West Texas Vacation - Day 3

February 14, 2016

We drove a total of 358 miles today, and here are the details:

We got out of Ft. Stockton about 10:45am and headed east on I-10, soon taking the exit for Highway 385, which headed northeast. Once you get off of I-10 onto a small Texas highway, you quickly end up in the middle of nowhere. There are no houses, cattle, trees or grass...It was just us and dust.

We didn't have breakfast when we left thinking we would grab something up the road a bit. Turns out there was almost nothing up the road as we passed through a number of very small towns with a population of 13, and nothing was open. There were no diners, and no people or cars moving around. It almost seemed like each bungalow was a ghost town. It wasn't until we hit the small town of Big Lake and found an open Dairy Queen. I'm usually not a big fan of DQ food (desserts are another story), but by the time we got there, I was famished and that burger and fries were great!

I would like to note here that up to this point, we were traversing what is known as the Permian Basin of Texas, and it's very flat with no scenery, unless you consider a large amount of oil and natural gas wells scenery. They were everywhere, along with various oil and gas plants, trucking companies, holding tanks, pipe yards, and everything else it takes to run oil and gas fields. Another interesting fact is the amount of huge wind-turbine electricity generating towers. They are all over the high ridges, and lots and lots of large-capacity power lines running everywhere. If you need oil, natural gas or electricity, you'll find it here, but not much else.

Soon after we left Big Lake, the scenery started to change. I started noticing small cedar trees with no foliage on them, then bigger cedar trees with foliage, and then grass. After about an hour, we started to see land being tilled for planting of crops soon, and they were everywhere, especially as we approached San Angelo. Pulling into San Angelo brought us back to the reality that there are actually other human beings out there, and we hit traffic, saw open businesses, and the usual medium sized town tumult. Driving for a couple of hundred miles through the desert can cause you lo lose perspective.

Continuing eastbound out of San Angelo, we pulled into San Saba, where once again we stopped at the DQ, this time for a Blizzard. In the center of town we found an open mercantile shop and stopped in to look around. In the window of the business was a poster promoting a Downton Abbey tea party for their group to watch the show together. I made it a point to bring up to the very nice ladies inside the shop that I participate in the taping of the program after Downton Abbey called Manor of Speaking, of which they were also very familiar with. I teased them a little about what will happen in tonight's episode, but was careful not to give any major plot points away. The only thing I told them was that Mr. Carson gets what he deserves.

There weren't any other real stops after San Saba as we continued towards Lampasas, through Killeen, and eventually stopping in Temple at the La Quinta where we are all tucked in for the night. Across I-35 is a Texas Roadhouse, and the front desk clerk gave me a 10% off coupon for dinner. We're heading that way soon.

Tomorrow we will head east a little bit until we join Highway 36 southbound through College Station and on into Houston on Highway 290. We won't be in any hurry as it's only about 3 hours from here.

So, until tomorrow.....