Sunday morning in the Hub City, and there are still icicles hanging from the roof -- and we're in the warm part of the region. There's no way to head north until the mercury rises.

Which it does, after noon. But DriveTexas.org (don't leave home without checking it!) warns of black ice, snow, and even some more wintry precip tonight in the Canadian River Valley.

Looks like I'm not going to start in Perryton. And in Canadian there are reports of power outages not even related to the storm. I'll have to catch up on that stretch in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

Icy roads are nothing to take lightly. Heading east on US 62, with a course to catch up with US 83 in Childress, I find it easy going for the first fifty miles or so. But in Floyd County the landscape takes on an eerie stop-motion effect against the cotton-gray sky, with glass-encased stubble like withered arms reaching up from the ground, flattened against fencelines.

Approaching the rugged canyon breaks across the Motley County line, the air suddenly turns to a freezing fog that envelops the horizon. Only the leeward sides of red-clay cliffs signal that the land here has changed drastically from flat. This is the region where the southern Panhandle meets the plains, and on a clear day the vistas are breathtaking. US83 traverses terrain like this throughout its length in Texas. On a day like today, with temps hovering just a few notches above freezing, it's hard to appreciate its singular beauty. Yet it is hauntingly beautiful, its quiet fields and bent cedar trees passing by at sixty, the charcoal ribbon of road threading through to connect tiny dots like Flomot, Matador, Whiteflat, Quitaque, Turkey, Estelline with larger ones like Childress.

Look for Chevy Trailblazer DD52X along the road!

Those places, too, will have to wait for another day, another trip to investigate the bison at Caprock Canyons State Park (and Clarity Tunnel on its Trailway), the history videos at the Old Motley County Jail, and the Church of Western Swing in Bob Wills's Turkey.

For tonight, at least, I'm snug in a Childress hotel room and ready to check out this nexus of US 83 and two other major highways.

See you in the morning.