West Texas

13 ~ 15 March 2024

The Twisted Sisters are three roads, radiating out from Leakey (pronounced Lakey) in a low range of hills, about two hours west of San Antonio. They are revered by US bikers but not much ridden by Europeans, I suspect, as a result of their relative inaccessibility.

But first, there is brunch to be had at the OST (Old Spanish Trail) Grill in Bandero. The town claims itself to be the ‘Cowboy Capital of the World’ without disclosing the criteria they are judging themselves on. It seems pretty authentic to me, with cowboys wearing hats and riding horses. and the odd plaque here and there celebrating the massacre of various Indian tribes. I share a table at the OST with two who discuss the castrating of a bullock this afternoon, thus rendering him a steer. You don’t learn useless facts like this in Pret a Manger on a Wednesday lunchtime.

Like all siblings, the ‘Sisters’ are very different characters. East of Leakey, it’s open and accommodating with wide curves that flatter your riding. Going north, it’s more pinched, reserved and intolerant of mistakes. South from Vance, a mild personality disorder asserts itself exhibiting traits of the other two but with a long series of ups & downs making it a real rollercoaster ride.

US sites bill it as the most challenging ride in Texas and it’s a great 100-mile round trip. If you’ve cut your teeth on epic European roads like the B500, Route Napoleon, Furka Pass and so on there is nothing to scare. Are they worth a special trip? Probably not, but if you are in the area…

All roads lead back to Leakey and the Inn of the same name which is a mecca for the local bikers. It’s the only place to stay for miles around but is charmingly off-beat with peaceful individual cabins, rustic furniture, and a very comfortable bed. Donna checks me in and says I’ll be staying in Cabin 10. The bar, barbecue and karaoke will start at five o’clock, so she’ll see me then. What fun…

Wednesday Karaoke is a weekly event at the Leakey Inn Club and well supported by the locals who participate with gusto, and variable talent. A diminutive Latin American girl takes the mike. She is a local favourite, so the whole bar is soon dozying away as she belts out something in Spanish, hitting every note and beat.

Uel introduces himself. He’s heard me ordering at the bar and tries to place my accent, explaining he’s of Scots/Danish descent so appreciates we don’t all sound the same. He’s the local builder who built the Club we’re standing in. I tell him I’m going close to the Mexican border tomorrow and as a former biker, he knows the area well and confirms I’m on the right track

The next day, the ‘Texas Hill Route’ sweeps south to Uvelde, and then west towards the border. Del Rio is a thread-bare town, over the border from Cigna Alcuna, at the start of Highway 29.

Bruce Springsteen's 1996 album ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ takes its inspiration in style and content from John Steinbeck’s epic novel, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. This chronicles the Joad family as they flee their Oklahoma farm and bankruptcy in the 1930s, trying to reach the California, they assume to be the promised land. The last time Tom features is when he leaves his family to lessen the financial burden, walking away down a dried-up river bed, never to be seen again.

This album came out when Silicon Valley and Wall Street were booming, just as the hurricane of the internet was brewing. Those left behind are Tom Joad’s ghosts. Each song is a sketch of various downtrodden characters: Mexican rent boys, laid-off factory workers, immigrants slaving in Methamphetamine factories, or as drug mules and so on.

‘Highway 29’ details an erotically-charged but doomed encounter between a shoe salesman and a customer that begins on the US Highway 29 that runs through Georgia and Tennessee, culminating in a bank robbery and ultimately, the demise of the protagonists on Highway 29 in Mexico. Channeling passages from the novel, where Steinbeck coruscates bankers, second-hand car dealers, farm managers, and various other spivs, the language is simple and direct, creating a more vivid picture than literal description could achieve.

From the shoe-shop scene; (“She slipped me a number, I put it in my pocket; My hand slipped up her skirt, everything slipped my mind”) to the robbery; (“It was a small town bank, it was a mess; Well, I had a gun, you know the rest”) to the getaway; (“In a little desert motel, the air it was hot and clean; l slept the sleep of the dead, I didn't dream”) and to the inevitable car-crash; (“The road was filled with broken glass and gasoline; She wasn't sayin' nothin', it was just a dream”), there is not a word wasted.

