At 10 pm last night, after a kid finally stopped dribbling his basketball at the court near my tent, I finally fell asleep. It was quiet until 4:30 am when a dog in a nearby house started barking every 20-30 seconds. So although I’d dodged the threat of wildfires, I got little sleep. I packed up everything at 6 am and was walking on a dark Hwy 60 twenty minutes later.
At one point, while walking in the semi-darkness, I thought I heard horses hooves. Indeed, it was six horses galloping along behind the barbed wire beside me, then stopping, then running again as I progressed. It was quite thrilling to see and hear them.
Instead of two 15-mile days of walking, the ride I received from David allowed me to cut a full day of travel to Canadian, Texas. All I had to do was walk 23 miles today. Which I did.
Once again, it was up and down hills until I reached that last rise and the plains stretched out before me in a quite magnificent view.
Around noon, I sensed movement near my leg. I looked down to see two friendly dogs walking quietly beside me on the road. In spite of my loudly telling them to “Go home!” they followed me for a mile, sometimes wandering onto the highway, where trucks periodically came whizzing by at 75 mph. Eventually they stopped following me.
I arrived at The Quiet Inn at 3:30, greeted by Lucero, a sweet young woman with whom I spoke yesterday. She helped me get a discount on a Pizza Hut delivery order, and we talked about travel.
Hwy 60 seems to be feast or famine when it comes to services, and it looks like I’m heading into a famine phase. I’ll stock up on water and food as I leave town tomorrow morning. I’ll soon be in Oklahoma.
@ Canadian, Texas