In West Texas

When you travel west on I-40 from OKC to Amarillo, TX, you gain about 2400 feet in elevation.  Oklahoma is pretty green but as you slip over into the Texas Panhandle the colors are muted.  What trees are around are short.  Thirty miles east of Amarillo the trees are gone and you enter a khaki-colored  two dimensional world that gives a whole new meaning to the concept of flat.  With week after week of 100+ degree heat, the land looks distressed.  Wheat is mature at less than a foot high.  Many cotton fields only partially germinated and stand vacant and there is a brown haze of blowing dust.  They had up to an inch of rain a couple weeks ago bringing the total since Jan. 1 to just over 3 inches.  It’s about noon and we noticed Palo Duro Canyon State Park close by so decided to find some shade and catch a snack.  Canyon??  An amazing thing unfolds a half mile from the park entrance.  Suddenly you find yourself perched on the edge of a 600 foot drop off.  You’re looking at the Texas Grand Canyon that extends southeast for some 120 miles.  A wonderful, unexpected, and welcome visual break. But our destination for this day is a dot on the map called Happy Union about 17 miles south of Plainview on state route 400 and a visit with my sister-in-law’s Mom. Happy Union is now a state historical marker and an abandoned building that used to be a cotton gin.  In its heyday during the twenties, Happy Union also boasted a school, store, grain elevator, and filling station.   Coming into Plainview one is confronted with the obvious question, “Is this location a view of the plains or is the view of the plains, plain (unadorned.”)  You guessed it.  The answer is “yes”.  We met Colline in Plainview at Leal’s for a yummy Mexican dinner and then headed down to her country place.  At first glance it seemed lonely down there.  The nearest neighbor is a half mile away but he honks as he drives by to let her know he’s watching out for her.  The wind begins to die down as the sun drops below the horizon.  A vacant house down the road is silhouetted against the evening sky and I have to say that a kind of peacefulness seemed to settle down.  While Happy Union is no longer a town as such, it is a community – a repository of memories and continuing relationships that make a place home.  I think the grit in the air had forged grit in the character of these good people.  On to Big Bend National Park.