Wrong Side of the Road by Sam Boatwright

Author:Sam Boatwright [Boatwright, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786231130
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2017-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Show Me the Way to Amarillo

We arrived in Texas. British people are told a lot about Texas by the press. We are told about the people and the certain views they have regarding race, religion and even politics. Due to these headlines, I think we headed into Texas was a tinge of trepidation. As with many things on this adventure our perceptions were changed by what we saw and experienced. Texas is a state full of beauty, its vast plains stretch to the horizon and cattle move in swatches across the land - it is truly amazing to see. I remember thinking to myself that you could probably set off in almost any direct and I doubt that you would see another soul all day.

I was at the start of two days of back to back cycling and so I had 300 miles to cover. The pace was fast and my legs were pumping hard to keep my average speed up. Landscapes whizzed by in a blur, blending from one to the next. The roads were a patch work of smooth, bowling-green tarmac and rough, cobbled country lane. The main problem with this was that these changes in surface could happen either within a few feet or a few miles of each other. This made it very hard for me to find any rhythm.

There wasn’t much to look at on the bike, the main view I had was the peak of my helmet or the droplet of sweat that accumulated on the tip of my nose. There was a scattering of houses every now and again, the occasional small outpost shop selling the very bare essentials but, aside from this, all you could see were fields – just fields.

We passed through a few different little towns; Erick, Sayre, Texola and Mclean. Mclean was my favourite - it was virtually abandoned but there was still a faint pulse resonating around the town. We pulled into Mclean towards the back end of the day. The majority of shops were closed and looked like they had been for a while, buildings were falling down or had already been pulled down and there was hardly anyone around.

The town was built in 1909 by an English Rancher, who died in 1912 aboard the Titanic. As we headed towards the south side of the town we saw a woman parked in the middle of the road staring at one of the torn down buildings. She wound her window down and greeted us. After the normal pleasantries and the usual shock at why we happened to be stood in Mclean on this particular day at this particular town, she began to tell us all about the history of the town. She told us tales of the town with great passion but also great sadness. The building she was staring at was the old cinema, it had been demolished the day before we arrived in Mclean. She told us of the antique shop she used to run and how vibrant and busy the town used to be.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.