West Texas really does go on forever.


From Alpine east, the landscape didn’t get any more interesting. The main difference was that instead of using the motorhome to slaughter pretty little white butterflies with black wing edges, now we were slaughtering large black butterflies. The bright spot in the whole situation was that the reason there were so many butterflies is that there were a lot of wildflowers blooming along the roadside. Apparently Texas doesn’t believe in mowing the shoulders, which meant that the vegetation grew right up to the road and the wildflowers were enjoying the runoff from the highway. In the desert, the wildflowers bloom early in the year, beginning in February and drying up in the late spring heat. I’d forgotten that in the rest of the country, the spring bloom starts later and persists into summer. Amazing what just a little more rain can do.



People often complain about the deadly dullness of the I-10 corridor across western Arizona, but at least there are mountains to break the horizon. In west and central Texas, the hills are rolling at best and the only thing to look at is the flowers alongside the road. It stands to reason that main highways are not necessarily built through scenic areas, but at least in the olden days (when I was young), business could put up funny signs along the roadways, like Burma Shave signs or billboards advertising wacky tourist attractions. I remember on one trip with my parents through Wyoming seeing signs advertising clean restrooms for miles and miles ahead, then finally the “clean restrooms” were revealed to be a pair of tractor tires, one labeled men and one labeled women, sitting in the middle of a dusty landscape. Humor like that isn’t allowed any more but at least we have air conditioning in the vehicle. I don’t know if that’s a good trade-off or not.



Somewhere between Fort Stockton and Ozona, all of a sudden there were trees, not just junipers but honest to goodness oaks and other kinds I don’t know. I checked the map and sure enough, this was just about longitude 100 West which is the widely-accepted dividing line between where it rains and where it doesn’t rain. The trees know. Also along in there, we started seeing blankets of low growing pink flowers alongside the road and in the median.In one place the entire 50-plus-foot-wide median was completely covered with pink. This photo is the best I could get at 60 mph.








Anyone who knows us knows that we like to eat. I’ve started planning my trips with the aid of Chowhound, which is an on-line site with discussion groups about restaurants in various areas. When Al mentioned that he wanted to stay in Junction TX for the night, I recalled a Chowhound discussion of a barbecue place in Junction. The lady at the RV park (which shall remain nameless since it was shamelessly overpriced) steered us in the right direction. The specialty of Cooper’s is the “big chop”, a huge double-rib thick barbecued (i.e., smoked) pork chop that was probably the best piece of pork I’ve ever eaten. We also bought a (teeny tiny) shoulder of cabrito, which was tasty but a bit on the dry side, which is not surprising since a baby goat doesn’t normally have a lot of fat. It’s this kind of thing that makes driving across west Texas worthwhile. The photo below shows the outdoor smokers, which are a bit different from the method used by the top-rated old established places. However, you can see they are set up to smoke a whole lot of whatever. There isn’t a lot of ambience and the meat is served from a deli-type case, which further reduces the ambience. Pretty tasty though and a good segue into Texas-style 'cue.













We arrived in central Texas on Sunday, which limited our options for barbecue and the only one we even considered was Smitty’s Market in Lockhart. We ordered brisket and pork ribs (ribs available only on weekends), way too much meat but we ate it all. Fortunately we were early because a lot of other folks had the same idea. The photo below shows the smoke room, where the fire sits on the floor and the smoke is directed mostly up into the meat chamber. I say mostly because in the amount of time it takes to place your order, have it cut, and pay for it, you’re going to end up pretty smokey smelling. That's not poor focus in the picture, that's real smoke. I can’t imagine what it’s like to work in a place like that day after day. There must be no OSHA in Texas. The meat is taken directly off the fire and cut before your very eyes to your requested weight. The cutters are competitive about cutting exactly the amount called for and there’s a lot of joking going on. A great place to enjoy doing business if you can stand the smoke. Fortunately, you eat in another room, where you also get your sides and drinks. In most places, you can get a plastic knife, but the accepted method of eating is with the hands.Some people put the meat between the slices of white bread that you get with the meat order, and some just lay into the meat. I don’t think Smitty’s even has BBQ sauce and generally in any of the places, you won't get a fork to eat your sides--only spoons will be available. By the time you're done, you're hands are so greasy you can't hardly hang onto your glass bottle of Big Red and your lips won't need chapstick for a week. I'm not going to mention the effect on the arteries.












The next day we did lunch at the City Market in Luling which regularly beats out Smitty’s in the rankings but is not open on Sunday. We ordered less meat and it was so good that we were almost sorry we’d decided to exercise restraint.The brisket was definitely better than at Smitty’s and the glaze on the ribs wasn’t as sweet and was more to my liking. However, everyone has their own taste in the matter and it certainly makes for a lively discussion when Texans talk about barbecue joints.



Three days of red meat was more than our systems could take, so our next stop was planned for the beach, where we could get seafood.



Here are some more of the wildflowers that we saw along the roadsides.