From where we spent the night (in West Texas), we drove to Dallas, crossing a big chunk of Texas on the way. I’ve flown into Texas and driven through parts of it (East, North, and far West Texas), but this was the first time I’d driven through oil country. It was… Interesting. It smelled like oil for large parts of the drive and the number of wells was really pretty amazing, as was the electrical grid set up to power them.
One of my cousins lives in Dallas. We had recently reconnected after not seeing each other for close to 20 years and he kindly invited us to spend the night at his place. His wife and kids were out of town at a family reunion and he had to work, so he left the front door open for us when we arrived and told us to jump in the pool. Toren wasn’t about to hesitate with that offer, so we did. It was very gracious of him. When he got back from work, he took us to a delicious restaurant (I think it was Bubba’s Cooks Country) that served authentic southern food. The chicken-fried steak was divine! Really, it was amazing. I could feel it clogging my veins as I ate it, but boy was it good.
We stayed up chatting with him late into the night. He has an interesting career and we had a lot of catching up to do. It was a lot of fun.
daily mileage: 425; total mileage: 7,467
states visited: no new states visited; total state count: 25 (plus 1 territory and 1 other country)
