The great wall of wind!

Remember a few days ago when I was teasing about the winds of Arizona being like Texas winds?  Well they are not like Texas winds, I can now tell you for sure.  Today we had West Texas wind, and it almost rocked us off of the highway.

It picks up the dirt from the landscape and blows a big dust storm across the road.  We were on the interstate so I wasn't worried that we would run into anybody, but the thought did pass thru my mind that if someone stopped in the road, you might not know it until too late.

West Texas is oil and gas country, and the drilling rigs are all over the place.  A neighbor said they are drilling new gas wells out here, and it is a bonanza hey day.  And so it is.  Almost every third vehicle is some sort of oil support equipment.  Frac tanks and mud tanks coming into the wells.  Flat beds with pipe and so forth.

I am not an oil well specialist, so I only recognize the equipment as it is at the drilling sites.  At Odesa, this equipment seems to be stockpiled at the many companies that provide the work.  I'm not sure there were many other forms of businesses in Odesa.  Well that is how it seems from the road.

We thought about stopping for a Wal Mart there, but didn't find it right away so we passes until we reached Midland.  Midland is huge, with about 100,000 residents, so I reverted to the GPS to find the Wal Mart for me.  And it was good that I did, as it was as far away from the Interstate as you could get and still be in town.

We drove on farther, and decided to make a day of it in Abilene.  I pulled off at the exit for the KOA camp, and ran into a grass fire along the side of the road.  A fire truck was blocking the frontage road, and I was too far off the interstate to go back.  OOhh I had to stop and wait it out while they put the fire out.  I tried to back up with the trailer on the back, but wasn't making much progress.

They finally allowed us thru, after the fire was mostly out.  Smelly.....  And the camp was only another 100 yards down the road.  So tonight, we can still smell the nasty grass fire smell as we sit here in the park.  We ran the A/C until it got dark to kill the smell some, but it is to be 34 tonight, so the A/C won't be in the picture during the night.

We are 150 miles West of Fort Worth.  This is where I 35 heads North toward KC and our home.  We are running out of options on staying South of the storm that is up there right now.  Our daughter in law texted me that it was sleeting starting at 9 AM.  Something to look forward to.

Retired Rod