DAVE'S FIELD NOTES
← West Texas

LUBBOCK / TEXAS TECH

Texas TechGuns Up!

Big skies, red-and-black pride, and one very good reason this campus belongs in the family field notes.

A FAMILY FIELD NOTE

Megan & Jacob

Megan and Jacob got married at the Kent R. Hance Chapel on the campus of Texas Tech. Naturally, the newlyweds threw up the sign: Guns Up!

Megan and Jacob smiling in their wedding clothes and making the Guns Up hand sign
MEGAN + JACOB / GUNS UP!
Kent R. Hance Chapel on the Texas Tech campus beneath a clear blue sky
KENT R. HANCE CHAPEL / TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY

AROUND LUBBOCK

South Plains details

Rust, prairie grass, old machinery, and that enormous blue sky—the quiet visual language surrounding Lubbock.

The tailgate and cab of a weathered blue International pickup truck
01International blue
Coils of sun-bleached and rusted wire
02South Plains texture
A red barn marked with four white horseshoes beneath a windmill
03Four horseshoes & a West Texas sky
Tall dry prairie grass bending across the South Plains
04The wind, made visible
Power lines disappearing into a South Plains dust storm as tumbleweeds cross a bare field
05
West Texas weather, arriving sideways

So West Texas. On the outskirts of Lubbock, I've been known to pull over—CamERAn in hand, barefoot—then walk through the warm sand of the cotton fields. One day, I want to watch a haboob roll across the plains—from somewhere sturdy enough to enjoy the spectacle without becoming part of it.