Just Driving Around

Driving around while my wife takes pictures... back in Lubbock after visiting Shallowater.

 This is part of the Covenant Hospital medical area.

 The lake in Maxy Park is going dry, because it just won't rain.
 

 Destruction/Construction in the medical area off of Indiana Avenue.

 Lubbock has alleys.

 Lubbock has stop signs.

 This is Indiana Avenue, and there is a hill-- although it is not much of a hill.
 

 Monterey High School stadium lights!

 The lights are bright on Friday nights, during football season.

On The Road

Having failed to locate Shallowater's "downtown" (because there really is no such thing), we took one last picture to remind us of our Shallowater adventure.

And then we hit the road, and took photos of various sights along the way, beginning on the very outskirts of Lubbock. Lubbock has many apartment complexes, scattered all over town. The one below is in the extreme northwest.

 Parched vegetation, ripe for a wild fire...

 Lubbock is proud of its traffic signals.

 Lubbock is proud of its infrastructure, and sticks it right in your eye.

 Flyovers and traffic signals warm our hearts.

 We can't get enough of steel and concrete and asphalt.

 Big pickups rooool. There is a vast quantity of fat butt to haul in Lubbock, and a BIG ASS PU gets the job done!

More Views Of Shallowater, Texas

Shallowater is kind of bisected by the Clovis Highway. We searched both sides for "Downtown" in vain. Finally we stopped at a convenience store and talked to a lady selling Girl Scout cookies with her daughters. She said there really was NO downtown. The place we were standing could be considered that, or the area where we entered, just off the Clovis Highway. So that settled the issue. We bought cookies and moved on. We saw no supermarkets. We saw no municipal buildings. We saw no big box stores. We found convenience stores and a Dollar General. Since Shallowater is only 11 miles from Lubbock, I guess it seems pointless to build anything of consequence there. Shallowater does have a huge high school, however. My wife calls it a "bedroom" community. Most inhabitants work and shop in Lubbock. 

There are some nice residential areas and some that are not so nice. But there is no downtown! By the way, we couldn't find a movie theater or library or bookstore or antique store or furniture store, either. Or, for that matter, a place to get your car serviced, apart from shade-tree mechanic operations. 

Shallowater, Texas

A few weeks ago we drove to the little town of Shallowater, out on the Clovis Highway, and looked for the downtown area. We could not find it. Last weekend we tried again, with our cameras, and made a surprising discovery. This new photo series documents the drive. My wife even took pics "on the road", to provide a sense of what one sees in this area, just driving around. A lot of these road pics were taken in Lubbock. 

The surprising discovery was, when we took the pics above, we were IN downtown Shallowater. There is really nothing there!  There will be more pics to come, and I'll explain how we learned Shallowater's strange secret.

Last Pics From Slaton

The next series will feature Shallowater, the town with no downtown!

 This F-105 flew 200 combat missions!

  Apollo capsule boilerplate, used to determine flotation characteristics.

 Wide open spaces!
 

 More of the same!