Places: a cowboy with a serious book addiction

Welcome to Archer City, home of Larry McMurtry and 1847 other people. Archer City is a bit desolate, an old western town with dilapidated buildings and a wide center street. It's a quiet place that silently screams cowboys live here. And cowboys do live there. I know this not just because Travis our hoof trimmer lives there (he wears leather chaps) but also because I saw two cowboys riding today. Oh and also because Larry McMurtry lives there and he wrote perhaps the most famous western of all time: Lonesome Dove.

I wish I could say I have met him and he happily autographed leather bound copies of his books for me. Or that he saw me in town and asked if I would like to interview him over at the BBQ place which actually would be awful as I have braces and eating chopped beef or pulled pork is really unattractive. Anyhow, nobody really talks about him around here. It was many months after we got here that I even learned he owned the eclectic used book stores that take up most of the buildings in Archer City. There are four book stores scattered about with more books than one could imagine. There are only employees in one, and the books are shelved haphazardly by subject. If you have a question or would like to purchase anything you have to carry it through the town to the store with the employee.

I have never seen Larry M there but imagine him trekking around late at night shuffling books around. This store (above) was bright and sunny and really warm. I had to fight myself not to lay leisurely on the floor with a gigantic stack of books. It's a perfect mix: being warm+books+sunshine.

His stores are called Booked Up Inc. They are scholarly stores...no Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts. And truthfully most books are priced very high. If I traveled a great distance I might be a bit sad. But since it is close by and I was with Ken (who is a total hunk) it was a good time.

That's all I got today. Yee Haw, Cowboy.