Wanting to get out of San Antonio early, we set the alarm for 6:00 am. But there we were making coffee at 5:45. Heading out of town at 5:55 meant no continental breakfast and beating the traffic was more important than a Starbucks. Bummer.
Once again we found ourselves steering west on Interstate 10. By the way, this highway has got to be one of the longest in the country, stretching 2,434 miles from Jacksonville, Florida to Santa Monica, California. We weren’t on it for long this time, turning north on Highway 87. Six o’clock is pretty dark out in the middle of Texas and I found myself having to use the high beams whenever possible. Once the sun started to show itself we were in and out of fog.
We passed near Luckenbach, Texas, made famous in a Waylon Jennings song and even closer to the LBJ ranch. We were now in the hill country of Texas, with altitude ranging from 1600 to 2000 feet. Pretty country when you could see it through the fog. We finally stopped after about 140 miles for a quick breakfast in Brady. While eating a guy walks in. Cowboy shirt, jeans, silver buckle the size of a salad plate, boots, spurs and a …….. baseball cap. I wanted to ask what happened to the Stetson, but didn’t. 259 miles down the road in Abilene I got a Starbucks. That sounds like a long ways, but when you leave at 5:55 and drive at least 65 mph, it’s not so bad.
There are a lot of ranches in this part of the country and it seems like everyone has a name and some kind of arch type of thing over the driveway. The best name today, and I’m not kidding, was Belly Acres.
Once we got past Abilene three things suddenly appeared. First there was cotton. Cotton like you wouldn’t believe. Both sides of the road and as far as you could see. Second, oil wells began to show up out in the sage brush and in the middle of the cotton fields. No derricks of course, just the pumpjacks working oil to the surface. Lastly, there were wind turbines. Thousands of them, at least that’s my guess. Oh, and one other thing: there were a dozen or so longhorns.
About an hour out of Amarillo we pulled into a rest stop. A guy who was in front of me pointed out that one of my headlights was out. Hummm, maybe that’s why it was so dark this morning. The friendly Honda GPS gave me the name and phone number of the dealer in Amarillo, and a quick call confirmed that they could squeeze in this traveler in need. And they did.
The rest of the evening was uneventful. We checked into the hotel, got a little dinner and are now watching the Giants vs. Phillies. Tomorrow we are off the Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we will be meeting up with our friends from Chicago for two days. Now up to 10,040 miles. Almost time for another oil change. 546 miles today.
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