Common wisdom says if you’re not originally from West Texas, you usually have to live there for a while to appreciate its attractions, but then you’re hooked for life. Having lived in Lubbock after growing up in southeast Texas, I can attest to that fact. In my case, it took almost a year, but I eventually came to treasure the flatlands and canyonlands that at first seemed so foreign to me. If I hadn’t moved to Austin in 1994 to work for Texas Highways, I’d probably still be there.
At any rate, I try to head west at least once a year to revisit old friends and embrace that endless, wide-open country. This summer, I bookended a trip to Lubbock with stops in Muleshoe and Slaton, small towns on US 84 that, coincidentally, are 84 miles apart.
My first stop was in Muleshoe, where I spent a couple of days with Aggie friends Bill and Alice Liles. As per our tradition, they took me to lunch at Leal’s Mexican Restaurant, a wonderful, family-run place that originated in Muleshoe in the 1950s. (The restaurant now has locations in Amarillo, Plainview, Henrietta, and Clovis, New Mexico.) I’m sure many travelers on US 84 stop and eat here, but the vibe is definitely local. Diners greet one another casually, often stopping at several tables on their way out to razz their neighbors or chat about the latest happenings around town. My favorite at Leal’s? The sour cream-chicken enchiladas, which Alice likes, too. Bill favors the fajita nachos.
After lunch, Alice and I headed to Carolyn’s Christmas Creations, where we looked at everything except Christmas decorations. Like many small-town gift stores, Carolyn’s has a wide range of merchandise, from jewelry and apparel to books and furniture with regional appeal. Our next stop was Muleshoe Metal Art, where I almost bought a jalapeño cooker, a neat contraption that allows you roast a dozen jalapeños at a time evenly over a hot grill. Mirror frames and plant stands also caught my eye. They’re all on my list for “later.”
We spent the rest of the day just visiting and touring Alice’s expansive cactus/rock garden, which now takes up at least a third of the yard. Not only does she know each plant by name, she can tell you where each rock came from—Austin, Kyle, Coleman, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada…the list goes on and on. She knows because she handpicked each one and placed it herself. (Bill lent a hand with the larger ones.) Besides rocks, cacti, succulents, grasses, and other low-maintenance plants, the garden features bleached skulls from hapless cows, deer, coyotes, and javelinas donated by friends; several large pots; weathered tree trunks; and a dolmen (a bench made with two or more upright stones capped by a horizontal stone). Alice invites viewers: The cactus garden is just east of the Muleshoe Country Club. For more about the Muleshoe area, see our March 2008 article “High Plains Montage” by Gerald McLeod.
I saved Slaton for the last leg of my trip, as it’s on the way to Austin. Here, I stopped at The Slaton Bakery, in hopes of nabbing a pig-in-the-blanket for the road. But I was out of luck; the pigs had sold out hours ago. This small business offers an amazing variety of products. Besides cookies, donuts, pies, and cakes, the shelves were filled with a large number of collectible cookie jars and teapots. The bakery, which dates to 1943, also sells its 60th anniversary cookbook, Baking With Memories, a hefty collection of recipes and stories from customers and employees.
I also drove by the newly restored Harvey House, which once served elegant meals to passengers traveling on the Santa Fe Railway. The 1912 Mission Revival structure, which now serves as a bed-and-breakfast and event center, looked quite snazzy, and I vowed to come back for an overnight stay.
Other Slaton sites vied for my attention, but my ultimate destination was five miles north of town, where friends Ronny and Rita Peek live in a straw-bale house that overlooks Yellowhouse Canyon. I’ve followed Ronny and Rita’s custom regional furniture business (A Hare Raising Experience; www.ahareraisingexperience.com) since my Lubbock days, and they had invited me out to see their unusual, energy-efficient house. I’d seen the shell of the straw-bale studio Ronny had built earlier, and knowing the couple’s considerable artistic talents, I figured the house would be spectacular, but I hadn’t expected it to be such an absolute gem.
Ronny built the 5,000-square-foot house himself over a period of 11 years, sandwiching the work between furniture orders. Like most straw-bale structures, both the exterior and the interior of the house have an adobe-looking façade and an open floor plan. With hand-carved woodwork, a gleaming Mexican-tile floor, and showroom-quality furniture, it’s a piece of art in itself. However, all this pales in contrast to the setting of the house, on the edge of Yellowhouse Canyon. From their living room and adjoining deck, Ronny and Rita can watch hawks riding thermals down into the canyon, spy prairie dogs and roadrunners, and hear coyotes howl at night.
As I drove back to Slaton and rejoined US 84, I savored the memory of the canyon scene, and decided that it was a perfect capstone for this year’s West Texas revisit. To view images of Yellowhouse Canyon, as well as some of Ronny and Rita’s early furniture, see the related article in our November 1995 issue, which can be ordered by calling 512/486-5823, or by e-mailing this address.
