A small ranch style home in Midland, painted gray Bush home in Midland

Driving from California to New England in the Spring means that going through Texas is almost unavoidable. Going North involves the probability that snow will be on the road at least part of the time; South of the state means heading into Mexico. For people like us, who have made this trip many times, there are few good roads in the Texas West; the obvious choice is the freeway although speed limits can be as high as 80 miles per hour.

A lot of West Texas is desert, and the rest (or so it seems) is oil land. Although Old pieces of oil field equipment, freshly painted Oil field equipment the intense activity of fracking water trucks and pumpjack construction seem to have quieted somewhat since our last trip, the land is still dusty and disturbed from heavy traffic on dirt roads. The small towns are dilapidated; there seem to be even more empty buildings than before, while the edges of the freeways see more and more motels. This is not a part of Texas the typical tourist would enjoy.

We stopped for a couple of days in Midland, where George Bush 41 brought his family On a green metal roof sits the sign reading 'Cooper's B-B-Q' Cooper's B-B-Q restaurant when he was starting out in the oil business after the end of WW II. Their home is now a local museum resident on the National Register of Historic Places (only recently eligible, because the Register requires a property be 50 years old or older).

The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum is housed in an attractive building and surrounded by oil field machinery - it's not hard to figure out the main topics to be covered here! The Museum was built in 1975 with help from hundreds of supporters who are listed, sometimes Steel barbecue pits with a trailer full of firewood waiting to be added Wood for the barbecue more than once, on wall plaques and special galleries; thanks to them, in addition to oil and gas visitors can learn about race cars, minerals from far and near, gas station pumps and more. We learned about the process of extracting petroleum from underground by watching displays of equipment and capsule biographies of pioneers in the oil industry.

Leaving Midland for San Antonio, we arrived at the appropriately named town of Menu on the wall showing the basic items in a Texas barbecue A standard barbecue menu Junction, Texas, just at lunch time. Cooper's Barbecue is a classic restaurant. Texas barbecue has its own formula. The menu is standard all throughout the state: Plain white bread and margarine. One meat plate, two meat plate, or sandwich. The meats are (beef) brisket, (pork) ribs, sausage, turkey. Available sides are beans, cole slaw, potato salad. The condiments are sliced pickles and raw onions. If you can find room for dessert, they On the styrofoam plate sits a plastic fork, brisket, beans, cole slaw, and pickle The delicious lunch! have peach or blackberry cobbler. In Cooper's, the house sauce was light and vinegary. And it is all delicious, every last bite!

We took pictures as a memory. We try to avoid chain restaurants. We were pleased to see that Cooper's had a big sign, NOT A FRANCHISE - ORIGINAL. We left after reading the official looking plaque put up by the State of Mind Hysterical Committee on the front porch: "On March 2, 1838 Texas declared her independence from Mexico. Wild Comanches roamed the plains. Rangers protected frontier settlements, and this building was not here yet."