The Northernmost Part of Texas

   I initially had only one travel blog, called "In My Travels," that was set up for me by my sister at the time when I didn't know how to create a blog. I wrote in that blog alot,  but I had so much stuff I wanted to write about that I created this blog, on my own. The first topic I wrote about in this blog was Union County, New Mexico, in the northeast corner of that wonderful and beautiful state. Union County borders Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado and is only 72 miles from the Kansas border. I said that I believe Union County is my absolute favorite county in the United States. I have written quite a bit about Union County and will write more about it in the future. 
  Meanwhile, in my other travel blog, I am resuming my writing about the Oklahoma Panhandle, that narrow, 34 mile wide strip of the state that sits above the top of the Texas Panhandle. All the while, I have basically neglected writing about the Texas Panhandle, which, along with Far Western Texas, is my favorite part of the Lone Star State.
   I will start with the northwestern part of the Texas Panhandle, to be exact, Dallam County.
Dallam County was created in 1876 and was named for James Dallam, a lawyer and newspaper publisher. It covers 1,505 square miles, which makes it one of the larger counties in a state that has 254 counties, the most, by far, of any state in the nation. One thing that is noticeable about the Texas Panhandle, when looking at a map, is the fact, most of the counties are the exact same size, give or take a few surveying errors. They were laid out to be 30 miles long and 30 miles wide with the county seat at, or near, the center, if possible. The county size is uniform except for the four counties in the northwest part of the Panhandle. These are Dallam, Hartley, Oldham and 
Deaf Smith Counties and these counties are almost double the size of all the other Panhandle counties, roughly 1,500 square miles compared to roughly 900 square miles.
  Dallam County is the coldest place in Texas, on average. The average date for the first freeze in Dalhart, the county seat, in Autumn, is October 16 and the average date for the last freeze in Spring is April 23, which are rather anomalous statistics for Texas, yet the Panhandle has been known to get snowstorms as early as the first week of October and as late as early May. The Texas Panhandle is also known for crippling blizzards and Dallam County has had blizzards where the snowdrifts have been as high as 30 feet! The average first freeze date for Dallam County's second largest town, Texline, is October 12 while the average last freeze date is April 27. A few years ago, I spent the night in Dalhart in the first week of September and the temperature got down to 28 degrees that night!
  Dallam County is next door to Union County, New Mexico, where I started this blog. The first Dallam County town I will write about is Texline, which is located just 8 1/2 miles from Clayton, New Mexico, the county seat of Union County.