Joseph Vavak 5/16/21 Joseph Vavak 5/16/21

I just got them four lanes of hard Amarillo highway

I’m on the road to explore West Texas, my first adventure since getting fully vaccinated late last month. Tonight finds me in Amarillo, a mythical place in my mind due to lots of outlaw country songs and Stephen Shore’s postcards.

Heading south tomorrow with little plans for where I’m headed. Sometimes that’s the best sort of day.

Post title: Terry Allen - Amarillo Highway

Joseph Vavak 5/12/21 Joseph Vavak 5/12/21

All Hail West Texas

Texline, Texas. 2016 . My first visit to Texas.

Now that I’m vaccinated, it’s time to get out and explore a place that has been on my list for quite some time: West Texas. Outside of two trips to the panhandle in the past, I haven’t spent much time in the state, and it remains the largest portion of the North American Great Plains that I have not yet photographed.

When I tell people I’m going to wander West Texas, I inevitably get a strange look and a question that always boils down to “Why would you do that?”

My first - and still (most likely) favorite - Mountain Goats album is a series of stories about lonely and displaced people that inhabit West Texas. I identify strongly with this record, in part due to a memorable time in my life where my friend Doug covered “Jenny” during his live sets at Fizzle Like A Flood, and because I’ve always related to the emptiness yet hopeful nature of John Darnielle’s song writing.

The Last Picture Show, written by Larry McMurtry and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, is one of my all-time favorite films. It is set in a dusty, largely empty West Texas town (filmed in Archer City, just south of Wichita Falls) and depicts the difficulties of life in a small town without much going on other than high school football.

You may notice a trend here. Will West Texas feel as lonely as I imagine?