Day 28: Lubbock, Texas, to Blackwell, Oklahoma

Sunday 20 October – There’s a secondary road that takes a traveler most of the way from Lubbock to Route 35, the north-south interstate that runs from the Mexico border at Nuevo Laredo all the way to Lake Superior, near the Canadian border.  Route 35 would be my companion from Oklahoma City to Kansas City, but first a few hours on the road less traveled, which was very lightly traveled indeed.  I don’t know whether that’s usual, or whether Sundays are quieter on Route 82 than another day might be.  I imagine a lot of truckers and others might prefer to take superhighway 40 to the north.  The smaller road is pretty generous with its speed limit – I think it got up to 70mph – but pulls it back for every small town, dropping to 55, then 45, then 40 or 35 according to the size of the town.

But, oh, those towns!  The heartland is everywhere, and in west Texas in late 2013 it takes the form of towns of a few hundred or a couple thousand people, about 10, 20 or 30 miles apart.  I’m sure this isn’t true, but it seemed to me that each town had its Dairy Queen, like the pub that defines an English or Irish village.  Also common:  a cemetery, a gas station, a tractor shop, and a building or two, or more, whose boarded-up, crumpled-up, or tumbled-down states attested to what the English gentry bemoaned, in the 1950s, as the Drift to the Cities.  Crosbyton was unusual in presenting a big field with two horses and a hillock topped with a life-sized statue of a gorilla.

The Dairy Queen in Seymour, Texas, was further testament to the Drift.  Four weeks into my trip, having eaten mostly healthy food throughout, I was overwhelmed by a craving for a Peanut Buster Parfait.  So I stopped.  Coming into town, I’d noted the population posted on the sign announcing Seymour:  2,908.  The DQ had faded photos of local scenes on its walls, including one of the town-limits sign showing the population as 3,657.  I’d guess they update those with the ten-year census...

Sorghum in foreground; cotton at back.

The photos also included a few of a crop I’d seen along the road, and that I couldn’t identify.  As a crusading journalist, or perhaps curious tourist, I asked a couple of local-seeming young mothers sitting beneath the picture what the plant was.  They looked around vaguely, eventually located the wall and its artwork, and guessed, “some kind of corn, maybe?”  I smiled even more vaguely and said, “It doesn’t look like corn,” and a very unkempt, somewhat smelly, but quite handsome young man informed us all that it’s sorghum.  I would have asked him first, but his grime level and oil-field maintenance-company t-shirt, plus the way he slumped over the table, suggested he was weary.  Also, he had a gigantic backpack, and I didn’t want even to suggest that I might welcome a hitchhiker.  I had too little room in the car, and too much risk aversion.

Ignorance enlightened and parfait consumed, I left Seymour, wondering about the SHS Panthers, for whom Panther Pride and Win the Day slogans decorated the DQ windows.  I bet the high-school sports teams in the area travel ridiculous distances to find matches and games.

If this cotton field isn't sparkling, check your monitor's settings.

They travel through beauty, though.  The dark green leaves of the cotton plants sparkle with a copper sheen in the sunlight; the grasses on the median strip and by the side of the road gleam silver-white, like an early moon, and red-gold and many shades of green; the balls of cotton, almost ready for harvest, are like the bright white, round lights that encircle the dressing-room mirror of a movie star.  This sparkle of flora has accompanied me, off and on, all around the country, and I’m curious about what causes it.  In Illinois, I thought it was the angle of the sun; by South Dakota, I wondered if it was the wind.  The scrubland doesn’t sparkle.  My yard, in Virginia, doesn’t sparkle.  Does the Miracle-Grow green of lawn grass absorb sunlight in a way that grain does not?

There are also animals around here, not sparkling, and mostly well hidden.  I saw a few of the classic ranch entrances, with the rounded sign above a tall gate announcing the name of the ranch – Haystack Mountain Ranch; Pitchfork Ranch; Coller Ranch.  They’ve got to have animals, although for the most part I saw only scrub.  There were three black cows by one fence, and then two cute little red-brown pigs, clearly escaped from a pen, eating grass or something by the side of the highway.  I would have cheered their bid to escape becoming someone’s Christmas ham, but I suspected they’d probably end their lives, and soon, as roadkill.  Not too far past the pigs, I saw a herd comprised of a mix of black cows, variously-colored horses and a few deep-brown llamas.

Sorry, Lil, if you're looking.
AnoninTX, if this isn't a coyote, please let me know!

