I got so wrapped up with the end of the trip that I never got to tell anyone about how the trip to Colorado started. My father and I woke up early and we started to head out of Nacogdoches. Neither of us had eaten, and we had both heard good things about this place called the Country Kitchen, so we decided to give it a try. Upon arrival, I knew we had hit a jackpot. There was a table sitting next to us that comprised of two women and an older man. He was complaining about his inheritance from his mother and how his sister was a money grubbing you-know-what.
There were a few gentlemen sitting at tables alone. They wore coveralls and Lone Star hats. For those of you not from Texas Lone Star is both a feed and fertilizer company as well as the National Beer of Texas. These guys were probably not aware of the beer company and their hats were in support of the fertilizer company.
Our waitress was a young woman around 19 or 20 that was wearing a rodeo belt buckle that could easily serve the purpose of a plate in a jam (or if the situation required it the heavy collection of rhinestones could easily blind any would be attacker by collecting the moonlight into a blinding beam). Her shirt had a phrase that I will never forget. It said, “Voted Most Likely To Steal Your Truck.” I pondered on that shirt for a while and I decided that it was a country thing that I just wouldn’t understand. The food was excellent and my only complaint was that there were televisions in the room. I hate it when there are TVs because they always become the center of attention. I always prefer to observe the others in the room and engage in conversation much more than watching a flickering box.
As we left the car bottomed out. This restaurant had a parking lot that left much to be desired. It was essentially a dirt lot with potholes large enough to lose small dogs in. When arriving at the restaurant you don’t realize the large bump as you transfer from pavement to dirt. Upon departure the bump is much more obvious. Our departure was announced by a scraping noise as the bottom of the car rubbed against the pavement that is TX HWY 259.
Our goal for the first day of the trip was to make it to Amarillo, TX. After reviewing the map, we approximated our trip to take 9 or 10 hours, depending on how many stops we took. After about an hour of traveling, I realized that I could hear a rather strange noise. It sounded like a grinding, and it appeared to vary depending on our rate of speed. I pulled over to check it out and I discovered that a plastic piece was being dragged underneath the car. It was near the front on the passenger side, in front of the tire. The main function of this piece appeared to be keeping rain out of the engine compartment. I made the quick decision that it was worthless and promptly tried to break it off. Being in another vehicle than mine, I was without a knife and I couldn’t find a good way to break it off. I quickly settled on the second best solution and found a way to tuck it up out of the way so that we wouldn’t be dragging it any more. With that problem solved, we decided it was time to get farther away from home and closer to Amarillo.
The trip was pretty uneventful as we cut through Dallas and traveled down Interstate 20. At one of our quick stops we noticed that the broken car piece had come dislodged. I finally got the placement right the second time and we never had to deal with it again.
If you have ever made the trip from East Texas to Lubbock you will remember the extreme boredom that sets in during this drive. Once you are west of Ft. Worth there isn’t a lot to notice. The landscape becomes flat quickly and you are on the same road for a long time. You finally change roads at Hwy 84 to turn north to Lubbock. Once you make this turn you abandon the boredom associated with driving on an Interstate and replace it with the new sensation of being surrounded with cotton fields and wind turbines.
