Dessert, then Dinner!

 Our last full day in San Angelo again introduced us to new exciting experiences! This city is deceiving because it looks on the map like a sleepy, midsized Texas cow town that doesn’t have enough ambition to fix bumpy residential streets or fill potholes, but that’s the northern half of town. In the south, large malls and shopping areas along with restaurants are reminiscent of almost any suburban neighborhood.

While we like to spend time in upscale shopping centers, our preference is for “old town.” We found that on East Concho Avenue, a lovely restored and refurbished area that dates from the day the town was founded. We were looking for something unique, and found it at Eggemeyers General Store.

Dating from the 1850’s, and refurbished just a few years ago, Eggemeyers aims to bring shoppers back to a more friendly, “stay awhile” experience. By combining three original buildings into one, the General Store fulfills the expectation of having a little of everything.

I believe my favorite area was the candy counter, so a bit of pre-dessert was in order!

The housewares area was spectacular, and the jewelry counter displayed a number of fine Concho Pearl pieces.

Having worked up quite an appetite, we cruised down the street to the Western Sky Steakhouse. Sitting unassumingly between a bright orange taqueria and the Sands Motel, this restaurant has been serving their famous dredged steak and German fries since 1967. We were greeted rather abruptly and seated in an empty dining room. Our server, Jules, was attentive and pleasant, but the food had absolutely no taste whatsoever. 

Donnas KC steak was undercooked and tough, but sure looked impressive!

I ordered a ribeye steak fixed Mexican style. Again, appearance isn’t everything, is it! I should add that the German fries were a welcome change from the usual potato accompaniment. I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on the restaurant, but their reputation did not match their product tonight.

In any case, we’ve once again learned that the unexpected is to be expected. San Angelo is a great deal more interesting than it appears at first glance. We hope to return one day to find and photograph some sheep sculptures!

Somewhere new tomorrow!

Uh oh. Laundry Day.

 Second day in San Angelo, and we discovered an entirely new (to us) part of town! Southwest of downtown lies one of the three major reservoirs that supply San Angelo with water and power, Lake Nasworthy. Twin Buttes Reservoir is a bit west and O C Fisher Lake is just northwest of town. 

We heard that drag boat races were being held on Lake Nasworthy, so off we went! Following signs we found ourselves in Spring Creek Park along with roughly 5,000 of our best friends. Quickly understanding that we had no chance od seeing any of the action, we did an exit, stage left.

Lake Nasworthy is 25 feet deep at its greatest depth, and consequently, is very muddy and unattractive. We didn’t take any photos, but did note several nice parks and picnic spots along with some very nice homes along the shore. 

A couple of stops on the way back to the trailer, and we got back in time to do laundry. We thought the park had a lot of washing machines and dryers, but we soon found that not all were working.Three hours later we were done. Yeh!

Home of the Concho Pearl

 San Angelo, Texas, lies on the banks of the Concho River. Freshwater mollusks live in the river hereabouts and are the only source of the Concho Pearl. These beautiful lavender pearls are gently harvested and have a strict limit and location; the beauty of these natural wonders is stunning!

San Angelo is also a wool and mohair center. Of the world, if locals are to be believed. One thing for sure, there are thousands of sheep on ranches outside of town and over a hundred fiberglass sheep scattered around town that local artists have painted. We hope to see some while we’re here!

San Angelo is about 140 miles southeast of our last stop in Odessa. The trip here was totally uneventful, as most Texas state highways are a joy to drive on. Highway 158 brought us to US 87, and directly to San Angelo. The scenery along the way was spectacular…..well, sort of.

We’re now comfortably hooked up in the Concho Pearl RV Estates park just north of town.

The park is mostly filled with workers who evidently go home on weekends because it’s Saturday and there’s not a soul around. We had to text the owner when we arrived so we could check in!

Ambient temperature was in the high 90’ when we arrived in San Angelo, with about 26 percent humidity, a much larger number than we have been accustomed to, so to help deal with that we decided to spend a few air conditioned hours in Miss Hattie’s Cathouse. And restaurant.

Located in a restored building that was a bordello in the early 1900’s with an underground tunnel across the street to the sheriff’s office. Allegedly, of course….The building has a private staircase to the second floor. One long hall down the center with multiple doors leading to small rooms on each side. Let your imagination run with that.

A glass of “Ranch Water” and a glass of “Hatties Tea”, along with a Queso sausage dip prepared us for the main course.

A prime filet and a juicy ribeye, mesquite smoked and cooked to perfection took us into gastronomic la la land. Sorry, no pictures. Couldn’t wait! I won’t be telling my cardiologist about this one….

 

It’s About Oil, Mildred

 Midland, TX, with a population of 135,000, plus or minus, lives, eats, and breathes oil. The city was founded as a midpoint of the railroad line between Dallas and El Paso, and was a cattle ranching hub until 1923 when Santa Rita No 1 came in, spraying oil for 250 yards.

Investors had ponyed up $200 apiece to drill just over 3,000 feet, and after 646 days of pounding with a state of the art cable tool rig, they began to see gas bubbles escaping from the well head. Frank Pickerell had purchased the lease and equipment for $2500, and saw success bubbling up. He ordered drilling stopped and quickly bought neighboring leases before the news got out. Hours later, without further drilling, the wildcat well named for the saint of the impossible blew a new world into existence.

Midland is, understandably, home to the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum. With an extensive outdoor display of drilling rigs and pump jacks, we were immediately overwhelmed with the variety of equipment that has been used over time in “the patch.”

From small to large, this museum has it all!

