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Memories of Texas Travel

I made the wheat harvest run from Vernon, TX to northern Montana for several years in the eighties. I ran across your site by accident and some of the pictures brought back many fine memories of your state and the hospitality of the people there.

We usually were there about a month each spring, basing in Vernon and cutting around Wichita Falls, Denton, Thalia, Texoma, Iowa Park, Crowell, and Oklaunion before heading into Oklahoma. Sometimes we'd backtrack and run up to the Groom/Shamrock/Canadian/Pampa/Perryton area if Oklahoma was a bust because of rain. We'd always pick up our permits in Stratford, and I always thought it was pretty neat how they ran the road around both sides of the county courthouse there.

Anyway, just wanted to say how much I miss those days and make sure you tell everyone they really haven't lived until they've been to a Texas small town baseball game and barbecue/street dance afterwards. We used to go to them when we got rained out of the fields, and I haven't had BBQ that good since. If it was a good hot muggy evening that was brewing a thunderstorm that never quite spoiled the party, that was better yet. Iowa Park had the best ones we were ever to, and for a time Vernon had a little cafe with dirt floors that had hands down the best BBQ chicken I have ever eaten. It is long gone, but I can still taste that stuff as if it were yesterday.

Well, enjoy the warm and humid evenings coming up - lots of people didn't like that or the thunderstorms but I grew up in northeast Nebraska's tornado alley until I moved out here to SW Montana in 1979. That's one of the things I miss the most, and Texas has some of the best. You can sit outside and listen to a bluegrass band all night without ever getting even a little chilled. In August at my house north of Yellowstone Park about 70 miles, you'll have a coat and hat on the minute the sun starts down. Two days ago we had -29F with about four feet of snow on the ground, and this year I don't expect to see bare ground and warm temps until well into May - it's almost acting like winter.

--Submitted by Jay in Montana

posted by Paris & John @ 1:32 PM