Netroots Nation Day 1: New Mexico Through Texas Panhandle

Tower in clouds

I know there's a lot of politics going on, but right now I'm more interested in seeing the wide-open skies, billowing thunderheads, horizon-stretching landscapes and weird juxtapositions of new and old along the roads we're traveling to Austin. We sped out of Albuquerque going East on I-40 later than we planned, which is a tradition of sorts. The best laid plans and all that. It was good to finally get beyond the still surprisingly sprawl of Edgewood and Moriarty and into the reddish rocks and table mesas of Santa Rosa and Tucumcari. Ah.

Donley County Courthouse in Clarendon TX

Then into the Texas Panhandle, through the oddly suburban, mall-filled outskirts of Amarillo into the older, much funkier section of town with all the grain elevators, farm equipment centers and clumps of trailers where workers live. Onward past the awful stench of a large feedlot and down 287 headed South and a little East, dipping into what used to be heavy-duty cotton country, but now has mostly peaches, cattle, melons and soybeans as far as I could tell.

Another side of the Courthouse in Clarendon

Every now and then you hit a small town. Many of them seem half-deserted but still half alive, abandoned houses mixed in with nicely kept homes. Lots of chock-full "antique" shops, many housed in what used to be gas stations. Quirky and sometimes elegant architecture in the older town centers, with massive churches and courthouses from the late 1800s, and red brick streets extending for blocks from the main squares.

Directly across street from County Courthouse

We stopped and explored a bit in a place called Clarendon. You really should click on the name and check out its illustrious history. I've included a handful of photos here from Clarendon, all taken within a half-block or so. The contrasts, the contrasts.

Half a block from Courthouse: One-of-a-kind gas station of yore

Beyond the small Clarendon College on the Western edge into a hodgepodge of a town. Peaceful, if a bit melancholy. It has a very homey feeling, despite its rough edges. Swallows squeaking and swooping. Pudgy green trees I couldn't identify. A spectacular courthouse that had been recently and beautifully restored by the State of Texas. A plaque said it's the oldest functioning courthouse in the Panhandle, first opened for business in 1891. This town, originally a Methodist outpost known as a "sobriety settlement," was evidently very, very prosperous at various times from cattle and cotton.

Justice of the Peace across from Courthouse

Nearby, in Palo Duro Canyon, was the massive JA Ranch, co-owned by John George Adair of Ireland and Charles Goodnight, who spent his later years in Clarendon. Goodnight is perhaps the most famous rancher in Texas history. His life was full of firsts and adventurous escapades, including establishing what became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail with his partner Oliver Loving. I could go on. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove and its sequels, Larry McMurtry based the relationship between Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call on the relationship between Goodnight and Loving.

Up and down the empty (except for us) red brick street
in front of Courthouse

We were aiming to get to Wichita Falls today, but made it only to someplace called Quanah, TX, named after Quanah Parker, a remarkable and controversial Comanche who founded the Native American Church, which features the sacret taking of peyote, among many other accomplishments. Today, lots of truckers stop here, but the buffalo spirits are still present somehow.

Ghost of gas station past, when a gallon cost ... what?

Tomorrow we head to Wichita Falls, Stephenville and into Austin from the West. Another contrast. More juxtapositions. From the historic old towns of rural Texas to the Netroots connectedness of the Austin bloggers' conference. Quite a leap.

What's left of the gas pump. Will we be seeing lots of these, early 21st century-style?

Photos by M.E. Broderick. Click on images for larger versions.

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