Spur, Texas Population 966
On the main road through Spur, Texas is an over sized Spur about twelve feet tall. It looks sort of like a misshaped wishbone and a small star at the end. This is the only tourist attraction in Spur, Texas-well, the Spur and the closed movie theater-The Palace.
There used to be a motel, but it now has the look and feel of somewhere Mad Max might feel right at home. There is a place that looks like a B&B, in that it does not look like a motel but someone’s house. In fact, when I checked in I stood in the owner’s living room, surrounded by the odds and ends one collects over a lifetime. This was a cash transaction, as they did not take credit cards.
The room I rented is a small cottage in the spot on which one would expect to find a garage. It is not hard to image that this small guest house was once a guest house for automobiles and not for people. It is small, but I have seen smaller-The Wife and I stayed in a cottage in Maine that was the same width as the ‘85 pick-up truck I parked beside it.
It takes a few minutes for the owner’s to find a key for the room, it seems they never lock it. About the time I decide not to leave anything I can’t live without in the room, which is pretty much what I do anyway, they hand me a key. The keyring is a shiny sliver colored shoehorn that has ‘cottage’ Scotch taped to it.
The floor drops a little with each step and it takes a while for the water to heat up. There is a small kitchen and a small bathroom and a small bed in the small room. The TV set is small as well, but has Satellite and 500 channels-but most of them are not available. There are still several HBOs, Showtimes, and movie channels I have never heard of. The signal cuts out a couple of times while I am there and did not return the last time.
I live near Dallas and the stars have to struggle to be seen. In Spur, the sky is filled with all the stars of the Constellations, not just the brightest ones. The people tell me that they love this small town and they hate having to go into the Big City of Lubbock. It has been a long time since I have been to Lubbock, and I will not be going there on this trip-but I don’t really remember it being that big a town. But compared to Spur, it is Metropolis.
I am here on business, I take portraits of a small portion of the 966 people who live in Spur. They are nice people and I enjoy working here. I miss these small adventures in travel-looking around tiny towns for a motel or having to drive fifty miles back to civilization to find a motel. I have become spoiled by working in big cities with hundreds of motels-though they can be pretty scary places and you definitely want the room to have a door you can lock.
It has been a while since I stayed in a town as small as Spur. The Main Street is only a few blocks long, like most small towns, it has seen better days. Spur is the kind of place that you have to wonder why it is there.
One of the locals told me-it’s not the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from here. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and that’s just they way the people of Spur like it.
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November 26, 2009
Tags: 500 channels, cash transaction, constellations, mad max, movie theater, odds and ends, spur texas, tourist attraction, travel Posted in: fun, travel
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Twitted by Descartes1 - November 26, 2009
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