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reduced to ants, skittering past these giant
pinwheel behemoths that dominate mini-
malistic landscapes. Eyeball several tur-
bines in a line, so all you see is one single
tower, along with multiple spinning props,
and it’s like watching a Busby Berkeley
musical with dancers waving their arms
and legs in synchronized movements.
My own wind-turbine epiphany hap-
pened about 10 years ago. I was driving
south from Lubbock to Austin through
Sweetwater on State Highway 70. Near
Sweetwater, turbines began to appear on
both sides of the road. They grew in num-
ber for the next 10 miles, until turning east
and south onto State Highway 153 toward
Wingate. I felt like I was in a dense for-
est, only the trees were white towers with
steadily whirling blades, perched on a
vast, grassy ridge top.
I stopped and got out of my car to get a
better look. Wind turbines spun as far as
the eye could see, some hovering right
above the roadside. The constantly rotat-
ing props mesmerized me. These weren’t
static objects but huge metal instruments
that were working, moving, doing some-
thing. After staring long enough, the tur-
bines, part of the Horse Hollow wind
farm, started reminding me of a marching
band, all symmetry, precision, and syn-
chronicity, with the propeller blades act-
ing as the twirlers leading the band.
“They’re kind of like doing cartwheels
in the sky,” says Mark Morgan of Guth-
rie Oil Company, who routinely drives
through the part of west-central Texas
where turbines are in great number.
But what some perceive as enchanting,
others consider an eyesore. Environmen-
talists see wind turbines as infringementsDRIVE | DETOUR
Driving through a
dense concentration of
wind turbines conveys
the sensation of being
on another planet,
where humans are
reduced to ants.shop.texashighways.com