, really dirty
and hair like doll hair. Bad bad doll hair. Grey roots, then brown
then red but all upside down and sideways on her head. I figured, hey,
she works with the guys, that's how that is, good for her. Then she turned around and SHE HAD A DOLL FACE. That creepy smile, that smooth round face. I didn't scream but I did sort of yelp. And it's been like that ever since.

Texas is NOT flat. It goes up and up and up and up some more.
The blue highway was right beside I 20 - it dipped deep and rose steep;
I was glad I wasn't on it.

I missed the Stinky Creek sign

The area with the windmills. Hundreds? Thousands? A lot.

I saw what looked like a cool park to have lunch in. Up
up up a very narrow, very broken road on the edge of a cliff...I kept
thinking any turn I'd see huge limestone rocks blocking my way. But
no, on the top was an office. With no one in it. Then I saw a girl
drive up...to this nothingness. I thought, she must be meeting a
lover, who else would fucking come here? Sure enough, up drives a guy. Then another girl. Then someone else. Maybe it was a Creepy Party. I looked up free camping and saw the Comanche Trail Park. 5 spots with no hook ups but a park and free. It was only minutes away. Fantastic!

There is a very dramatic overlook. Creepy road, dramatic overlook

What is around this turn? More road, I hoped. There was.

The empty locked up office

A beautiful limestone shelter

This butterfly kept me company

Not so fantastic. The park was HUGE and there was NO ONE THERE. No official people. No one in the beautiful (locked up) pool. No children no one. Wait, there was one creepy guy, sleeping in his car by the creepy Historic Spring (no name, just a big stone with Historic Spring carved into it). The spring was stagnant. I saw the 5 spaces but they
were cabled off. First time I'd choose a Walmart parking lot over a
park, super creepy! The Turtle was getting hot, not overheating but
coming near halfway (never happened before) so I thought maybe there was oh...a gas station, anything. There are some but getting there, when you can actually SEE it, is pretty much like going through a maze to get 20 feet in the right direction. Very weird.

Historic Spring

Turtle that jumped off the rocks at my approach. 

Mistletoe

Water. Even the water looked creepy.

But today I'm out of here. The glow of a beautiful sunrise is out there, the promise of a better day. 

Have a not freaky Friday. Do something fast forward.

Texas. It's Big.

Making my way across Texas. I know there is a lot of beauty here, but with an accelerated mission to get to California, I'm pretty much not seeing it. I will say, the welcome place probably wins for hugeness. There were probably 8 racks, back and front, as tall as me, filled with literature on Texas, in library like staging. 

Kind of bayou looking

There was a huge television screen with the weather channel on. Lots of Texas stuff, but the best is the trash campaign. I got a little sticker that says Don't Mess With Texas. The woman told me it was the slogan of the litter program, in use for over 30 years. I guess because so many people throw out the literature, they also give you a bag to carry it in. 

And that was the last impressive thing I saw before getting through, by the skin of our teeth (me and the Turtle), the Dallas / Fort Worth craziness. The woman at the Welcome Center advised taking I 20 as it 'went south of all that mess'. If that was south of the mess, I never want to be IN the mess. People drive faster than in South Florida by a long shot. At one point, I needed - or thought I did - to change lanes. Checking out my side mirrors was like a horror movie, cars and trucks zooming into it and beyond. I stayed in the lane I was in, held on tight and drove that poor Turtle like it has probably never been driven before. I did find out, for one harrowing moment, that it can go 70 mph if asked in a prayerful screech.

Any good guesses beside giant spark plugs?

After that excitement (and the photo above was taken long before it, no photos happen when my hands are glued to the steering wheel), there were still about 100 miles to go. Somehow, my arms steered me off that road and I ended up in front of a Thai restaurant. I don't know how that happened and I didn't go in and eat. The realization that this was it for the night was upon me and there was no fighting to be done. 

The sun is about to spill over the horizon, the air is still cool (it's hot in the day here) and I'm taking off.

Have a...oh, I can't think of anything this morning yet! Coffee, then clever.

Love, me