Day 59-August 16, 2012- Sunset, TX
Drove 280 miles in 6-1/2 hours today on Route 287 to Sunset, TX south of Bowie. Nice road, much more interesting than the interstate. We went through little towns like Claude, Bowie, (as in Jim Bowie), Goodnight, Fruitland (where there were peach orchards and fruit stands selling all sorts of fruits and veggies) and historical Clarendon. Stopped at a rest area with lots of “Watch out for rattlesnakes” signs. We stopped at a Super Wal-Mart to stock up on groceries, stores are far and few between here.
Open range cattle and sheep ranches here. Not as many oil wells as I expected, in fact none ‘til we got south of Wichita Falls. Wichita Falls was named in 1882 for a 5’ waterfall, which was very unusual for such flat terrain. It was washed away by a flood four years later and in 1987 they built a 54’ tiered cascade downstream of the original and it’s right in the middle of town. It does look funny with nothing but flat plains around it.
All day we kept seeing flatbeds going the other way, each one carrying one blade of a wind generator, must have seen at least 20, but it would take a lot more than that to make a wind farm. We’ve never seen them except when they’re on a hill working and they were surprisingly big up close.
The heat finally broke today like everybody said it would and it’s been wonderful all day, never getting above 84.
We’re at a nice little campground, even has a free laundry, too bad we just did it a few days ago. Only staying one night then heading toward home. The closer we get to home the more anxious we are to get there.