I'm spending a few days in this pleasant little town of 10,000 souls, adrift in a 35,000-square-mile sea of grass known as the Llano Estacado.

I set up base camp here, leaving piles of food, unwashed socks and computer paraphernalia strewn all over the floor of room 128 at the Westerner Motel, and then hitched back along the road on two successive days to complete the 63-mile walk from Snyder, the nearest town to the east.

I knew that one day the terrain I walked through would start to resemble the picture at the top of this page, and so it has: arid, empty, seemingly endless.

Yesterday there was nothing whatsoever to obstruct the setting sun - no buildings, no trees, no mountains - and it just slipped below the horizon in a quick, quiet, matter-of-fact kind of way. But this is still not desert, and there are still plenty of cottonfields, their neatly drawn dark red furrows stretching away to infinity.

Now, probably as a result of the increased distances I've been walking, I have another bout of shinsplints. It's not nearly as bad as the episode that slowed me to a crawl back in Pennsylvania, but I'm taking a couple of days' rest. By the time I set off from the motel, it will feel like leaving home.

I have two more breaks to look forward to soon.

February is Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, and I have an important job to do. Pam belongs to the Krewe du Vieux (croo de voo), one of the many krewes, or carnival clubs, and I've volunteered to help pull her float on the 3rd. So I'll be going there for a long weekend, and then returning for the week leading up to the 20th, which is the climax of the carnival.

I'm reading a biography of that other great British explorer, Captain Scott, at the moment, and I can't help being struck by the slight differences in approach between him and me.

It's hard to imagine him looking at his watch as he and his team stumbled their weary way across the polar ice shelf and saying: 'Okay chaps, time to pack up for the day. Now, where's the nearest Holiday Inn Express?'