New Blog Series: From Sea To Shining Sea, Part 3

Wednesday, Sept. 22

Today we pick up the new trailer, which for some reason is more tedious than buying a car.  We knew it was there, they knew we were coming today for it, but nothing had readied it for us to do so.  The temperature blazed away at about 100 degrees and their “office” was in a mobile home which was entirely too small.  Since air conditioning was at a premium, Abby and I scrunched ourselves into a corner with a folding chair while Darrel took off down the hallway to sign papers or whatever takes three hours to consummate a sale. It was hot enough that we did not want to unload the truck with all the parts of a little house and vowed to take care of that on the way west.  So every time we stopped  for gas or food, or found a good shady place to stop, we’d move more stuff from the truck to the trailer.

My map said Texas as 21 million people, and I’m sure most of them are all in Houston. Darrel had to stop to see if the “beautiful bathrooms” were worth the wait.  They were.

The Sam Houston statue at the Houston County Line must be 40 feet high.  However, Michaelaneglo’s David looks much better. 

I think the gulf hurricane side weather will probably catch us as I see its dark clouds roiling toward our little space of Texas.  I don’t remember its name, something after Igor, since Igor had already struck the Caribbean a few weeks ago.  The pastureland took my breath away.  Green as Ireland and full of good quarter horses, I was ready to move despite the scary weather.  Maybe in my next life I can live there.

Not much further, the furious threatening clouds along the Texas 7 to Waco turned into puffy white and grey ones.  What a sky!  The temperature is at 91 degrees.  Now we’re in cattle farm country, Brangus, Hereford, Brahma, Angus, rolling pastures, farms and tanks.  We’ve merged from French/Cajun to Mexican/Cowboy in one day.  So we ate at Lupe Tortilla’s.  Yum.

Mesquite fence posts are popular near Waco.  I understand that horses and cows don’t like to eat mesquite-- it’s strong and it doesn’t even need to be split.  After Waco, there are no more trees.  Who would have thought?  It must have been the edge of the desert we were entering.  Yikes!  West Texas.  But a little further up the road, trees reappear at Valley Mills, a town right out of the old west--complete with board sidewalks.  Only to be found on the back roads.  What fun!  We traveled two lane roads at the 70 mph speed limit with berms a whole lane wide.  Slower vehicles accommodatingly move to the berm to let us pass.  Chilvary may not be dead.  Or else our huge Excursion scared them off the road.  The trailer is only 18 feet long, which is just about the length of the truck.

Cows we’ve never seen before seem to be in every open pasture.  They’re striped--their fronts are black, their tummies are white and their rears are black. No spots or solids.  The next town we see is Meridian.  If I go missing you can look for me there.  A road side church sign said “Free Trip To Heaven--details inside.”

We stopped at a grocery store to stock the trailer with some food then stayed over night at Meridian State Park.  Texas does state parks well.  This one was gorgeous and quiet but I’m sure that lovely diesel sound when we left on Thursday before dawn will not amuse the other RV’ers

We had to stop in Abilene to let Abby see what her name meant by “Misty Abilene Sunrise.”  Neither of us was impressed so we carried on.