There's a little hole-in-the-wall town off the beaten path of I-10, called Iraan, Texas. Iraan is pronounced "Ira-Ann", primarily because it was founded by Ira and Ann Yates, who bought up a bunch of ranch land and then discovered oil there in the 1920s. The Yates oil field is still producing today, but I'm afraid Iraan has fizzled away into a shabby little place with very little to recommend it.
The city created a cute little park in the comic strip's honor, which we visited. I was a bit disappointed that is was so poorly kept up--looking not at all like the picture we saw on the internet. We were the only visitors the day we went, and the little museum, which claimed to be open during the time we were there, was closed.
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Perhaps our impression of the town was skewed by the drab winter landscape-- dry and brown, dusty and weedy. It may be an entirely different place in the summer, when trees are green and lawns are grassy and flowers are blooming in gardens.
But we weren't there for the scenery. We were there for the campgrounds, and they had three, all managed by the city and very affordable at $15 a night. The only catch is you can't book in advance. We didn't think we'd have any trouble finding availability in the middle of the week in the middle of the winter, and we were right. The first of the three we stopped at was full, but the next one, Rocky Top, was wide open. We stayed five days.
We'll be bumping around Texas for the month of March, checking out the southern end of the state...where it's warm.
That's all, folks!
Happy Trails!
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