Monday, 16 November 2020
For days I've found the air to be super-dry. The amount of static electricity is practically dangerous and scares my critters. My skin is flaking off all over my body, despite frequent applications of lotion. I'm surprised to find I have trouble breathing in this dry air, because I know humidity can also cause problems - maybe I just need something in between. At any rate, I was starting to search online for portable humidifiers and wondering if I should get one. Part of the problem is that west Texas has been in drought status for a while, but it's dry country anyway, so the drought just exacerbates it.
So today I start traveling east again. I'm assuming San Angelo is still going to be dry, but at least it's in the right direction.
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| today's route |
On the road
Sunrise was predicted for 7:27 today but I can state with certainty that, where I was, it came up at 7:34. And it was smack in my eyes for hours.
I heard on the radio that 1 week ago today, there were 10,000,000 cases of COVID-19 in this country; today there are 11,000,000. One million more people were sickened in one week. It's appalling and terrifying.
El Paso has become a hot spot, and the whole west Texas area is in trouble, so the whole time I've been in this region I've worn a mask except when walking the dogs, and gloves when I expect to touch anything - at gas stations and grocery stores and campground offices, for instance. I know they're not guarantees, but one never knows which precautions will make the difference. And I have been glad to see that almost everyone has been careful to wear masks too, which I didn't expect out here in the Rugged West.
I saw highway signs saying "Watch For Blowing Dust" and "Strong Wind Gusts," which gave me a picture of the usual weather around here.
I passed a turn-off labeled "Boracho Sta" but couldn't find anything online that explained the "Sta" except that it likely stood for station. The problem with that is there not only isn't a station of any kind around here, but also the old town of Boracho no longer exists. It's assumed the town's name was a misspelling of the Spanish word borracho, meaning drunk, and of course there's an odd story behind that. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/boracho-tx
I passed the turn-off for Balmorhea State Park, which I'm still sorry I can't visit. The park is just past the junction between I-10 (toward San Antonio) and I-20 (toward Dallas-Ft. Worth), and I was a little surprised to find that I lost most of the traffic when I chose I-10 and the other folks chose I-20. But it always makes driving easier when there's less traffic.
I was delighted to find a rest stop, because we all needed a break. This turned out to be one of the fancier ones I've seen.
There was a nature trail that began with one of the more ominous signs I've seen in a while (below).
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There was also an informational sign that had a lot more information than I thought when I first glanced at it. Titled Flora and Fauna of West Texas - Then And Now, it had the following message at the top:
Welcome to the Texas Department of Transportation's Pecos County Safety Rest Area. You are standing in the Trans-Pecos region - the area of Texas that is west of the Pecos River and is the only part of Texas where mountain and desert ecosystems are found. But this area has not always been that way; in fact, it was once a shallow sea and later a woodland. Follow the chronological timeline below, find the spot where you are now standing in the building map, and then follow the Nature Trail signs to find examples of the present-day flora depicted.
I'm not including the "building map" here, which wasn't so much about buildings but about the rest area layout. And I didn't take the dogs on the nature walk. But below is the sign.
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| detail from left |
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| half of sign - see detail at right and below |
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| 90,000 years ago - detail from sign above |
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| 20,000 years ago - more detail from sign above |
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| other half of sign - see detail at right |
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| detail from sign at left |
Back on the road, I passed cows and hay. Scrubland and grazing land and cropland. Cotton and winter wheat. An orchard - maybe pecans? Mountains to the south but not the north. Old flat-topped hills that look like the dirt has blown away, exposing the bedrock that's the basis for the hills, which wear the exposed bedrock like a crown.
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| This is the largest flat-topped hill I saw. I was particularly taken with its square corners. |
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| This historical marker seems to explain some of these hills I've been seeing. |
I heard a young woman on the radio who said she's Latina but doesn't speak much Spanish. She was talking with some friends who were speaking Spanish and wanted to say she was embarrassed about something. The word she used was "embarazada" because she thought it sounded like it meant "embarrassed" but, she learned, actually meant "pregnant." She said "so here we are, just cruising along, and boom! we're embarazada." (And giggled.)
After Ft. Stockton (which looked really different from I-10 than it did last week from TX 18), I turned off the interstate onto US Hwy. 67/US Hwy. 385.
I passed a large installation with the sign "Greasewood Solar Project" with a vast solar array on both sides of the highway. It turns out to be the 5th largest photovoltaic setup in the US and has long-term power contracts with the utility companies of Garland, New Braunfels and Kerrville.
Well, goodness knows they've got sun out here. In fact, about all West Texas has, as far as I can tell, is land and sun and wind and oil. All they need are the parts of a transmission system to get these resources to places that need them. I don't know why anybody bothers trying to farm out here, since water is not one the the region's plentiful natural resources.
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| This wind farm stretched much farther than this photo shows - but it reminded me irresistibly of clichés in old Westerns with the angry Indians silhouetted against the skyline. |
Past the small town of Girvin, I crossed the Pecos River, a name that sounds seriously old-fashioned western to me. The Pecos turns out to be a traveling fool, originating in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Albuquerque, and flowing through northeastern NM and west TX and finally dumping into the Rio Grande (which flows to the Gulf of Mexico). The Sangre de Cristo Mountains are viewed as the last range of the Rocky Mountains, ending near Albuquerque near the headwaters of the Pecos River, and beginning in Colorado. I remember well driving through these mountains in both states.
I lost NPR and found lots of Spanish-language radio stations.
The town of McCamey, pop. 1,887, boasts the Mendoza Trail Museum (I can't figure out what that trail is, but the museum claims to have relics from the region's "rowdy" past), as well as a business called Good Old Boys Feed and Supply.
There's lots of prickly pear cactus and mesquite trees out here. And historical markers and wind farms - I passed several of each. Also many oil drilling supply companies - more, actually, than the number of oil wells I've seen lately.
As I passed mile after mile after mile of mesquite and cactus with few notable geological features, hot and dusty and dry, I thought this must have been hard country to travel in 100 or 150 years ago.
I crossed West Dutch Woman Draw, and later East Dutch Woman Draw. I wish someone knew (and said online) who this Dutch woman was and why she got not just one, but two, geologic features named for her. And in case you're not quite certain what a draw is (I wasn't) here's the link. https://en.wikipedia.org/Draw-terrain
As I went farther east I started seeing hills, lots of hills. Also sheep, cows, horses and goats.
San Angelo is in Tom Green County. I've always been curious about that name so I finally got around to looking him up. The thumbnail sketch is that he fought in the Texas Revolution in 1835-36 under Gen. Sam Houston. Then he was clerk of the Texas Supreme Court until the Civil War, when he served for the Confederacy in the cavalry. He died in 1864. So I'm guessing the county's name was for the Republic of Texas hero, rather than as yet another Confederacy honoree.
San Angelo has just over 100,000 residents and the 1st HEB Grocery I've seen since I've been in Texas.
And on to the state park, where I'm booked for the next 4 nights.
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