November 26, 2025, Grapevine, TX- I had breakfast this morning at a new spot on Amarillo’s 6th Street “Fun Zone”: Coffee Fixx. It has superb coffee, and it is the first place I’ve been to in a while that offers Red Hots as a breakfast meat option. For those who wonder, Red Hots are Texas-sized sausage links that have a good, spicy kick. They are a notch above the hot Italian sausage to which I have become accustomed in Prescott.

From Coffee Fixx, I headed down along what I call Texas’ Northwest Passage- a road, or network of roads, from Dallas-Fort Worth to Amarillo and points north and west. It has been my go-to alternative to flying, when the weather is fine, as it is right now. I will depend on the Northwest Passage (US Hwy 287 and Texas Highway 114), when it comes time to bring what is left of my household from Prescott to Plano, in the not-too-distant future.

The Passage has some neat canyons along the way: Palo Duro, which I’ve visited a few times and Caprock, which is actually several canyons, set aside as a State Park, in much the same manner as Palo Duro. Here are a few scenes that presented themselves to me, on the north side of Caprock, this morning.

After viewing Caprock’s features from a Picnic Area, I passed through the Passage’s small, but thriving towns: Childress, Quanah, Chillicothe (struggling, but finding its way back, nicely), Vernon, Iowa Park, and the largest of the region’s cities: Wichita Falls.

After purchasing a gift item for my little family, at Valley Pecans, in Chillicothe, I waited for a lady to get out of the car next to Sportage, then began to back up. I saw a rear door open in a car that was across the way, but whose occupants would have to cross my path to get to the store. A little boy got out, then got back in, then got out again. All the while, I sat there, waiting. When he saw me, he decided to head into the store. Given that he was alone in the car, I’d say that was a good decision he made. In any case, I was not about to move the car until the coast was clear.

After Wichita Falls came Henrietta, Bowie, Alvord, Decatur, Rhome and Roanoke, before Southlake and Grapevine appeared. The near towns of the Passage are becoming exurban, but they still have the feel of independence and newness about them.

In time, the Lone Star Northwest Passage will become as familiar to me as are the Arizona Outback routes to Las Vegas and southern California, the “Lonely Road” from Las Vegas to Reno and the Red Road from Flagstaff to Cortez and Durango. Its communities will be filled with people I consider friends and its sights will be the stuff of the back yard.

Caprock is a good name for one of its signature canyons.