I stopped the car outside of Seymour, by a ranch gate titled ‘La Escalera III.’  For some reason, I’d decided to take a closer look at a coyote corpse.  It was a beautiful animal, clearly killed recently, with thick, healthy fur.  What struck me most, though, standing by that small highway, was the sound.  All of this plain seemed to chirp (a few birds and tens of thousands of grasshoppers), buzz (power lines overhead, grasshoppers leaping and flying from ground to hip level) and rustle (wind through the grass and bushes), occasionally enlivened by the soft, lonely lowing of a cow.  And this is not a scenic viewpoint, where you’re supposed to stop and be struck by beauty.  This is just a dead coyote, a ranch gate and a middle-aged tourist willing to be amazed.  Incapable, really, of not being amazed.

I should note, too, that there were New Mexico sunflowers all over Texas.

After 200 miles of fields and tiny towns, I reached Wichita Falls, boasting a population of 105,000.  That’s a bit smaller than Lubbock, but Wichita Falls looks more like a city to me – more compact, and higher.  Lubbock spreads out quite a bit, which may reflect the sprawl of Texas Tech.

As I considered the two small cities, turning onto mega-route 44 with mild regret that I wouldn’t explore Wichita Falls, I suddenly realized – son of a biscuit! – I was in Oklahoma.  I’m pretty sure there was a welcome sign, but I was distracted by the sign announcing the Red River.  The river was well-named, and seriously red.  The water level was low, and the dirt of the river bed is red, and so...  That red dirt, specked with spring-green shoots – maybe a field of winter wheat? – made for a beautiful view from the superhighway.

View from the entrance to the WMWR

My introduction to Oklahoma – where I really hope my EZPass works, as I just blew through a couple of toll booths without thinking about it much – offered relatively flat land, some cultivated and some probably used for grazing.  There were some mountains, or at least big hills, on the northern horizon, though, and as I drew closer to them, I started seeing signs for the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  The signs didn’t promise, but strongly implied, that I would see bison there.  After the brief and by now accustomed tussle between my impulses to drive farther and to see more, I chose see more, and as per am entirely glad I did.

The refuge had a sign welcoming people back after the government shutdown, a sturdy but not intimidating fence separating it from Fort Sill, and a whole lot of cattle guards on the roads.  When I stopped to take a look at a peaceful lake, I thought I heard wounded bison crying from the bushes, which was very alarming.  Once I figured out it was just the sound cars make as their tires vibrate against the cattle guards.  Much less alarming.  There were some warning signs at the start of the trail, though, that were slightly alarming in their liberal use of sarcasm.

Sarcasm, NWS-style, with possible copyright violations.

It was a bit close to sunset, so I chose a short trail that promised spectacular views, and came through spectacularly.  I think it was called Elk Mountain, but the only critters I saw on trail were some fairly unremarkable bugs and one snake.  The snake sighting was not entertaining, though it didn’t take me entirely by surprise.  I have no idea what kind it was, or whether it posed any possible danger.  I hope not, because I stopped to take its picture, which would be a really dopey thing to do with any dangerous animal.  I did see critters galore as I drove to and from the trailhead, though, including prairie dogs, longhorn cattle and dozens of bison, mostly in groups.  There was one especially big one, though, grazing by the visitor center as I left the refuge, and entirely ignoring the several cars pulled over to look at him.  They are both majestic and fuzzy; I am so glad I got to see them.  I am also really glad that my taxes help provide them with a place to live successfully, and roads and trails that allow me to look at them.  There are more pictures from the refuge here.

two bison

one bison

one longhorn - not a native species,
but subject to preservation for heritage

prairie dog!  They had to re-introduce
the species at the WMWR

Well exercised (the trail was very steep) in body and spirit, I resumed driving with Oklahoma City as my goal.  The sky was dark as I got close, and the pumpkin-orange moon, nearly full, was rising over the city.  Curiously, there was also a giant, glowing orange dome – a human creation – that dominated the city skyline.  Or at least a part of the skyline; Oklahoma City seemed to me to stretch for about 30 miles.  Looking at the municipal website, I have just discovered that, “At 621.2 square miles, Oklahoma City is in the top five largest cities in the country in terms of geographic area. The City spreads into four counties: Oklahoma, Canadian, Cleveland and Pottawatomie.”  I suspect the glowing orange dome may have been the stadium where the Thunder play, since it looked a bit like a basketball, but I can’t find anything to confirm that.  It makes a good theory, though, and I like the idea.