Inside the wonderfully air conditioned museum, the displays begin with the origin of oil 250 million years ago when this was a deep sea teeming with life that lived and died and formed deep layers carbon that, with pressure and time formed pockets of oil. 

Without going into the people, equipment, and demand that created the oil industry in Texas, I will only say that the museum admirably covers every aspect of the complicated world of oil. Chemistry, geology, high tech equipment, AI technology, investment and rate of return along with the blood, the mud, and the beer that makes the wheels turn here. Touring this museum is an amazing and thoroughly enjoyable experience for the whole family.

We ended our tour admiring a detailed model of a drill rig from the ‘20’s.

It was a great visit to a thriving metropolis that is not only protecting a natural resource, but monitoring and husbanding its use.

We could spend a great deal more time in this area where Midland is the sophisticated older brother with a white shirt and Odessa is the younger brother with dirty jeans and a scab on his nose. We haven’t had a chance to explore the restaurant scene here or shop at local markets, so we’ll have to come back!

Who Knew?

 We are staying a couple of miles from the impact site of the second largest meteorite in the United States and the sixth largest in the world. Who knew? So, we had to visit.

The Visitors Center is chock-a-block with meteorites of all shapes and sizes from all over the world. Turns out, thousands of meteorites enter the Earth’s atmosphere every year, but only a handful reach the ground. Most of those are comprised of iron and nickel, and are scrubbed and shaped by their heated trip toward Earth. An interesting theory proposes that the “rocks” that hit our world are from the breakup of an as yet unknown planet located somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.

When the Odessa rock struck, it created a depression almost 200 feet deep. Today, after thousands of years, the hole is about six feet deep.

Leaving the south side of Odessa, we headed north toward the busiest area of the local oil patch, and the thriving community of Notrees, Texas. Yeah. There are no trees in Texas, and there isn’t much left of Notrees either.

Notrees does indeed have a remarkable point of interest. This area has, surprisingly for West Texas, the first wind turbines that we have seen in the state. You would think that with the constant wind…

Our drive took us on a 120 mile route through more of West Texas. It begins to numb the mind.

We stopped in Monahans, TX, for lunch. Our inclination was for fried chicken, so we dropped by a 4.7 star rated restaurant.

Order after knocking on the window, but not today.

Limited is right. They’re on vacation.

We found another chicken place that reminded us of Los Pollos Hermanos in Breaking Bad, but with a few thousand more miles on the tables and chairs! But, hey, the chicken was good!

We’ve got another day in the Patch, so stay tuned!

She Laughed When She Said….!

 When we changed our travel plans, we didn’t realize how difficult it would be to find an rv site on short notice. Particularly in the oil patch. Odessa and Midland, Texas, and surrounding areas comprise the Permian Basin, where a large part of America’s lifeblood oil originates. Consequently, this area is very active with companies supporting the industry and the skilled professional people who make it all happen. 

A good many of these workers are semi itinerant and live in rvs in huge rv parks for months or years at a time and then move on as the company requires. We scored a full hookup, pull through site in West Odessa named Park Place RV Park, with 260 sites. All but a dozen or so are reserved for oil workers.

We’ve passed through this region several times, but not stopped to explore. The highways are crowded with companies offering tools, materials and support to the oil industry. Huge open areas are packed with pipe, pumps, and “stuff” that I will never identify. Software and data systems companies border rows of tanker trucks waiting in the hot sun for the next load. And, at the west edge of town, a tremendous heap of metal with pipes bent like broken arms and shreds of rusted tanks that have carried their last consignment of oil, concrete, sand or water are being loaded onto a string of open railcars to be sent on their final journey to be reincarnated as…..pipes, tanks, pumps, and “stuff.”

We’ll be here for a couple of days, and hope to explore a bit.

The title?

When I called this morning to request an rv site, Wendolyn (yep, that’s her correct name) said she had four sites available. Like a dummy, I said that we need satellite access, so could she not put us under a tree. So, she laughed and said “There aren’t any trees in West Texas!”

I have to agree.

Ya Gotta Go with the Flow!

 Las Cruces was nice to us but we woke up this morning ready to head north into northwest Texas. Our initial stop was Roswell, NM (yeah, that Roswell…) for a quick overnight stay, and then on to our destination, Muleshoe, Texas. Legend has it that a mule shoe was found on a cattle ranch back in the day, and the ranch owner, being an admirer of the sure footed beast, named his ranch the Muleshoe Ranch. The town came into existence when the railroad was extended to Lubboc and a coaling station was needed. It prospered for years, with ranching and the railroad being employment mainstays, but as the need for a train stop diminished, so did Muleshoes prosperity, and today the population is less than 5.000, and most of the businesses on W American Blvd are shuttered.

Today, Muleshoe is home to the worlds largest mule shoe, located at the Muleshoe Heritage Center, and also the Dinner Bell restaurant, which is across the street from the Ray and Donna West Free RV Park. We really wanted to see the mule shoe, stay in a city supported free rv park, and eat at the Dinner Bell, but…

The remnants of a Pacific storm moved into New Mexico from Mexico overnight bringing heavy rain, high winds, and flooding all along our proposed route northward. We may be hard headed and stubborn, but we’ve learned not to argue with Mother Nature, and so changed our plans. Heading east on Interstate 10, we find ourselves in Van Horn, TX, about 170 miles east of Las Cruces for an overnight stop at an rv park completely used by local workers. We’re feeling a bit out of place!

The park is located about 100 yards from the highway, so road noise may be a problem, but maybe the loss of an hour due to time zone change will help!

We’re outta here tomorrow, I’ll be back!