I was geared up for this big trip. And it is kind of a long way for me and my old dad to drive. But we started very early. He was here before five o'clock and by a couple of minutes after I had piled in four different little bags, two pillows, a soft cooler with some food, my coffee cups (one with coffee, one ice water) and a bag of food, a couple of books on tape and my cell phone (plugged into the power plug).

We arrived in Imperial, Texas before 11AM. It was 345 miles but you have to understand a couple of things. We don't stop for much. (One gas stop and one rest area where the Women's restroom had a tile mural of what seemed to be a Calvary manuever). And IH10 has a seventy-five MPH speed limit.

Imperial is the crossroads of nowhere. There are two roads that meet there. They don't go much of anywhere. You have to drive to another town to get groceries, though. It's pretty much nowhere, too, but with a convenience store. When we leave the Interstate to take one of these roads to Imperial, there is a sign that says 'No services past this point.' That pretty well says it. Dad and I always observe road kill and on this road we are trying to see what the vultures are consuming. Dad wonders what kind of vultures they are, too. Turkey or Mexican? They are working on some rabbit. The petroleum smell fills your nose and the donkey heads dot the desolate landscape, some actually moving up and down. A horse-drawn wagon pulls out of a side road. Dad and I also enjoy spying the wind farms and speculating on farming wind. Could you get a 'plow up check' for not farming your wind? Could you build a house and power it and feed the rest of your wind-tricity to the grid? How much do those huge windmills cost?

But we are at my aunt's house now. Her daughter from North Carolina shows up. She and her husband are driving a Winnebago with a vehicle in tow to Arizona for their son's wedding. The new Winnebago is bigger and way nicer than my first apartment. The two color TVs are bigger than any I owned before the 80's. My aunt is going to leave her double-wide manufactured home and move to a retirement apartment in Odessa. Maybe. She has a daughter here in Imperial and one in Odessa. Her daughter and son-in-law are close but when they work they are miles away. Imperial has no store and no place to work unless you teach. My aunt taught school. The student population is dwindling. The four daughters my aunt brought to the town are grown. The only daughter who remained and raised her kids here has seen her kids off from Imperial High School...and they've graduated from college.

We lunch, play games, check out my cousin's new above ground pool, have dinner. All that family stuff. At one point I go with my aunt on errands. Post office, dump, to the next town for Miracle Whip. We see a road runner but we don't see prairie dogs. (But we go by an area where they were once seen.)

There are a lot of us socializing here in nowhere tonight. But the population is dwindling. And tomorrow we will leave. If my aunt moves, we may never return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back feels some better.