Panhandle Perambulations, Day 3

I know I promised to live-blog the whole trip, but by the evening on Day 3 (Wednesday), we were beat and not up to fighting with motel wireless. Well, that, and the weather took a turn for the worse and kept us kind of busy.

We woke up to a beautifully cool and misty morning in Perryton, which is damn near the top of Texas. We were, no joke, maybe a 45 minute drive from Liberal, Kansas. We were further north than Tulsa, OK! The weather certainly help convince us of all of this. The sky sat heavy on the prairie as we traveled south along the Texas/Oklahoma border. First stop, Lipscomb! There are three towns in Lipscomb County, and the smallest one happens to be the county seat - it doesn't even have a gas station! Usually, when the railroad ended up bypassing a town in the panhandle, the town became a ghost town. Lipscomb managed to survive because the citizens didn't vote to make any other town the county seat. We were definitely charmed - the courthouse was more or less the only place where anything was happening, and we ran across wild turkeys that were ticking off the roosters in someone's yard. The best part of the town:

Of course, it's now a novelty store, and if you want to shop, you have to call the owner and have him come open it up for you.

Next up was Canadian. As we traveled south, the fog lifted and the heavy skies lightened, though the temperature remained low. The wide, flat prairie gave way to rolling hills, as oil country rose up in front of us.

The Canadian river is not named for Canada, but apparently comes from an Indian word meaning "boxed in." The terrain does give that impression, of walls keeping things in. The town is one of the prettiest in the panhandle (for that matter, so is the wilderness surrounding it). We stopped for lunch at the Cattle Exchange, a great steak-and-more place located inside the historic Moody Hotel.

From Canadian, we headed to Shamrock, on old Route 66.

From Shamrock, we went to Wellington, and from there, we hunted down the tiny town of Goodnight, Texas. Three guesses who is buried here, first two don't count.

We took a short drive through the Palo Duro Canyon, with a goal of driving past Happy, where some old friends of ours used to have a ranch. And from there it was a very short shot into Canyon, Texas, home of West Texas A&M University and our base of operations for the next two evenings.

We had dinner with our good friend Cassie and her mom at a restaurant in Canyon - and we finally got caught in one of the torrential downpours that we had been circling around for days!

We crashed late that night, knowing we wouldn't have to be up early to drive in the morning.

More on Days 4, 5, and 6 later!