One of the five largest cities in the country was too intimidating to me, and I wasn’t at all tired anyway, so I kept heading north.  Many of the towns I passed had official highway signs inviting motorists to “See Perry” (or Tonkawa, or wherever), followed by a bullet-point list of attractions.  Some of Oklahoma’s highlights include a Victorian town, oil baron mansions, Indian heritage, antiques malls, outlet shopping and town parks.  Blackwell, Oklahoma, offered a choice of cheap motels, so I pulled off there and booked into an EconoLodge with a pool.

Romances of the Road

Bea and Wes met in college, thirty-some years ago, fell in love and married within months and are happy together to this day.  Her little sister Hanna did the same with Don, about fifteen years later.  The sister in the middle, Rita, has just been divorced from a dishonest husband for the second time, and is hurting, hurting, hurting.

Stella and Vinnie met when they were both living far from their hometowns, after college.  They dated, they moved in, they married, they had babies.  They moved to her hometown and then to his, they changed jobs and professions.  Fifteen years together, or a bit more, and they look set for a lot more.

Rena’s father, about 90, was profoundly happy with her mother for decades.  A few years after he was widowed, he met another woman whom he grew to love deeply, and they married after a year or two and were profoundly happy for many more years before her recent death.  Rena and her brother have both been divorced, dated happily and unhappily, and are unattached today, around their 60^th birthdays.  They and their father wonder what made the difference.

Lee’s husband of 15 years fell in love with a user, spent a ton of money, broke both Lee’s heart and his own, and moved away.  Now she is exploring a new relationship with Howie, whose wife left him and their kids for a new life with a family friend a thousand miles away.  Howie sings Lee improvisational love songs and cooks for her, and she and the children have become buddies.  I have my fingers crossed for all kinds of happy continuations – never endings.

Libby and Rick met in grad school.  She told him she’d never have long hair or learn to cook.  They’ve been together 30 years and look like they fit like a hand in a driving glove.

Terry and Brit met when he was married, with a second baby on the way.  They fell in love gradually, anxious all the way, and he left his wife and two kids abruptly and moved in with her.  They loved and hurt and figured each other and themselves out for several years, and built a family with his kids, eventually adding more.  They’ve been together about 20 years, with rough spots and a lot of joy.

Neil and Betty dated in their 30s, when he was going through a second divorce.  She didn’t think it was working out, despite a strong bond, and moved far away.  She married; he married again.  They both had kids and plenty of them.  She divorced; he was widowed.  She got in touch with him through an internet search, and they talked on the phone.  The bond was still there.  They dated long distance, and eventually he moved to be with her.  That was ten or twelve years ago.  They take care of each other in old age.  The bond is still there.

Mary had several serious and not-so relationships over several decades, was married for a while but divorced, tried online dating with some success.  Now she doesn’t care – at about 60, she may be perfectly happy to be entirely single for the rest of her life.

My last-ex-but-one had a clearly-marked expiration date when I fell for him, and man oh man did it nonetheless hurt when that love affair went south.  Two years later, I met the most recent ex, and then loved and supported and fought with and encouraged and badgered and celebrated him for ten years, and now it’s over.

I just spent about six weeks driving 9,000 miles through the United States.  I traveled through 30 states, stopping at rest areas, bars, libraries, restaurants, beaches, gas stations, grocery stores, parks, book stores, motels, three airports, a Jiffy Lube, museums, a couple of active-retirement communities and several chocolate shops.  Other than Mr. John the Pickle Man, no one evinced any – call it ‘romantic’ – interest in my newly-single self.  This is not surprising; in my twenties I could spend a Friday night in a suburban TGI Friday’s, at the bar with a martini, mascara and no book, without anyone offering to spot me a drink.  Some kind of anti-stick coating, or a cloaking device, has always been part of my make-up.  But I did have some kind of epiphany, out on some lonely highway, when I realized I do want to be in love someday, with a man who knows me truly, and loves me, and shows it.  And that I’m worth that.  I really can be a great girlfriend when I pay attention.

I’ll keep you posted.

Day 27: Lubbock, Texas

Saturday 19 October – Despite my harbinger-ing of winter, A. and R. have decided to do Lubbock up right for me.  First, though, we must relax with the five cats (it’s really just four as one is decidedly unsociable with strangers, and has gone under a bed) and gaze in awe at A.T.’s display of Hallowe’en decorations, which adorn every wall and most surfaces of every room, including the master bathroom.  There are also collections of paperback romances, hockey memorabilia and ‘’Twas the Night Before Christmas” books.  Trying to discern a theme...  failing...  failing...

