What If There’s No Place To Go?

    If you ride a motorcycle and live in Lubbock, Texas, you have to ride 100 miles or more before the scenery changes. The flatness of the terrain around here frequently rivals that of a pool table.

    The great people of Lubbock reside on what is known as the Llano Estacado, a region that covers eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle and is one of the largest mesas in North America.

    While Lubbock doesn’t sit in the middle of the Llano Estacado, it’s not far from it.

    Those who ride motorcycles frequently enjoy getting off of what we call “The Cap,” or Caprock, and will head 45 miles southeast to Post for a change of scenery or 70 miles or so south to Gail, or 100 miles northeast to Quitaque.

    Those rides take you off the Cap and through some of the very nice canyons that are quite scenic and also offer the chance to see some wildlife.

     But riders can only go those directions so many times before even those rides become boring.

    That’s why, every once in a while, you need to go someplace to the south or west of Lubbock in order to appreciate the scenery off the Cap.

    This past Sunday a small group of Lubbock riders took off to ride through the flat cotton land and oil fields of Terry, Yoakum and Hockley counties, with the turnaround destination being the aptly named Plains, Texas.

    Plains is one of those small communities that dot West Texas. The residents there provide services for the cotton patch and the oil fields that surround the town. Other than that, there’s not much other than a school a few businesses and churches and a bunch of great folks.

    On a Sunday following the Friday where their heroes the Plains Cowboys basketball team was playing in the state championship in Austin there’s really not even that much there.

    As our small steel-pony posse rode through Plains looking for a café to grab hamburger and soda pop, it appeared that the town was deserted except for the Dairy Queen. After taking on refreshments there, we headed back to Lubbock.

    The ride on 214 out of Plains is nothing if not mundane. Except for the occasional highway sign (several that indicate that the sand is deep just off the pavement), there’s not much to look at, although this does appear as if it could be the area where the government filmed the fake moon landing in 1969.

    While the ride from Lubbock to Brownfield to Plains to Ropesville and back to Lubbock won’t make my Top 10 motorcycle rides, it’s definitely good for two things:

1. It gets me on my motorcycle on a beautiful West Texas day, and
   
   


2. It helps me appreciate the rides to Turkey and Post and Gail and Fluvanna a little bit more.