Mile after mile of lonely dirt road

Mile after mile after mile of lonely dirt road, stretching out in a
straight line across the flat Texas plain from Nazareth to Dimmit.
Solitude. Wind. The steady clop clop of Walter's hooves, his head
bobbing to his swinging foxtrotter walk.

Everything has a pattern, a rhythm. The lines of crops, the wheat
bending in the wind, the shades of green and yellow and brown, the
flocks of migrating swallows perched on phone lines, flocks that rise and
swirl around us as we ride by.

We made it all the way to Dimmit, to a mile or so north of Dimmit
actually, where we are guests of Dimmit Veterinary Clinic and all of
our needs being wonderfully tended to by
the very generous and thoughtful Dr. Amber Reiman. In the morning, she
will take care of Walter's next 30-day Health Certificate (needed to
cross into New Mexico).

Walter appreciates the good footing of the dirt roads we've been on,
but he doesn't care for the landscape. His head hangs with boredom
after a while, and every so often he suddenly speeds up, even breaking
into a trot, ears at attention, looking this way and that at the
endless acres of flat land empty of livestock. Then he'll let
out a long, loud, mournful bray, slow to a walk and, I swear, sigh,
and go back to his steady clop-clop, ears flopping.
I think all this emptiness is just too foreign to my little Louisiana
mule, used to the bayous and piney woods. Wait 'til he sees eastern New
Mexico! But he might love the dense Sonoran Desert.