Driving across the country to our next engagements and appointments, we have been passing through Texas. And passing. And passing. To relieve the monotony of tumbleweeds and cattle aroma, we stop at whatever interesting pit stops we find along the way.
In Abilene, we checked out the Adamson-Spalding Storybook Garden, a little garden of sculptures commemorating children’s books. These books cover well-known stories like The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, as well as some lesser-known children’s books.
In Midland, we had to stop at Dennis the Menace playground, themed after the famous cartoon character. It was really a colorful and fun playground, enticing even for kids of many decades.
And just outside Odessa, we stopped to see the Odessa Meteor Crater, which was left by a meteorite at least 10,000 years ago. It left a hole that was originally 100 feet deep, though it’s now mostly been filled in by natural forces, and just forms a depression a few feet deep that you can walk through. Nearby is a smaller crater that was discovered more recently because it had been filled in completely.
Of course, we wouldn’t have known a meteor crater from a hole in the ground without signs and plaques to explain things. And there is a little free museum next to these wanna-be pits that exhibits specimens of the space rocks taken from these and other craters around the world. Some of them you can even touch.
This pit stop really had pits. And though it wasn’t terribly exciting, it wasn’t really the pits either.
world travel with a theatrical flair 