We’ve been here going on 7 years and this is life as we know it. We get used to certain things and don’t notice they’re odd or unusual. One thing is that the National Guard is not far behind us and we’re so used to hearing “war” going on back there that we don’t even notice it but several times, we’ve had friends over and they’d stop in their tracks and had a look of “fight or flight” and we realized they were shocked at the gun fire coming from the woods.
Another thing is the coyotes. Some nights, even with the windows closed, they wake us up. They can get so noisy. The sound is eery and I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to it . . I shiver and am always thankful I’m not out in the woods in a tent with them so close.
But the funny thing, and the thing readers see and comment on often is that there’s never any traffic on our wide highways.
The other day I shared a photo of the green “grass” (and I use that term very loosely — it’s all weeds!) along our highway. No traffic as far as you can see.
Not Busy Highway
Not long ago I shared a picture of the moon. Again . . no traffic!
The Moon
Yesterday as we were going to Abilene, I looked up from my knitting and thought . . another highway with no traffic.
Highway with No Traffic
Not only is there little traffic but Texas does an amazing jobs of maintaining their highways. While none of these are interstate highways, they’re all pretty big state highways. After living here, and driving on these roads for 7 years, it would be really hard to move to a state that has bad roads and I could name a few that we’ve lived in or driven on often.
Things just keep adding up that we should stay here . . but that one little girl in Missouri keeps tipping the scales towards Missouri for me.
Linda in NE says
I hate having the coyotes come in so close, but what’s really eerie is listening to them and then hear a howl that definitely isn’t a coyote and everything goes totally silent. No coyotes yipping, no dogs barking, nothing. Wolf, probably, and close to town here in NE Nebraska. My brother-in-law took a shot at one a few miles to the SE of us, but missed. I keep telling the hubby that the wild animals want their land back.
Mary M says
That’s why we retired farther out from Dallas-Fort Worth – traffic! (And high real estate prices). We are close enough to a large town for most shopping but far enough away to not deal with traffic!
Nelle Coursey says
I think our county roads are better than some other state’s highways! Texas has always been known for it’s highways. But now since someone from Spain owns all the toll roads, I don’t know what will happen. Rick Perry sold us down the river to the highest bidder!
Joan says
I’m in north Georgia. We’re about 50 miles from Atlanta so really not far from civil action. We have lots of coyotes, lots of cows, lots of horses in our area. We love living close to Atlanta yet far enough to enjoy “ country”
Judy Laquidara says
For many years we thought we’d retire in N. Ga. but that isn’t happening. It’s a beautiful area.
dezertsuz says
I probably wouldn’t even notice the coyotes! I like their social songs in the night. LOL. They are funny little creatures. We used to feed them back in the woods, when we were in the forest, and they are pretty shy, usually. We’d sort of play hide and seek with them. I like wolf sounds, too, but I wouldn’t play with them like I did the coyotes.
patti says
my SIL lives in a little town outside of fort worth and when we went to visit her had to drive thru OK panhandle — talk about some bad roads! we have potholes and such near us in eastern WA but our snowy winters and frost heave are the cause of it and they’re routinely patched. living outside of highly populated areas, we too have open roads with little to no traffic and i don’t miss it one bit!