Settled in at Dalhart, Texas

Yesterday's ride was hard on Dave.  Winds buffeted the RV for most of the way, strong winds hitting the left side and I could see where Dave was fighting to keep the RV going straight.  Did not have to take any interstates, just two lane federal roadways all 203 miles.  We first traveled about 57 miles eastbound on US Route 50, traveling along the same route as the Santa Fe Trail and following the Arkansas River.  Once we got into Lamar and headed south, we said bye-bye to the trail and hopefully will pick it up again while near Santa Fe in a week.  Stayed on US Route 385 all the way into Dalhart, Texas.

The treeline to left is the Arkansas River and along Santa Fe Trail

Dave said, short poles for short linemen!  Hey - no short jokes!!

Wide openness, rarely saw a farm, no wildlife, just grasslands and fields, flatness.  What farms we did see had planted jojoba and those fields were close to harvest.  And of course, lots of tarantulas on the road, sorry buddies to those we ran over - squish.  Couldn't move the RV out of the way fast enough.  Passed a huge area with wind turbines (wind generators) going full blast.  As far as you could see.

Road to horizon, edge of the earth

Wind turbines

LOTS of wind turbines

Dropped down through the south east corner of Colorado, sped literally through Oklahoma's Panhandle (about 35 miles of a very straight road) then entered Texas.  So weird to see so many Texas plates - the car and RV feel right at home now.  And how did Buddy do?  What a mess.  I don't think the Dramamine is helping at all.  Just glad he is okay within 15 minutes of us stopping.

Oh my

Blinked and we were out of Oklahoma

The Lone Star State

What's with Dalhart?  Not redneck, not dirty, just lots of working people and businesses.  A lot of what we call - workerbees.  They have their RV parked and live out of it and all leave about 5am to 6am to go to work.  Noisy period for about an hour with doors slamming, trucks revving and backing out of their spots.  Diesel trucks with all kinds of equipment on the bed of the truck.  Then they all zoom back home about 5:30pm.  Dalhart is a combination of 2 county names (the city sits in the border of 2 counties) Dallam and Hartley.  About 8000 people.

Agriculture and all the businesses that support it, large cow and pig farms, big cheese factory that is fairly new (Hilman Cheese), the Union Pacific Railroad as well as Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad criss cross right here in town.  Surprising how quiet with all the trains.  And gazillion eighteen wheeler trucks.  Four major US routes criss cross right here also.  Sitting at the top of Texas, this town is closer to 6 other state capitols (Santa Fe, Denver, Topeka, Lincoln, Oklahoma City, and Cheyenne) than it is to it's own capitol - Austin.  Did I tell you Texas is a big state?

Smelly, stinky huge cattle farms

Our goal for being here:  to get the car and RV inspected (once every 2 years) and also to hopefully visit the Rita Blanca National Grasslands.  Lots of rain predicted this week so don't know if we will be able to visit the grasslands but we will see.