DRIVIN’ ‘CROSS TEXAS IS A TRUE TEST OF A MARRIAGE… AND WE STILL ARE!!

HELP!!!   Our RV has been captured by a giant!!

Driving across Texas is a long boring exercise.  We’ve done it at least 4 times now, so we should have a good strategy … and in some aspects we do… but there’s just so much that can break up the sage brush, prickly pear cacti, and ranches.  Since it’s so different from our vistas back east, it’s fun to look at… for a while.

We have discovered a few things that help:

·      Books on tape or Audible are great.  We had to try out a few, but we’ve finally found a good Bluetooth speaker that works well in Bert.  As noted before we listened to a murder mystery about Birmingham, and now we are into a spy novel.  I mean, let’s face it, in 2 weeks we will have been married 43 years. We can still make each other laugh, but there’s not enough conversation to accompany all of this landscape!!

·      And at least for this leg of the trip, Bert has a relatively small tank (12 gallons) and only mediocre gas mileage, so we are finding Flying J’s or Pilot’s every 3 hours or 200 miles of or so.  This helps break up the driving and provide needed potty stops!

·     Then there’s what Dave likes to describe as Deb’s Damn Dilemmas and Disasters.  I’m forever frustrating and entertaining him with lost items inside our tiny truck (the seatbelt cinch keeps disappearing), my internet and cell phone ineptitude, (especially Google maps!) spilled coffee and the graceful way I search for snacks in the back…..  Of course we won’t mention his constant fiddling with Myrtle the GPS, talking to the trucks and traffic, and asking me to find a gas station or restaurant within two tenths of a mile when he needs it!  BTW… we decided you know you are in West Texas when you put “fast food” into the GPS, and it starts the list at 200 miles!! 

·      We’ve discovered a new website that has interesting stories and guides to stops along the road with quirky folk art and interesting things.  It’s called Roadside America.com.  You can map your route and then discover “pins” nearby.  Sometimes we stop and sometimes we don’t.  For example we skipped the miracle horned toad casket in Eastland, TX but loved the story!   When they reopened the cornerstone to the courthouse 31 years after sealing it, the “dead” horned toad they encapsulated dusted himself off and jumped out at them!!   Of course he didn’t live forever, so they have a tiny casket in the court house. (Go to the site and read the “rest of the story”…there’s fame fortune and controversy; too much to relate here!) We also enjoyed reading about, but missed the sugar sculpture in El Paso that surrounds a house with sugar models of religious figures and buildings (It also said the owner was “creepy” and suspicious. I suppose he is leery of sweet toothed vandals).

·       But there have been some good stops, too.  Sunday, we found out about some Seuss and children’s literature sculptures in Abilene, TX.  Unfortunately, the museum to children’s illustrators was closed, but the sculpture garden was fantastic!  We skyped Ella and Abbie and enjoyed showing the sculptures to them, especially, Bob the Dino!  Monday we stopped at the 5 million barrel oil “tank”, which leaked the first time they filled it!  It’s really a concrete lined 5 acre crater in the ground that had a wood floating roof.   Somehow the Shell engineers didn’t figure out that the weight of the oil would crack the cement.  Thirty years later it was “repaired” and promoted as the area’s “Great Lake” and a boat ramp was added.  Unfortunately even with the repairs, the concrete didn’t hold water any better than it held oil.  The resort opened on October 7, and closed on the 8^th!!  And I thought engineers were smart!!!  But today, it is the centerpiece of the little town and they’ve made a museum and use it for events.  At least the politicians were in this case smarter and knew how to make lemonade out of lemons! 

     Then as we were leaving Texas, the website led us to Hatch, NM where Teako Nunn collected large fiberglass sculptures of pigs, dinosaurs, characters, and Uncle Sam.  I guess with a name like that, he had to do something quirky!! They are randomly displayed around town.  The funniest one was this huge guy holding an RV, next to an RV that had a piano coming out of its roof.  Just funny random stuff!!

I asked Dave if he wanted a restoration project!! LOL

·      Sunday night Dave decided about 6 pm that he wants some “real Texas BBQ”… so I began searching Yelp!  And various websites.  Oh, there were plenty to choose from.  The only problem was, it was Sunday and most small Texas towns roll up the sidewalks on Sunday and everything we’d try was closed (some we found out ahead of travel, some not!).  We were about to give up and settle for an Outback at a mall, when I spied 5 food trucks in a parking lot.  We had to negotiate several exits to get back to it, but the BBQ beef was terrific.  So the real trick to surviving Texas is to keep your eyes peeled to the side of the road!!

After 3 days driving across Texas, we rewarded ourselves with 2 days at an Air B&B in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.  More on that later….its time to join Dave in the hot springs fed hot tub!