mc² – Not The Painter

March 21, 2023 – Day 34

We headed out early to escape the wind. Hopefully, this will be the last you hear from us about wind. Don’t worry, we’re getting tired of it also. Actually, there might be some wind tomorrow but then we’ll be done with west Texas.

So what’s with the blog title?

Today is all about energy. We were surprised when we crossed Texas on our way to Phoenix we saw very little oil activity. We later looked it up, we were too far south. Coming back, well, it was all different. We saw oil activity everywhere. We drove through about 250 miles of oil fields, really, that much, from Carlsbad NM to Bronte TX. There’s nothing here for the oil industry to destroy, just nothing. (But of course, this is wrong, there’s natural beauty here that we’re just not familiar with.)

But soon the ugliness gave away to a cleaner form of energy, and not cleaner just from a Climate Change perspective, but visually cleaner.

Sure, the windmills also have their environment faults, they are bad for bird strikes, but so are airplanes, the grounding of the Exxon Valdez and the burning of the oil fields in Kuwait. People are bad for birds.

I guess the point is that we all consume energy and it is good for each and everyone of us to know where our energy comes from. It comes from places like the 250 miles we drove through.

While driving across rural Texas you don’t come across anything, especially not anything resembling a store, restaurant, gas station or rest area. We wanted to do a driver change, so I saw a sign that said “Historic Marker 1 mile” and pulled over when I saw the marker.

EDITH

Original site one mile north

Settled by cattlemen who ran herds on open range, and stock farming homesteaders.

Development began in early 1880 ‘s after Sinfield Scott, rancher, fenced his spread.

Area had three schools lodge hall tabernacle, general store, cotton gin and blacksmith shop.

The post office, established in 1890, was named for Edith Bonsall who was an admired young lady of Ballinger. It closed in 1955; Dwindling schools combined, then consolidated with those of nearby Robert Lee. (yes that Robert Lee. That town was named after him).

As trends toward urban living increased, Edith declined (1969)

How romantic, he named the town after his ‘admired‘ gal.

So it was with some irony that we spent our evening at a Harvest Host in Rowena Texas, the Rowena Fillin’ Station Bar and Grill which is an old “filling” or gas station from 1927. The owner and his wife opened this a few years ago, showing off Clinton’s collection of automative memorabilia. They were really nice people. We really enjoyed this stop.

We both had Texas beers, I actually liked my Shiner Bock. It is rare for me to like a beer.