DAY 2 OF MY 20 DAY JOURNEY
I awoke and got my stuff together and headed downstairs to the breakfast buffet. I soon realized you don’t want to stay in a hotel name Country as they steam their eggs and sausage. Everything else was dry and unappetizing. I had noticed the night before all these little things that suggested they don’t really care, but breakfast sealed the deal.
The world was moist and the sunrise was beautiful as I drove towards Austin, Texas.
After diving for awhile I came into the town of Post. Wandering around the downtown I really liked the place. They had a cute library, bed and breakfast and lots of small shops.
As I drove into this town I saw signs of support for Trump and Pence. As drove towards this town I pass more gas wells than any place in Colorado. You would smell Propane for miles and it made you want to throw up, it was so strong. The wells or the holding tanks were old and leaking. I started to realize that everyone in the town was a worker and the jobs were low paying and many were really hard that the men had to take. I saw lots of men in white pickups traveling to jobs at 6 in the morning. The best meal you can get in these small towns are McDonalds. I had a sausage egg McMuffin and a medium coffee for $2.60. Super cheap because no one makes much money.
Then I decided to travel down the back streets and check out where people lived. The houses looked like a third world country. We are a third world country and the desperation is palatable. I could see your car or truck was more important than your house because you could get to work. You are in debt and the barely making a living. All the well off people lived on ranches and owned businesses. They didn’t live in town. This really gave me an understanding of how out touch the cities are with places like this in the country.
There is a book that talks about this situation that Margaret recommended.
As I drove further into Scurry county and closer to Winter I found myself surround by wind turbines and they were huge and it seemed like they were eating the sky. There were over a hundred of these turbines.
After many miles I reached Sweetwater which I thought was going to be a cool town as it was quite large. The reality is that it was as I described above but worse. The town was the center to of justice for the valley. The only businesses that appeared to be in business were law offices that spanned an entire city block. All the rest were business that had gone out of business in the center of town. I did find a supermarket and bought some water, but it tasted as if it had been extracted from a gas well.
This is a town that is still struggling to figure out what to do. Tons of poor people and crime. But when I got to Winter they told me a rattle snake gathering happens (where I think they kill them) and huge thrift sales.
The best thing about Sweetwater was the cactus.
When I got to Winter, I was in a green valley below Sweetwater and no longer in the plains. The valley was full of lush trees and more water. Winter was a lovely little town with a great coffee shop that had the best muffins! The Attic was a cool store with all kinds of women clothes and wonderful items. The store was attached to the her husbands hardware store. Kinda of a sweet love story.
I traveled through a town, I believe was called Brownwood that were selling tons of junk.
Then I came down into a beautiful little town called Goldwaite. This town was geared towards tourists. There were great restaurants, the houses were very nice.
From here I went to Lometa which had an amazing welcome center and indigenous garden.
From there I entered Lampasas where I had lunch at a small Mexican restaurant. The food was average, but it was nice to support the a local business. I wanted to go to the German restaurant but it was closed.
Along the way I fell in love with these flowers:
Finally I got to Austin. There are lots of cools businesses. The diversity of the place is amazing. There are plenty of strip malls. You could spend months exploring this city.
I love the art and the all the cool stores.
