#pecos tx

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Mountain Winter Road - February 2023 Heading west for the winter doesn’t always escape winter. When you have to cross the mountains you can always end up hitting snow and ice. In this case, the highways themselves were basically clear so there was no great problem and Kathy was able to capture this interesting winter road image just west of where I-10 and I-20 merge outside Pecos, Texas.. MWM

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Winter Driving - February 2023 We stayed overnight in Pecos, Texas, and in the morning the people at the truck stop were imploring truckers not to get back on the road. But the storm was east and south of us and we had time to get out of it so we continued west. Shortly after I-20 merged in with I-10 we went through an area of ice and hoarfrost. The roads were clear so I could more or less look at the beauty around us while I drove. Kathy took most of the pictures, but once in a while I would ask her for her camera and capture some images. This particular image was one of those. The blue truck within the white makes a really good composition. MWM

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http://www.texascooppower.com/texas-stories/nature-outdoors/the-truth-about-pecos-cantaloupes

The Truth about Pecos Cantaloupes by Lonn Taylor in Texas Coop Power Magazine July 2012

For decades, a huge swath of potassium-rich soil just west of Pecos [the County Seat of Reeves County] produced what many Texans swore were the sweetest and best cantaloupes in the world. But over the past few years, the number of Pecos cantaloupes available in Texas grocery stores has declined drastically, and there have been rumors that those for sale are not really from Pecos at all, but from the nearby town of Coyanosa [a census-designated place over in neighboring Pecos County].

This spring, I went to Pecos to see what made the melons so good, where they are really from, and what has caused annual plantings to plummet from a peak of roughly 1,800 acres in the early 1990s to about 100 acres today. I talked to a dozen active and retired cantaloupe farmers and agricultural extension specialists, and I learned that the traditional Pecos cantaloupe has a small seed cavity and a corresponding abundance of orange flesh. The flesh’s peculiar sweetness is created by a combination of the potassium in the soil in which the cantaloupes are grown and the long hours of dry sunshine that nourishes them, abetted by the magnesium and calcium salts in the water with which they are irrigated.

Chillin’ on the Train

The railroad first made Pecos cantaloupes famous. Madison Lafayette Todd, better known as M.L. Todd, came to Pecos from New Mexico in 1916 and bought an interest in an irrigated farm, where he and a partner, D.T. McKee, planted cantaloupes with seed from Rocky Ford, Colorado. They contracted with the dining-car service of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, which ran through Pecos, to buy their crop. The T&P listed the cantaloupes as “Pecos cantaloupes” on its breakfast menus, and dining-car stewards provided satisfied diners with chilled cantaloupes and Todd’s address. By the 1920s, Todd was shipping cases of Pecos cantaloupes all over the country by Railway Express.

Ray Thompson, Todd’s grandson, remembers that in those days, the train stopped in Pecos for just 20 minutes. During the shipping season, there was always a mad rush from the packing shed to the railroad station, with every available hand climbing on trucks already loaded with wooden cases of cantaloupes to get them into the express car before the train pulled out. Some customers ordered a case a week through summer. By the late 1940s, Todd had 240 acres planted in cantaloupes and was shipping 40,000 crates a year to customers in 42 states. Meanwhile, other growers had appeared on the scene.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.texascooppower.com/texas-stories/nature-outdoors/the-truth-about-pecos-cantaloupes