She also loves native son Buddy Holly (born Holley, misspelled on an early contract, adopted misspelling as easier for all concerned except perhaps his family), and we went first to the Buddy Holly Center.  The center features artifacts from his brief career, a soundtrack of his own plus tribute recordings, and the house where his drummer, friend and songwriting partner, Jerry Allison, grew up – and where he and Buddy wrote “That’ll Be the Day” together.

Visiting Buddy Holly

A.T. made sure I spotted the contact lens, which is about as thick as a dime and slightly larger in diameter.  Later a tour guide gave some back-story:  apparently Buddy Holly had 20-800 vision, hence the thick, black-framed glasses now incorporated in the Buddy Holly Center’s logo.  Of course some promoter or record company rep thought they’d prove unpopular, and urged him to switch to contact lenses.  Given his appalling bad sight and lens technology of the time, he got some kind of torture device instead of a seeing aid, and quickly abandoned contacts as they were painful, unwieldy and kept falling out.

The Allison house is a living time capsule of the late 1950s.  Most of the furnishings and decoration were recreated from photographs – just snapshots friends and family took in the house.  I hope several people had a great time collecting the things they needed.  It’s actually a project that would have been perfect for A.T.

The music lives.

I never really listened to much Buddy Holly music, or knew much about him beyond “Peggy Sue” and “The Day the Music Died.”  But I’m going to get some of his catalogue – his sadly truncated catalogue – because I loved the Center soundtrack, and they claim there that he was a great innovator in pop music composition and recording techniques.

We drove over to his gravesite next; the stone is engraved “BUDDY HOLLEY.”  Nickname; proper last name.  He was born Charles Hardin Holley, a West Texas kid with okay grades, blue-collar parents, glasses and a guitar.  He was one of the first rock stars, when no one knew how to be a rock star, before he was twenty.  He met his future wife when he was 21, proposed on their first date even though she was Puerto Rican and Roman Catholic and neither of those went down well in Lubbock in 1958, married two months later and died five months after that.  What an extraordinary, short life.

Another famous son of Lubbock

Remember Laura Ingalls lived in a dug-out house?
This is a half-dug-out.

He grew up in a time when his town wasn’t too far from its pioneer roots.  We went to the Ranching Heritage Center to look at homes of several decades, brought from various locations in West Texas and rebuilt on a single site in Lubbock.  Growing up in eastern Massachusetts, I always had this sense of the secret history of my area – there’s not a lot preserved from the indigenous tribes living in the area when the Pilgrims landed, so I mostly just wondered.  But we were stuffed with the post-European history:  Plimoth Rock, the Massachusetts Compact, the Salem witch trials, Paul Revere and the Boston Tea Party, Emerson and Thoreau.  So textbook history was 17^th and 18^th-century stuff, with some 19^th-century.  With an Anglophone mother and a liberal education, I was well aware that these were practically modern times to our friends across the Atlantic, and that my parents’ 18^th-century farmhouse, one of the oldest dwellings in our town, was a recent build to Europeans.

I doubt I am hardy enough to build a home from cactus.

In Lubbock, 1920 is history.  The art gallery was closed as staff readied the place for a dinner honoring ranchers of the year or something, but we were able to tour the historical park, which contains the houses.  The oldest were from the mid-19^th century, although “evidence dating from around 1783 suggests that Los Corralitos may be the earliest rancho with standing structures in the state of Texas.”   Los Corralitos, a seriously fortified home – i.e., no windows – originally stood in Zapata County, and was owned by Don José Fernando Vidaurri.  It makes the anti-Spanish language and anti-Latin American immigrant movement seem a bit weird.

Next on the tour was dinner at Chuy’s, which is actually an outpost of an Austin-founded restaurant.  A.T. was surprised (she’s been here how many times?) to discover that the Lubbock branch had a room with a hubcap ceiling, too – I was face down in a chile relleno, though, and cared neither about hubcaps nor the Elvis shrine.  Excellent grits.

Crowded, but very civil.

There were lots of cats;
this one especially good.

And after sunset, we stepped up the street to the Parks and Recreation Department’s Fifth Annual Pumpkin Trail.  I’d never seen one of these before, and was enchanted.  People in Lubbock donated about 2,000 Jack-o-lanterns, and the city laid them out along a park pathway, and lit them up.  There were hundreds of visitors the night we were there, shuffling along and pointing out another Texas Tech logo, the ones that used stencils, the classic three-triangles-and-a-grin model, the fancy one with an elaborate cat face, etc. etc.  It was wonderful.  You should start one in your town.  A.T. is trying to come up with a really original idea for a pumpkin for next year.

Get it?!!?