(this is actually yesterday's post, I wasn't able to upload it before)
Texas has some unique road signs. Many of their secondary roads are called Farm-to Market (FM) or Ranch-to-Market (RM) and then the number of the road. Some roads are also called spurs. It is an absolute must to have an individual map of Texas, our atlas just wont do the job, especially with a permitted load. We traveled mostly on secondary roads yesterday, probably doubling the amount of miles we need to drive. it’s a nice scenic cruise, but slow and fuel consuming. One can not imagine the immense size of Texas unless you’ve seen it this way.
Texas, I think, is the only state that all posted speed limits are five miles slower at night than the daylight hours, for both cars and big trucks.
Fortunately, we are routed through Brady, home of our favorite BBQ place and we take a quick stop in for bite. Normally, we are fighting daylight and try not to stop until sunset, but we had to make an exception this one time.
We get up at sunrise this morning and its down to 32 degrees, a big difference from yesterdays temps in the 80’s. . We head out into a light rain, directly into a strong head wind which is slowing our progress considerably. We are keeping our eye on the blizzard they had in Denver yesterday, we were hoping to get that far today, but this wind is going to play a big role in whether or not that happens. We actually pass a sand truck but no evidence of ice………….yet.
The contrast of colors in Texas is amazing,. You have deep rich jade green of the irrigated hay fields, the red ochre of the newly plowed earth, or the black earth that you find in the southern Texan cotton fields. The beige field grasses, interspersed with brown, black, white, grey livestock. Purple, pink and yellow road flowers, patches of white cotton in all the nooks and crannies.
Now the long rows of emerald green and terra cotta red furrows are lined with white snow, resembling a flag. We trudge a few more miles and now we know why the salt shakers were out, the road is nothing but ice. We pass 2 more sand trucks, it would be nice if they were in front of us though.
The roads get worse the farther north we go. We are first on the scene at a vehicle roll-over. I grab our first aid kit and work our way over. The wind is blowing stinging pellets of snow at us as we skate over the vehicle, it’s a U-haul that passed us a few miles back. Luckily the passengers escaped injury. Another motorist stops, he is a doctor, but thankfully his services aren’t needed. We have the couple come in the truck to warm up while waiting for the emergency crews to arrive.
We are very low on fuel, and are trying to make it to Amarillo. We warn a big truck heading southbound of the emergency vehicles and they in turn tell us all the roads in Amarillo are closed down. I checked the weather for Denver, never thinking once that I would need to check Amarillo. I do so now and there is a blizzard warning in effect. That delay cost us precious time and now we don’t dare take the chance making it to Amarillo and the truck stops. Luckily we find a small shell station that has diesel and we pull in and have to shut down probably for the day. If we get stopped with an over size load, no only will we be fined, but they will probably suspend our permits.
We are shut down for the remainder of the day, and for the night. All we can do is hope that conditions clear early tomorrow morning.
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