It has been a few days since the last update, so this will get you caught up to our whereabouts.
We left Elephant Butte, New Mexico last Wednesday and travelled to Pecos, Texas.
As you probably already know it is where the "Worlds First Rodeo" was held.
It seems a lot of small towns out west are known for some kind of "World" something.
Take Sweetwater, Texas for example. It has the "Worlds Largest Rattlesnake Roundup".
And just our luck we came through there today and just missed this years roundup...Doggone it.
Need to put that on next years calendar.
Back on topic.....while we were in Pecos, we went to some of the small towns in the area. Along with Pecos these towns were mostly started up in the late 1800's when the railroad came through. They boomed as long as the railroad was the main carrier of people and goods to the far west. When roads, stagecoaches, and wagon trains took some of the rail business, most of these little towns dried up.....
Then comes the oil strikes and all of a sudden the little towns are booming again....for awhile.
They have since just about all but died out. Thier are really some nice old buildings in some of the towns and people still cling to the hope that boom times will come again.
One town that was a surprise to me was Pyote. It had a large U.S. Army Air Force base there during WWII. They had some B-17's and later B-29's. The base was called "Rattlesnake Bomber Base"
Here is a good link to information on Pyote, Texas
We went to Barstow, Toyah, Balmorhea, Saragosa,Verhalen, Mentone, Monahans, all in Texas.
Some smaller communities in between also...
Today, we left Pecos and made our way to Abilene, Texas. Let's see, didn't someone write a song about Abilene, Abilene, prettiest town Iv'e ever seen ? Well maybe not, but it is a catchy tune.
Dyess Air Force Base is located near the city of Abilene. The base is home to the 7th Bomb Wing, the premier operational B-1B Lancer unit in the U.S. Air Force and a vital player in both Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
On our way here we went through Midland Texas, which is the hometown of George W. & Laura Bush...we didn't see them though.
That's about it for this update. We'll see you down the road.