Abilene – TX

 GREETINGS FROM ABILENE, Texas (TX) USA

Well here we are !

The start of the next instalment in our adventure –

“50 States, in a country far, far away ………”

 Episode 7 – the South Central USA !

(with apologies to George Lucas)

With lots of ground to cover on this tour, our destination today was really just to get us on the road and on our way after landing in Dallas in the early afternoon – we will return to Dallas itself for a few days at the end of the trip and we will get to have a look around then before heading home.

And after reclining and enjoying all the comforts at the “pointy end” of the plane, a bit of a drive to get us going was not really a problem.

As you can see below, for this trip I have “jazzed up” my drive mapping and our actual drive shows as if you were browsing Google Maps yourself.

For anyone new to Google Maps, here is a quick lesson – “Google Maps 101” – If you click on the “+” and “-” in the bottom right corner of the map, you can zoom in and out to get an even better idea of where we actually are and where we have been on our tour today. Within the map, click on the map, then hold the button on your mouse and move your mouse around to move up, down, right and left within the map.
If you are really keen, clicking on the box on the bottom left hand side will give you the satellite imagery of the surrounding area ! And finally, clicking on “More options” in the map titles will open Google Maps in another window for an even larger area overview.

I am sure Adrienne will give you (or already has !) the full rundown on the flight in her blog Travels and Tech or on Facebook but safe to say I think she wanted to “souvenir” her first class seat – or at least any left over bottles of champagne – but our tour must go on. Certainly a bonus being up the front of the plan – there was absolutely no one at customs so after collecting our bags – almost first ones on the carousel – and clearing immigration all within about 30 minutes , we collected our “first” Alamo hire car – a Jeep Cherokee again for this trip – and “hit the road” ! Well…. after a slight delay to set up all the “in-car essentials” – GoPro, TomTom, Ipad, music soundtrack, camera gear at the ready etc etc…. we finally “hit the road” !

Whilst we would generally just refer to it as Dallas, Texas, the airport and surrounding area is officially known as “Dallas – Fort Worth”.  The whole area is actually the largest inland metropolitan area in the USA (and 4th largest overall). It is also referred to as the “Metroplex” – blending the words “Metropolis” and “Complex” – apparently the result of an advertising campaign in the 1970’s aimed at replacing “North Texas” to describe the region as it had lacked any identifiability for the rest of the US. It even stretches as Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington now – Arlington (actually located between the other two) is the location of the 101,000 seat AT&T Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys NFL team.

Our drive today was pretty simple – from the airport it was just west across the north of downtown Fort Worth to link up with Interstate 20 and then all the way to Abilene. We only touched the edges of it however it seems that the road systems in and around Dallas-Fort Worth have been going through some extensive upgrading – for who knows how long. But it is impressive ! I will try and post a video to Youtube so you can get an idea of the “clover leaf junctions” along the way – but these we have seen today are piddling compared to some of the others apparently closer into Dallas itself. And we covered some ground on the “TEXpress” ways heading out also. When it comes to the roads – certainly around here, “bigger and better in Texas”  can’t really be argued with ! Being early afternoon, the traffic was pretty light so we made good time and with little delay.

Abilene is about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive west of Dallas. If you click on the “satellite imagery” box in the map above, you will see that from about here heading further west, the landscape starts to lose its green tinge ! It is an original “cowboy town” having sprung up in the late 1800’s as a cattle depot when the railways spread into the West.
And in the fine American tradition of duplicating town names from state to state, Abilene Texas was named after Abilene Kansas !
Abilene Kansas was the original endpoint of the “Chisholm Trail” – a major cattle trail from Texas to the Kansas railheads before the railways came into Texas. Obviously they didn’t want to make it too hard for the cow pokes to remember where they were going to and from – they just had to get the direction and states right !

These days it is mainly an economy based around government (it has an air force base and criminal justice department) and, like a lot of Texas, the petroleum industry. Not a very big town but it has a Walmart and Outlet Centre to get us stocked up for the trip ahead !
Although we have visited Texas previously, that was much further south so this is all new territory for us.

We are staying at the Marriott Residence Inn in Abilene. One of the great things we have found about travelling around the USA is the competition for your holiday dollar – or probably more specifically from a US perspective the “travellers” dollar. We have stayed at a number of hotel chains which really offer an “all inclusive” package for your stay on certain days of the week. Tonight it is “Mix It Up Wednesday” – so for our booked rate tonight its a meal – Lasagna, pasta salad, green salad and garlic bread, beer, wine and soft drinks, our comfortable room,  free Wifi and extensive breakfast options in the morning – all included !

I mentioned earlier collecting our “first car” at the airport. About 30 miles short of Abilene the “Service Transmission” warning light came on and from then on the car would not get above 2,000 RPM – luckily the road was flat as a tack and we didnt need any major hill climbing so we made it to our hotel. It was then on the phone to Alamo Roadside Assistance to sort out our next step. Luckily the guy on the phone was able to (hopefully) find us a replacement at Abilene Airport but we have to wait until 10pm to collect it. So we just hope it’s there when we go later to change it over.

Well, relaxed and rested we may be but the change in the body clock still hits you after a long flight and it might be a struggle staying awake till 10pm so it won’t be long after before we call it a night. Tomorrow (we hope !) it’s off into that wide, brown land – to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Until then – Today’s Tour Trivia – singer, actress and reality TV personality Jessica Simpson was born in Abilene !