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In Texas, there are two types of towns. The first type is the county seat — or, at least, typically the county seat. This town is larger but still small enough to keep it from graduating to city status. Its downtown — what is a row of mostly vacated businesses in two- or three-story brick buildings constructed decades upon decades ago — forms a square, a town square, centered around the county courthouse. And the courthouse itself is a marvelous work of architecture. It’s a plaza, of sorts, where commerce seems to butt up to where justice is doled out. Somewhere in the town is also a tall water tower with a bulb that bears both the name of the town and the mascot of its high school football team.
The other type of town is smaller with only a brief stretch of street, if that, to call its downtown. If driving through at night, no light pollution exists, and one can pass by having hardly seen evidence of life. It’s as though its entire population has a bedtime of 7:30 and, beyond a single post office, little exists in the way of customer service positions. It subsists almost purely on the farming and ranching community that surrounds it.
Of the two towns, Miles is the latter.
A town of less than 1,000 people, Miles does manage to have a coffee shop that serves excellent kolaches and is home to Chaos Ranch, a donkey sanctuary with almost 90 rescued jacks and jennies. A couple of years ago, the ranch’s owners, Chandra and Jared, plopped a shipping container in the middle of the property, which is now a cozy Airbnb. If you decide to be their guest, Jared, one of the most affable people I’ve ever met, will introduce you to the drove of donkeys. And, yes, some of them bite.
Miles is also where my companion for the remainder of the trip, Kevin, lives. It’s where he was born and raised and — aside from a brief stint in Austin — the place he’s always called home. Kevin has a love of this area of the country — Miles rests in the Concho Valley, an area that sits at the southern border of the Great Plains and northwestern border of the Edwards Plateau. It’s where the Panhandle, the Hill Country, and West Texas all converge. But Miles, for its part, is all plains. And that’s quite all right by Kevin.
“The sky rules the plains,” Kevin told me on the trip when speaking about the enormous breadth one sees around his hometown. In the plains, there’s nothing in the sky’s way.
After going to nearby San Angelo to make a stop at PV Deli by Chef Jason, which serves some of the state’s tastiest sandwiches, we head west on Highway 67 to Marfa and very abruptly enter oil country. Pump jacks, pump jack supply companies, and even pump jack graveyards dominate the scenery in towns like Barnhart, Rankin, and Big Lake (where no lake exists). While it’s clear that these towns struggle — like many in today’s America — the nearby oil fields are giving them a lifeline.
Continuing westward, the plains turned to mesas (with windmills sitting atop), and the mesas turned into mountains. Within a couple of hours, the oil flatlands have given way to Big Bend country.
day 3 texas map
Things to See and Do
1. International Waterlily Collection Seven ponds full of waterlilies in San Angelo
2. The Chicken Farm Art Center Shop and check out Concho Valley art in San Angelo
3. Monahans Sandhills State Park Nearly 4,000 acres of sandhills in Monahans
4. Rattlers and Reptiles A rattlesnake museum in Fort Davis
Where to Eat
1. PV Deli by Chef Jason Sandwiches in San Angelo
2. Sugar Creek Classic American fare in Big Lake (try the Oilfield Trash)
3. Mingo’s Burritos Mexican food with excellent burritos in Fort Stockton
4. Reata The original Reata serving Southwestern cuisine in Alpine
Where We Stayed
Miles: Chaos Ranch, a repurposed shipping container next to a donkey sanctuary
