From Carlsbad, US-180 crosses the Pecos River, then snakes across the barren Llano Estacado, the “Staked Plain,” which covers most of eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle. Supposedly named by early explorers who drove wooden stakes into the ground to mark their way, the Llano Estacado area is pretty much the same on both sides of the border—flat, dry, and mostly devoid of settlement. For eastbound travelers, this is the place where oil first becomes noticeably important—pumpjacks can be seen pumping away from here all the way to Alabama.
This is also cowboy country, thanks to the extensive pastures irrigated by water pumped up from aquifers deep underground. For travelers, however, the dominant image is of land stretching out far and wide: mile after mile after mile of endless flat cotton fields, interrupted every now and then by brilliant green alfalfa fields and a few surprisingly large towns like Hobbs, New Mexico (pop. 29,115), right on the border, its main street lined by various “Drilling Supply” companies, huge piles of old pipe, and signs for the Black Gold Casino, which opened in 2004.
The Texas part of the drive is dotted with towns like Seminole (pop. 6,342) and Gail, which has the friendly Caprock Cafe and hosts an annual Fiddler’s Festival. Midway in between, Lamesa (pop. 10,809; la-MEE-sa) has all the All-American makings of a location from the high-school-football movie Friday Night Lights: sports-mad families, an intact old Dairy Queen Drive-in, smokey BBQ at K-Bob’s Steakhouse, and open-air movies at the 60-year-old Sky Vue Drive In, said to be the site of Buddy Holly’s first show outside his native Lubbock. Each of these small towns seems like a bustling hive of activity after the miles of open, red-earth prairie in between them.
