Where is Lubbock, Texas?

Living in a town of just over 200,000 people out in the middle of the Llano Estacado, I'm often reminded of how far away Lubbock, Texas is from other places, and yet how close it is to other places.

Lubbock is at an elevation of 3,256 feet above sea level. That can be hard to believe considering it's flatter than a pancake on top of the Caprock, but we are also just a few hundred miles east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. For comparison's sake, Fayetteville, Ark., in the Ozarks Mountains is at 1,400 feet above sea level.

I've seen ice storms in the morning in Lubbock and dust storms in the afternoon on the same day. There has been drought in West Texas that could rival the desert, but I've also seen it rain 10 inches in eight hours. Just this winter, we've had four to five snows that measured over 3 - 5 inches here in the LBK and nights in the single digits, but we've had summers where it stayed above 100 degrees for weeks.

To reiterate, Lubbock is as far away from places as it is close to places.

I'd like to begin with the spacial awesomeness that exists in Texas. From Dalhart to Brownsville, it's 900 miles and approximately 14 hours by car. Texas Monthly recently did an article outlining a "bucket list" that every Texan should complete before they die, and it included making the drive from Dalhart, in the extreme northwest corner of the Panhandle, to Brownsville, which is at the extreme southern tip of Texas on the Mexican border. While I've only driven portions of the trip on seperate occasions, I can still attest - it's a long darn way and this is a big ol' state!

Likewise, it's 950 miles from Texarkana, Texas to El Paso in the far western edge of the state.

For comparison, a person could leave Fayetteville, Arkansas and nearly reach the Canadian border in the amount of distance and time it takes to travel this length of Texas.

It's actually about the same distance for me to drive to Arkansas as it is to drive to Houston (575 miles, 9 hours) in the same state. Also, in the same amount of time and distance as it takes to get to PG from the LBK, I could go west and be in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Lubbock is approximately 600 miles from my hometown of Prairie Grove, Ark. And, that's if you go the route that goes through Amarillo and east on I-40. If you take the more scenic route through Wichita Falls, then north to Oklahoma City, then it's roughly 560ish miles to PG. 

I've been asked if I'm close to San Antonio. 

I'm actually much closer to ski resorts than I am to San Antonio. Lubbock is 407 miles from San Antonio, which is approximately 6.5 hours by car. It's only 250 miles from Ruidoso, New Mexico, where they currently have a 60" base at their ski resort.

Lubbock is 347 miles and 5.5 hours from Dallas. Fayetteville is 333 miles to Dallas.

Lubbock is 382 miles and 6.5 hours from the capitol city of Austin.

Lubbock is 545 miles and 9 hours from Denver, Colorado. Fayetteville is 810 miles and nearly 13 hours from Colorado's capitol city.

I say all of this not to boast, but to marvel at the size and geographical amazingness of the state of Texas. It's huge. It's diverse. It's like no other state in the Union. It is home to five different types of ecosystems from tropical to desert. There are beaches, canyons, prairies, swamps, mountains, and the list goes on.

It really is "like an whole other country".

Visitors

Some visitors from the east made their way to Lubbock despite the curve balls Mother Nature kept throwing in their way.

Nearly a foot of snow in Dallas prevented my mom and dad from getting here on Thursday, as it was originally planned. But, thanks to good customer service from Southwest Airlines, they arrived safely on Friday.

The weather wasn't the only curve ball thrown during their visit. We had planned to head up to the Palo Duro Canyon on Saturday to enjoy the first nice (and semi warm) day in a long while. However, a slightly flooded garage due to a busted hot water heater changed our plans.

While this may have seemed like a big bummer, it couldn't have happened at a better time. The world's handiest man happened to be staying in our house. So, while Dad and Byron installed a completely new water heater setup (including new pipes and ventilation), Mom (the world's handiest interior decorator) and I made a couple of trips to Hobby Lobby and to DSW.

Since our original trip into the West Texas wilderness was cancelled, we decided to head to Rotan to show Dad around Byron's home place.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't nearly as pleasant as it had been the previous day. The wind was howling and the temperature had dropped. But, that didn't keep us from journeying into the mesquites and salt cedars of the Double Mountain region.

After seeing a sizeable muledeer the previous weekend, I was hoping to show them some evidence of the crazy amount of wildlife that roam this area - mainly to keep them from thinking I was telling tale tales.

We did scare up a group of about 8-10 feral hogs that were resting in standing water. They were as surprised to see us as we were to see them, because we were within about 20 yards of them when we they darted away. As luck would have it, we never have a rifle when we see hogs that close.

We took a look at the images the game camera had captured, then hiked up to a taller point overlooking the Brazos River.

With cold ears and thirsty mouths, we eventually wandered back to the truck.

It was a rare occasion to see widespread mud and standing water in Rotan.

The weekend was also special for another reason - not because it was silly Valentines Day. It was a year from the Friday the 13th of last year when Byron proposed to me in San Antonio.

Time flies when you're having fun.

Deer Tracks

On the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River, wildlife tracks are everywhere.

Feral hogs are about to take over. There are deer with bigger bodies than the cattle that graze the winter wheat pastures. Coyotes, a few bobcats, and turkeys also roam the rough country that has been invaded by the water-sucking salt cedar tree.

I saw a mule deer for the first time in person, and it was so big I thought it was a Charolais cow. The spread of it's massive antlers was incredible. Unfortunately, the digital zoom on my point and shoot camera couldn't entirely capture the deer's amazing size.

Byron set up a game camera for the first to get a glimpse of the animals that leave their tracks behind on the ranch's dark red dirt.

We usually like to take some sort of weapon with us, just in case we need to defend ourselves. Since we didn't take a firearm this trip, Byron settled for a machete.

After a short hike, we got to where Byron had mounted the game camera to a post. There were 2,548 images on the camera. Five of them were of deer - a nice 8 point buck, and several does and a spike. The rest were of a tumbleweed that had blown over the camera. It took a picture everytime the wind blew.

To make matters worse, after trying to download the deer images from the game camera, they all magically disappeared into that digital Never Never Land that consumes many things on our computers.


Luckily, we had the machete to cut away the annoying tumbleweeds.