Thursday March 19, 2015 Quality Inn and Suites Room 129 Kerrville, Texas
Left Guymon, Ok and its cobble stoned streets the day before St Pats. We were in the Panhandle of the state, otherwise known as No Man’s Land and so we traveled east for a bit before turning south into the panhandle of Texas. After the flatness of East Texas and Oklahoma it was nice to have some hills to go up and down although this section of Texas is not yet considered Hill Country.
Before entering Texas, however, we saw vanes of wind turbines being transported in a convoy headed out way. We soon passed through Balko, Ok and outside of town the Balko wind project. How I wish they were assembling a turbine. I would have sat for however long it took to get one up atop the already erected uprights. But, unfortunately, absolutely nothing was being done. It is obvious, though, that the vanes are put together first before going up. Bet it is an interesting procedure.
As we continued toward Perryville, vanes were being transported to the site from the south as well. After Perryville we came to Canadian, where we stopped to look at a wagon bridge that crossed the Canadian River and had been built in 1916. It is almost 100 years old and absolutely beautiful –it far end had been taken out by a raging Spring Canadian River and several more spans had to be added to it. Today it is a pedestrian and bike trail bridge and the Canadian has barely any water in it. By the way, Canadian apparently meant “ boxed in” in Spanish when the waterway was named.
We continued to Shamrock which was pretty tame today—THE DAY—but according to the Amarillo Sunday edition, it was a happening place on Saturday—parade with bands and dancers but only one piper—a young teen aged boy who has been the only piper for several years since there are no other pipers in the area. He also teaches the pipes and hopes someday he’ll have company. Sorry we missed the celebration.
Shortly after passing through Wellington we came upon a carnival ride and ticket booth being moved to someplace in Texas. The ride looked so strange from a distance as we came up behind—I thought they were balloons at first. After overtaking them we came to the Red River—remember the cowpoke who loved you so true. At this point, the soil was truly red and it was obvious where it got its name although there was little water flowing, This is at the lower end of the Texas panhandle and we soon turned eastward toward Wichita Falls, on the Oklahoma – Texas border, which is formed by the river. Since we never glimpsed it again I don’t know if it ever presented a more rigorous crossing there.
On we went under a cloudless sky on which jets painted their contrails, through Childress and into Quanah, named for Quanah Parker. He was the son of a white woman kidnapped by the Comanche at the age of 9 and one of the Comanche chiefs. He became, by US government appointment the principal chief once the tribe had settled on a reservation. His is an interesting story and life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah_Parker
The mounds in the distance make up Medicine Mounds which is now a ghost town but once was a thriving community. The mounds themselves were sacred places to the Comanche,
After Chillicothe, the land didn’t change much, the sky became more cloud filled and a plane flew alongside us once more before heading down the highway, making a sweeping turn in front of us and headed north. Electra marked the beginning of an oil field with numerous wells scattered as far as the eye could see.
We stopped at a rest area to enter the motel address in the navigation system and was amused to see that you can’t just park your livestock just anywhere. And then, at last, we were in Wichita Falls and ordered pizza in before settling in for some TV.
I will continue our story tomorrow from Conroe, Texas. For now, it is time for The Blacklist and having spent about four hours in the National Museum of the Pacific War, I’m beat. Talk to you all tomorrow. Until then, take care and stay healthy—from The Two Traveling Peas
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