West Texas - Monahans, Odessa, Colorado City

We’ve been touring through the great state of Texas – west Texas with little to no internet access. Wide open spaces starting with rocking mountains of limestone VERY GRADUALLY shrinking to flat open prairie. Even though it’s 80 – 90 degrees, it’s still winter and brown. The shrub trees nor the small oak trees have any green on them. The prairie grass is dead. And it’s all accented by grayish brown limestone.

After leaving Pecos, I was determined to find something to be a tourist about. First stop, Monahan Sandhills State Park. Damien – to slide down the sandhills, we need to use a cheap round plastic sled or a simple wooden board. Since the winter winds have shrunk the hills, we chose not to play. We enjoyed the birds and checking out the little tracks in the sand. I fully enjoyed the Visitors Center. I learned a lot about how sand dunes are made. The Texas ones are babies compared to Death Valley and Sand Mountain in Nevada, but at least you don’t have as high to climb back up after sledding. The Park Rangers were very friendly – we think they may have been bored, yet I enjoyed all the info they shared. They were a couple – the wife shared her photos of the wildlife seen there while the hubby shared stories of the bison around Lubbock. I also learned that I20 follows the exact same trail the local Indians showed the pioneers before territorial wars broke out. The trail or I20 stops at watering holes through the desolate flat prairie – which now is covered with oil drills.

Back on the road, we passed by a huge billboard which read “Stanton – 3000 Friendly People and a Few Old Soreheads”. An interesting way of advertising your city.

Outside of Odessa, we stopped at the Meteor Crater. Seems that the scientists didn’t realize this hole was from a meteor until about 10 years ago. The hole was almost filled in and not impressive – especially after seeing the Meteor Crater in Arizona. I was shocked to learn that another crater exists south of here that’s over 10 times larger than the one we saw in Arizona. I did enjoy their Visitors Center though, especially the specimens such as the large crystalline olivine within a meteor, or the tektites from around the world. Moldavite, Libyan Glass, and other specialties are names to specify where the tektite comes from. Each one has its own unique look created when the meteor hit the ground, melting the sand, flinging it into the air (some going back into the atmosphere), immediately freezing, and falling back to earth. The content of the sand will affect the color and texture of the tektite.

I enjoyed the stories the best though – especially the one where the Apaches watched the “God” fall to the earth and retrieved what was left. They carried the meteorite around with the tribe for decades until the newer generations turned over the “rock” to the military who placed it in a University museum. Another group of early man observed their “God” fall to the earth, recovered “him” and mummified the meteorite. Clint enjoyed seeing the 23lb. meteor that fell through a lady’s car in Florida. Oh, our lonely visit was changed when a Senior Citizen bus stopped to take a tour. The comments were entertaining. Some were fascinated others wanted to know "why did they leave to see a big hole in the ground".

Our West Texas tour took us into Odessa. I'm surprised. It's actually kinda nice and modern. We stopped at the University to tour the horizontally correct replica of Stonehenge. Since I don't know if I'll ever make it to England, I wanted to stop and see. It's only 2/3 as tall, but still impressive in height. I'm surprised at how small the inner circles are and yet fascinated on the astronomical aspects. It would be fun to see this at an equinox and/or solstice.

Back on the road again, through Sweetwater and the County of Nolan. I missed the photo opportunity of a sign with Nolan's name.

We spent the night at Lake Colorado City. At first I wasn’t too thrilled with the park. Flat, brown with the main attraction a small lake that cools a local electric plant. I was also hot. Another day at 90 degrees and the evening wasn’t cooling down much. As I adjusted, I came to appreciate the area. At first it reminded me of Northlake by its look, but gradually it began to feel like South Texas – home. I very much enjoyed the covered fishing pier that I could sit on to watch the sunset and read.

On my sunset hike,

I came across my first live, wild armadillo. He was scouring in the brush near a dry creek bed. After my shock of seeing him, I was fascinated at how much noise he made. He had no fear of being heard. I didn't have a camera with me but this stock photo is close to how it look except his paws were on a branch and he was nibbling in a brush.

I slept with my windows open enjoying the warm breeze – more like a strong wind, but still felt great. I did forget how many bugs and insects Texas has. Those I did not miss.