The Great Hunting Trip - Almost Home

These mornings are getting old. Wake-up temperatures around 20, blustery winds, and snow flurries. Fortunately, today should be the last one. I'm now in The Great State Of Texas.

Day Nine

I left Colorado Springs this a.m dodging sleet and snow. As I worked my way south the precipitation turned into rain, which was all right with me. My truck doesn't slip and slide around in rain like it does in frozen H2O.

Another issue with driving through the Colorado mountain passes is the wind. I was headed south and the wind was howling in from the west. I drove about 100 miles with the steering wheel cranked 1/8th of a turn to the right just to stay straight.

Others weren't so fortunate. I passed a truck towing a U-Haul trailer that was in the ditch by the side of the road. The truck was upright, but the trailer was on its side, which makes me think that the trailer was blown over by a strong gust of wind.

In any event, about four hours after I left Colorado Springs I crossed the Texas state line. Immediately the sun became brighter, the women prettier, the speed limits higher, the gas prices lower, and the beer colder. Coincidence? I think not...

Another travel note of interest is that once I was in Texas I began to see green foliage. In Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico all the grass and brush was brown, and what few trees there were were either barren or dropping leaves. In Texas the grass was green, the brush was green (granted, it was cedar, prickly pear cactus, or agarita, but still...), and many of the trees were still green.

Also noteworthy of my entrance into God's Country was that I was finally able to turn off my heater for the first time in over a week in the panhandle town of Dumas TX.

Speaking of Dumas, a little bit south of the town the road went over a slight rise. I was able to see the Amarillo skyline (such as it is) from that point. Dumas is approximately 30 miles northwest of Amarillo, so that should give you some idea of how flat the Texas panhandle is.

An additional indicator of the Texas panhandle's flatness is a story an old friend of mine once told me. He was a psychologist who lived in Lubbock TX. He had a patient who was afraid of heights. Part of the treatment was to accompany the patient to a high point to show him that nothing bad would happen. The kicker is that the highest point ion the Lubbock area was a freeway overpass. So my friend and his patient would spend an hour driving on the Lubbock loop and pulling over on the overpasses. Goodness knows what would happen to that guy if he ever went somewhere with true elevation changes.

Anyway, I'm almost home. I've had a great time on this trip, but I'm ready for it to end.