The Road to Marfa (continued from page 4)

Our information indicated Oklahoma City to be very close to half way, so we chose to stop there for the night. It is a short distance from Oklahoma City to the Texas line. A sobering fact considering that other than that segment; the entire second day would be spent on Texas highways and we would still be a fair distance from both Mexico and New Mexico when we reached Marfa. We had both spent a lot of time in Texas on business trips and Gene had also gone through Army Basic Training near El Paso, but we were both struck by how much greener everything was than we expected.

The trip around the Ft. Worth area was interesting. We passed a huge aircraft manufacturing plant located on a military airfield, perhaps the old Convair plant, and saw an old DC-6 or 7 climbing away from Meacham Field. Probably operated by a Central or South American freight carrier.

Once west of Ft. Worth you start to get a better grip on how big BIG is. The rolling land of North Texas flattens out and the horizons fade away to greater distances. There is not much between cities. The land becomes visually more arid as you travel west and is very dry by the time you reach Midland and Odessa. There perched on the tops of solitary ridges of maybe 500 feet we saw huge windmill farms in two locations, one boasting over 100 of the really large ones similar to those we saw last fall in Pennsylvania. This is also the business center of the Permian Basin, home of the west Texas oil industry. The obnoxious junkyards here are full of discarded drilling rigs, horse heads, pumps, pipe and tanks. The oilfield is everywhere with hundreds of producing wells visible in every direction. In some areas you can smell the crude oil, which has spilled on the ground. In nearby areas salt and alkali flats run for miles and near Monahans is a large area of sand hills similar to the sand hills of western Nebraska. Interestingly, according to Burt Compton, it was Midland-Odessa oil money that brought the National and World Soaring competitions to Marfa in the late sixties and early seventies. People like the recently deceased Wally Scott, Al Parker, and others who were avid soaring pilots, just bought and brought those now historic contests to the area. We passed but did not have time to visit the CAF Museum at Midland.

Burt had advised me to get off the interstate at Pecos and take TX 17 direct to Marfa. With only 105 miles to go, you feel as if you are almost there, but that is a mirage. Once on the two-lane highway, we got the close-up view. Pecos Municipal has a dirt strip and a few crop dusters in an old wooden hangar. There are many abandoned farmsteads with broken concrete irrigation flumes, many abandoned houses and businesses, and where you see people, a lot of substandard housing. There are many huge ranches too, but they tend to put their home and buildings away from the roads. Probably more in the middle of the tract of land and out of sight from the road. There are many private airstrips on these large ranches. We immediately noticed Pronghorn Antelope grazing near cattle. When we reached Fort Davis we knew we were close with signs for the McDonald Observatory and Mt. Livermore, 8,378 MSL, the highest rocks in the area. On leaving Fort Davis, we passed a huge green house, just one of many in the area used for hydroponics production of produce.

The Marfa Plateau is basically flat, and if you buy that you also realize it is somewhat rolling with its semi-desert landscape punctuated with low buttes, boulders, ravines, creek beds, more rocks, cactus, mesquite, tumbleweed, and a few places you might land out without breaking your glider, body, or both. John Byrd, resident cross-country guru and former US Team Member knows a fellow living in his community near Blue Mountain who has shot a dozen Cougars that were killing livestock just this year. Burt Compton gives a thorough briefing to all visiting pilots concerning dos and don¹ts, including basic survival needs and local conditions.

(continued on page 6)