I’m not alone in my admiration and fascination for this song. The great thespian that is John Malkovich singled it out as one of his Desert Island Discs. During the interview, he recites a verse, freighting each syllable to devastating effect:

I told myself it was all something in her

But as we drove I knew it was something in me

Something that'd been comin' for a long long time

And something that was here with me now

On Highway 29

Streaking across this desolate, lonesome landscape to the town that offers the unobtrusive route for the doomed couple “into the Sierra Madres 'cross the border line”, and possible escape from a destiny of their own making, I can’t make out how this song ever got written.

In his Broadway show, Springsteen was open that he’s never done a day’s work in his life and so presumably never has sold ladies’ shoes nor shagged one of the punters. Given he’s recently sold his back catalogue for a rumoured $500 million, one can assume he has no need to rob banks, so where did the inspiration for Highway 29 come from?

I understand the role imagination plays in the creative process but the frame of Highway 29 is too specific and yet obscure. Did he really travel the highways and byways of all the states implied by the lyric to ensure that it made literal sense to his flock of disciples of whom I am obviously one? His reputation as a pedant and harsh taskmaster on himself suggests he must have. And then buried this gem away, rarely performing it over the next thirty years.

I had no expectations from today’s ride, but it turned out to be a transcendental, meditative experience. There’s simply nowhere in Europe where you can ride for 300 miles, at seventy-five miles an hour on roads with enough curves to keep it interesting and few other vehicles. And so, at the end of it, the simple but spick Days Inn in Fort Stockton suits me just fine.

A fifteen-minute walk across deserted truck stops lies K-Bob’s Steakhouse, serving the good people of West Texas at three branches since 1966.

I take a seat at the bar and the waitress asks me where I’m from. I am now accustomed to this politeness. A local hollers: “Waa’th hill yoo doon un Starktun?” and so I tell him. Two others turn their attention from the basketball on the giant TV screen and the world is soon put to rights. ‘The Border’ looms large in the discussion but this group (two of whom are of Mexican descent) suggest this dissonance is a Washington-driven construct and most people are content with the messy compromise that prevails. This being politicians talking tough, while everyone else just gets on with it.

I-10 West, all the way, to El Paso looks like a slog and in a temperature of five degrees and light rain, it is. The road inclines gently up the Texas Mountain Trail, to an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet. The clouds clear, a landscape of ethereal, lunar beauty emerges as the interstate crosses two high plains, low, brooding mountains looming out of the parched earth all around.

The two Mexicans had suggested I detour on Loop 375 South on the approach to El Paso to get a good look at Trump’s Wall. it is quite a sight. I rode for 10 minutes at motorway speeds with an unrelenting, 30’ high fence to my left. The uniform design is vertical steel bars, a few inches apart to lessen the wind resistance and prevent hurricanes from felling it, topped with razor wire near the legal crossing points. It stretched on and on, towards Arizona as I peeled off to find my motel.

Regardless of politics and ethics, it’s an impressive feat of engineering but was it worth the effort? Earlier in the day, I’d gone to find Route 20 which runs close to the border where I spied the End of The Wall, someway in the distance. In the photograph below, you can just see it.

Did the government seriously think Miguel would have got as far as Guadalupe, just the other side of the border, seen the bright lights of Alamo Alto in Texas (I made that up; there aren’t any; there’s naff all there) and then said:

“A la mierda esto. Eso es suficiente. No puedo molestarme en caminar más a pesar de que ni siquiera necesito escalar esa maldita cosa y puedo simplemente caminar alrededor de ella, hacia la tierra de la libertad y las oportunidades ilimitadas.”

or:

“Fuck this. That's far enough. I can't be arsed to go another yard even though I don't even need to climb the damn thing and can simply walk around it, into the land of freedom and limitless opportunity“.

Like my compadres in K-Bobs suggested, it looks like window-dressing by politicians desperate to be seen doing something.

I like Texas or, at least, all that I’ve seen. There’s a T-shirt I spotted a few times that has ‘Faith, Family, Flag, Freedom ‘emblazoned on it. Take any two of those four and that’s a decent design for living. From the plush comforts of the Houston suburbs, to the relaxed buzz of Austin and San Antonio, to the homliness of Leakey and the bluff welcome of Fort Stockton, Texans walk the talk proudly, openly and without a trace of self-consciousness. You get what you see and what I saw looks pretty damn fine.