A Treacherous Trip to The Panhandle

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We left Longview last week in a driving rainstorm, headed on a 500-mile trek to Canyon, home to West Texas A&M University. My Beautiful Mystery Companion was making a presentation at a literacy conference, and I was the designated driver. Not that she was imbibing, just that she designated me as her driver for this voyage. Canyon is 20 miles south of Amarillo.

I checked the weather app incessantly before leaving. Rain in Dallas, clear skies in Canyon. It looked like we would drive out of the rain, and we did — right into the aftermath of an ice storm, starting a few miles west of Denton. The landscape suddenly transformed into a crystal palace, ice covering power lines, trees, fence lines and pastures. The road, fortunately, was not iced over, but we had no idea what lay ahead. I pulled over and called a road condition number operated by the Texas Department of Transportation. A live human comes on quickly and advises about roads. It is a great service; travelers would be well advised to save the number to their phone. I know there are apps that provide the same service, but talking to a human is quicker and usually more efficient. The number: 800-452-9292. You’re welcome.

I pulled over and called. The woman on the other end looked at a map on her computer. “Looks pretty bad in Wichita Falls and beyond.” After considerable debate, we decided to forge ahead and stop in Wichita Falls if necessary.

It continued to rain, sideways at times with a fierce northern wind and temperatures hovering 2 degrees above freezing. I drove white-knuckled well under the speed limit, as 18-wheelers barreled past sending waves of spray on our windshield. My BMC busily snapped cell-phone photos of the white landscape. A number of vehicles were stuck in the median, having slid off the road when it was icy. Luckily for us, the steady traffic on U.S. 287 had melted the ice by the time we were on it.

We had to decide whether to continue once we arrived in Wichita Falls, rain still falling, the temperature holding steady at 34 degrees. We forged ahead with at least four hours of driving ahead, through Vernon (hometown of Kenneth Starr, the Clinton nemesis and former Baylor president); Quanah, named for Quanah Parker, the fierce Comanche chief; and Goodnight, named for pioneer rancher Charles Goodnight. Goodnight, I read later in the Panhandle-Plains Museum in Canyon, lived to be 93. Goodnight’s second wife — whom he married at 91 and was young enough to be his great-granddaughter — persuaded him to be baptized into her church. A friend asked the name of the church. “I don’t know,” Goodnight said, “but it’s a damn good one.”

By the time we got to Childress, the ice had receded from the highway shoulders, and the rain stopped. I was able to put the cruise control on 80 and make some time. More than nine hours after we had left on what was supposed to be a seven-hour drive, we pulled into Canyon, ready for a hot meal and a cold beer.

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Two days later, we headed home under a dazzlingly blue sky that stretched 180 degrees with nothing to break it up in either direction. The wind gusted up to 50 mph, and tumbleweeds skittered across the asphalt. That reminded me of my single stint working in West Texas, out in Fort Stockton. That city is known as the Gateway to Big Bend and home to the World’s Second-Largest Roadrunner. Paisano Pete, made of fiberglass, and 22-feet tall, for many years was the World’s Largest Roadrunner. Several years ago, some uppity outfit in New Mexico had a bigger roadrunner built. The nerve.

I was fairly miserable in Fort Stockton 30 years ago, missing pine trees and rain. I walked outside one spring day, the wind blowing ninety-to-nothing as usual, and watched a tumbleweed the size of a Mini Cooper roll unimpeded down Main Street and out of town. That is when I decided it was time to get back Behind the Pine Curtain.

We enjoyed our time in Canyon, which has a quant downtown square — bookstore, taproom, restaurants and shops — and especially our trip to nearby Palo Duro Canyon. But it is good to be home, even if it rains most every day.

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