Only in Texas can you drive for many days, many routes, many miles and still feel you are an underachiever.  Ginger colors our daily travel routes in the map book and in most cases the various states are filling up pretty good with colors.  Not Texas.  Again today we travelled over 400 miles in a northwesterly direction covering mainly new ground and ending up in Lubbock.

 

Our route was influenced by the need to have lunch at our favorite BBQ joint, Cooper’s.  We first sampled Cooper’s this past Spring during the Great Azaelea hunt and knew that should we get even close to Llano, TX we had to return.  The smoked meats and ambience were as remembered and we not only stuffed ourselves , but we bought some extra for future meals at home.  Our little travel refrigerator is also stuffed now.

 

We passed through the original Maverick, TX, an apropo item for the current environment.  In the 1800’s a guy named Maverick accumulated ranch land in central Texas and started raising cattle.  Apparently he did not believe in branding his cattle like the other ranchers, so when a cow was spotted wthout a brand it was called a maverick cow.  Isn’t that exciting to know how mavericks came to be known?

 

Lubbock is in the heart of the oil well country and the wells and pumps are all over here.  Activity is high in the fields even though prices are dropping.  Today we saw $1.92/gal. as an all time low for the trip.