roadtrip to armadillo - IV, random pictures

i know...this post is way too fucking long, too convoluted and too full of my screwed up sense of humor. suck it, trebek. it's my blog.

on our roadtrip to and from amarillo, we took several sidetrips down obscure farm roads to see what we could see*. on one of the more profitable of those meandering excursions we saw the coolest thing. this low flying barn cresting a hill just the barest bit above the ground as it skimmed, star wars style, over a hay field.

who knew barns could fly?**

i took over 300 pictures on the trip to and from amarillo. i won't bore you with all of them, or all of my silly ramblings about them, but here are a few.


these next 3 were taken at a roadside strip mall just outside of henrietta, texas. it was a sunday and the place was closed, so i have no idea how much they wanted for the steel and tin sculptures, but they were kinda cool. they'd make good yard art or beer garden decorations. the store name in the background is "cadillac cowgirl." i can't help but wonder if it's owned by the same person who lives about 50 miles back, here.



this headless cowboy is next to a coral with a couple of horses that awol didn't exactly make friends with. when one of them came out to take a leak awol's jaw went slack at the size of it. (oh wait, maybe that was terri's jaw...) anyway, much barking ensued. (i'm pretty sure it awol doing the barking.)



this is my favorite piece they had. being near the town of henrietta it reminded me of a chicken i once had named henrietta. when my ex and i first moved to dallas back in 1975 we brought our one remaining chicken with us. one day soon after the move she got out of her pen. the next thing we knew she was chasing our cat down the middle of velasco street in broad daylight! it was a sight to see. ahahahahaha. henrietta. she was a real hoot, but i don't think she ever totally made the transition from free range country chicken to being an illegal city-chicken.




these here are 19th century saloon doors in Saint Jo, texas.

(did ya notice how i hit the shift key there? that's because Saint Jo is an extremely awesome name for a town. it's a shout out to all you Jos out there!)

there's also a bit of irony in those swingin' doors still being there. it seems the name of the town is due to a town founder guy named joe, nicknamed SAINT JO, being such a zealous prohibitionist.



later on in the trip, while stopped to check out a historical marker, (it's about charles goodnight and will be featured in a later post about all the historical markers we saw and might just bore most of you to sleep)...

awol found these 2 dung beetles moving their goods across the plains of the panhandle of texas. actually only one of them was doing the moving. the other one just hung on for the free ride.

hmmm...come to think of it, that sounds kinda like me on our roadtrip. just along for a free ride, no real responsibility, other than acting as navigator/tour guide.

would you believe we spent at least 30 minutes watching them do their thing?(pun intended) well, we did.


now this is a pretty famous roadside attraction. it's called cadillac ranch. i will have to admit i consider it the most boring/least interesting thing i saw on our trip aside from an ill-advised stop at a sonic drive-in in some podunk town. and even there we saw a guy hauling a freaking airplane*** behind his truck with the plane's wings tucked back like a downhill racer.

this is what it looked liked when stanley marsh 3 installed it back in the day...

and this is what it looks like now. well, almost. that was 2-3 weeks ago and in the single hour we were there, about 5 cans of spray paint were unloaded on the cars by the visitors. sure, it was still kinda cool and the artist doesn't seem to mind the graffiti, but i give it about a 2 on a scale of 10 compared to other stuff we saw.



for instance, palo duro canyon at sunset is very, very cool. it's a 9, at least. (ok, so i got camera happy and took too many dopey pictures here, but if you looked at that web album...did you see all the hoards of wild indians on the ridgetops? i sure did.) we only stayed an hour, but i would very much like to camp out there for a few days. you should check it out some time if you ever have the chance.



i know i'm rambling on too long to be showing this next one. it's just a car we saw on the highway. it's a "versa." i'd never heard of that model car and was just wondering if they shouldn't have a bumper sticker made that says, "my other car is a vice."

but then, they'd probably never be able able to decide which car to take, would they? "vice?, versa? - vice? versa? - vice?..."




*to see what we could see... ****

**if you believe that, i've got a flying pig i'd like to sell you.

*** ****also one of the funniest novels you'll ever read.