July 9, 2015 TX, COLORADO, WYOMING, MONTANA, DAKOTAS...

July 9, 2015  On the Road Again: Leaving Texas

We finished packing a few things this morning and pulled out at 7:45AM, with Amarillo, TX today’s destination at 550+ miles. 

Traffic getting out of Houston made us doubly happy to be leaving that behind, and the 78 degree temps made us triple-ly happy to also leave that behind.  But first we have to get out of Texas….

Waved to Sam Houston as we passed Huntsville, headed north into hazy skies.  We think it is the “African Dust” which has been carried to our part of the world, and it became more pronounced as we got nearer Dallas.  We bypassed Dallas, going through Fort Worth instead and then heading northwest, through Witchita Falls, Chilicothe and Quanah.  We are roughly following the route of the cattle drives across northern Texas.  There are also many Native American sites.

Listened to “Amarillo by Morning” by George Strait as we took in the jack-up rigs, ranches, cotton and other fields, many wind turbines, cacti, etc.  Many small towns with 500 or fewer people.

It has been obvious that Texas has been getting lots of rain.  Appreciated by many ranchers and farmers who have had several years of drought. 

  Further along, we crossed the Prairie Dog branch of the Red River and lots of standing water in fields and pastures for many miles.  Maybe a little too much rain for some! Hard to tell where the river bed is.

We have seen many trains along this route, often paralleling  the road.  The Burlington Northern & Santa Fe seems quite busy!

We arrived at Amarillo and took a slight detour to see The Cadillac Ranch, which we’d heard of ….  Someone’s idea of art, and it changes daily as many folks stop and add graffiti of their own. 

Tracked down a welcoming Walmart and enjoyed cold Jamaican chicken that Greg did on the grill last night at home and potato salad.  Temperatures reached the high nineties at their peak today, but it cooled off pleasantly.

The big damper today was an email from sister-in-law Sue.  Tom has been having back issues since about a week before the wedding(late June).  Thought he pulled something lifting his bike but it hasn’t been improving.  He went to the doc on Tuesday and was told it was nothing that a few weeks of Physical Theraphy wouldn’t take care of.  But the pain continued to get worse and finally drove them to the ER.  They did an MRI and diagnosed lymphoma – this is in Laramie, WY, where they were supposed to do a bike ride soon.   We offered to come and drive with them back to AZ (thinking Tom might be more comfortable in the Trek) but they declined.  They are headed back to AZ tomorrow and Sue is already making arrangements to be seen at the University of AZ Hospital as soon as possible.  So we will wait for details as to what exactly is wrong and what can be done. Please pray for both of them as it will probably be a difficult road ahead.