From my travel journal: Thursday 7 April, 10.50 pm

I was right about the oil wells. Just across the border we went through hundreds of little wells, pumps bobbing up and down.

Lots more wide flat grassy plains (prairies, I suppose?). Where they’re farmed they’re quite colourful – intensely red soil where they’ve been ploughing, green where it’s irrigated (the same huge irrigators we have in NZ), and yellow everywhere else.

When we got to Lubbock we headed off in search of a local park that has a large population of prairie dogs. The park took a bit of finding, because the GPS once again directed us to not quite the right place, and then FOS, who was driving, managed to go the wrong way down a one-way street (luckily nobody else was on the road!), but we eventually found it, and then, after asking directions from some people having a picnic, found the prairie dogs.

They were so fascinating to watch, popping in and out of their burrows, and flicking their tales to us in warning. I don’t think I managed to get any decent photos though – it was starting to get a bit too dark, and they were a bit far away for my little camera.

Once we checked into our motel, we headed out for dinner, and couldn’t resist trying the Outback Steakhouse, an Australian-themed restaurant. General consensus was that the food was excellent, but had absolutely no relation to Australia (I’ve definitely never seen Chicken-Fried Chicken on an Australian menu!). We were most amused that one of the dishes offered was NZ lamb – that’s probably the closest the menu ever got to Australia 🙂 Good steak though, and the waiter was really friendly (and said “y’all” – I so love that!), so we forgave them for their geographical inaccuracy 🙂

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