To continue our perambulations, we headed north out of Lubbock, popped in a newly purchased copy of a Buddy Holly and the Crickets CD, and made a quick stop in Littlefield. This town is really not much to speak of - there is almost no infrastructure working or open - but it does have the distinction of being the hometown of Waylon Jennings. We snapped a picture of the water tower with that boast, and also of the replica of the XIT Ranch Windmill, which was once the tallest wooden windmill in Texas. The replica is made of steel and is, we think, a bit shorter than the real one was. But it was still really cool.
Back in the Buddy Holly Center, there was a quote on the wall from a Bob Wills album's liner notes, which mused that so many minstrels and musicians had emerged from West Texas because they needed to sing out loud and penetrate the vast silence of the region. As we continued our travels here today, that quote stayed with me, and it became very clear as we went on that there is truth in it. Seeing the places that birthed Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore (and so many more) kind of sent a shock of realization. When you're up here, you have dueling reactions. To close your eyes and see if you can hear God speaking, or to tip your head back and sing as loud as you can in praise of Him and in awe of His creation. I don't know if all these musicians viewed what they did as worship. It doesn't matter. They were out to break the silence and shake awake the world.
From Littlefield, we went through Amarillo (to be tackled later in the trip) and up to Lake Meredith and the Alabites Flint Quarry National Monument. The weather service predicted storms so we didn't linger, though we had clear blue skies for several more hours. The quarries were beautiful, seemingly untouched by time or man.
Up we went to Borger and Stinnett. It took us awhile, and two trips over the Canadian River, but we found the Hutchinson County Museum, which was a real treasure. Like with the winery yesterday, we stumbled in not long before closing, and we had to savor as much as we could without getting the full effect. There was a quilt show going on, and some amazing pieces were on display in addition to the usual displays. What was so cool about Borger was the story - an oil boomtown that literally sprung up overnight in 1926, and has a violent history not unlike that of older and more well-known places like Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone.
Stinnett is the county seat, and the courthouse is a beautiful one, but the city was just a bump in the road on our way out to Adobe Walls.
Storms had begun to seriously encroach on the area, though they remained distant enough that we could watch and enjoy them for their terrible beauty without getting very wet. This was a real blessing, because Adobe Walls was one of our planned destinations for this trip, and it was quite the haul to get there. About 26.7 miles away from Stinnett, 15.6 miles of that are on little county roads, a good portion of which are gravel inside the Turkey Track Ranch. The gentleman at the Hutchinson County Museum acted as though he was quite surprised we would want to make the trek. Sure enough, while we did pass some Virginia visitors on their way out of the area, we were clearly some of the very few visitors to this historic battlefield site. Randy's a big Elmer Kelton fan, so this was special for him, and for me, visiting places like this always makes me feel somewhat haunted. This is sacred ground, in some ways. The Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874 was a showdown between a band of Quanah Parker's men and U.S. Cavalry, a payback for an earlier battle not far from here in 1864 (Kit Carson's "last battle") and a way of acting out over illegal poaching of buffalo south of the Arkansas River. Some of the soldiers are buried here, and there are monuments dedicated to the Native Americans who fought here.
The storm headed south, and we headed north, ending our evening in Perryton, the northernmost county seat in the state of Texas. The next "big" town on the northern route is Liberal, Kansas, on the other side of the Oklahoma panhandle ("No Man's Land"). But we are probably not venturing in that direction tomorrow, opting instead to see more of this glorious Texas soil.
Funny side note. We were flipping around to find a radio station here, to follow weather updates. We thought we'd found one - until the weather news indicated a storm near "Rolla" outside of "Texas County." While there is a Texas County in Oklahoma, there is not a "Rolla." There is, however, this exact layout in central Missouri. We went through it last summer! Somehow, we were picking up a radio station out of Missouri. Last night, we found one that was broadcasting about 30 miles south of Oakland, California. Wacky - esp. as these were FM stations!
Okay, this post is really really long. Time to crawl into bed!
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