G.A.S.P.

(Great Adventures to Scenic Places)

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January 17, 2000

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The following day (1-17) was just a routine ride through some pretty scenery from one town to the next (Marathon to Sanderson).  I could have gone further, but the next town (Dryden - another 20 miles) has a population of only 13, so I doubted if there would be a place to spend the night.  I arrived early and needed to find a laundromat, so I ended up walking literally from one end of town to the other.  The only laundromat in town was closed due to machine failure (which is another story, but also a part of this one).  The real story here is one of a town that has seen better days.  U.S. 90 used to be the main route across the south – from San Antonio, Houston and points east to El Paso and points west.  Then Interstate 10 was built (about 50 miles north of Sanderson) and numerous towns between San Antonio and El Paso (Bracketville, Comstock, Langtry, Dryden, Sanderson, Marathon, Alpine, Marfa and Valentine among them) lost much of their purpose and settled into decline.  Sanderson today is listed on the Texas map with a population of 1128, but I’ll bet it was a lot more in the 50s.  There is a fine 3-story brick building in the middle

of town that was once apparently a department store and the remnants of a movie theater in the next block.  There are many vacant buildings in the center of town and many others that house something far less attractive than what probably existed in the 50s.  I wish I could have been here on a fine January day in 1955 – the department store, theater, dime store, drug store, men’s clothing store, women’s clothing store, toy store, soda shop, etc. all full of people – I’ll bet Sanderson was something to see back then.

I did find a very nice place for dinner in present-day Sanderson – Jeanie’s Kountry Kitchen - great homemade vegetable dishes at the salad bar.

Earlier in the day, I got a genuine dirt shower courtesy of the crew that is laying underground utility cable along a couple hundred mile (at least) stretch of U.S. 90.  I passed numerous trenching machines during the past two days, but this one in particular was a super-heavy duty model and was upwind just off my side of the road.  There really wasn’t anything to do but just ride through it.  It was much worse than I expected.  I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably about eight seconds.  I stopped a mile or so down the road and took about five minutes to knock the dust off everything.

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