West Texas
is very sparsely populated compared to east Texas. I traveled Interstate 10 from Sonora to Fort Stockton
yesterday and loved the fact that there
was so very little traffic. Speed limit
is 80, but I don’t feel comfortable towing at that speed, so I average about
50-60. Obviously, everyone else was
passing me. But that’s fine, the scenery
was all new to me and I wanted to enjoy it. Texas drivers are accustomed to going
fast, some of their less-populated country 2 lane roads have speed limits of 70
or 75. Yes, little skinny country roads.
I expected
the area to be pretty much flat, but most of the road was hilly with long
grades. Sometimes it was so gradual I
didn’t notice it, but I could feel my truck reacting to it. Texas people were smart, instead of having steep
grades, they just cut through most of the bigger hills and mesas. That made for an interesting trip, you can check it out with the link at the end of this article.
The first
part of the trip was on a basic four-lane highway through a few towns, green
fields. After about 50 miles, the road
curved and I saw mesas up ahead, as far as I could see. These rocky hills were all the same height, flat at the top, and
continued for the next 100 miles, and probably beyond. A few of them were smaller and came to a
cone-shaped point. In one area, there
were windmill farms on top of the mesas.
All the vegetation was sparse, scrubby little bushes that were trying to
grow out of what looked like mostly rock.
I got to
Fort Stockton about noon and checked into the campground. There are very few trees in this area, so
there was no shade. I set up camp and
then headed for the museum and fort. It
was a bright blue-sky, clear day with no clouds. As I went into the fort visitor center, I
mentioned that Texas had not been that hot back east a few miles. The woman there told me it was 100 degrees
out. Oh, well, that sure explains it –
that’s about 10 degrees more than where I was the day before. At least the humidity is lots lower than
Florida. But it still feels like August
in Florida.
I’m not sure
if it’s always this way, but the winds here are very strong, they were
constantly 25-30 mph yesterday and into the night, with the same predicted for today. It seems like the temperature and winds don’t
reach their full impact until mid-afternoon, unlike Florida.
If all goes
well, I’ll be headed north to Carlsbad, New Mexico in the early morning. Early, to escape the worst of the heat, it’s
probably a 3 hour trip. And when I pass the state line, I’ll be in
the Mountain Time zone!
Click the link below to see one of the more interesting minutes of the trip.
http://youtu.be/d5XlAeL3YTc
Click the link below to see one of the more interesting minutes of the trip.
http://youtu.be/d5XlAeL3YTc
It is nearly always breezy. That's why you see so many wind farms there. And I see you noticed the differences in scenery....some people just blow it off saying it is boring but there are always things to be noticed.
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