We had more ice storms on Sunday. Although the results can be deadly - the nearby town of Abilene has had over a hundred car accidents in the past 24 hours - they're also beautiful. Trees develop extra-long 'branches' reaching almost to the ground, and when the weight of ice becomes too much, the real boughs snap off.
One side effect of the freezing weather has been the sympathy factor. Normally, when I'm in the countryside, about one person a day offers me a ride. In the past day and a half, the sight of my frost-covered figure tramping through the gloom has inspired no fewer than fifteen people to stop.
I'm getting to like my stroller: it's easy to push, I no longer have to keep shifting my backpack around to stay comfortable, and it's dramatically increased the speed of my walking. Well, I say dramatically: it's gone up from about 3.2 to 3.7 miles an hour, which may not sound very much in the great scheme of things, but this can make a big difference to my arrival time in the evenings.
On the downside, around half of the people who stop ask if I have a baby in my stroller. This is because my backpack has a fold-out rain hood which covers it in bad weather, turning it into a large, unidentifiable rectangular parcel-like object.
I'm tempted to give a sarcastic answer - if it were a baby, it would be dead from hypothermia or suffocation by now - but I maintain my usual smiling politeness.
Today, I saw another landmark reminding me that I'm actually covering some distance. In the past there's been things like the first cottonfield, the first oilwell and the first time-zone change; the latest is huge expanses of prickly pear cactus.
The landscape is at last starting to metamorphose into something closer to the Texas stereotype: grass bleached almost white by sun and drought; long, low mesas beside the road, thorny mesquite bushes, and scrub oak and cedar in ever-dwindling numbers.
It's also becoming very, very empty. I walked 26 miles on Sunday, which is my record, before hitching a ride for another 24 miles to the next motel. Call me a wimp, but I'm still trying to stave off the day when I have to use my tent in sub-freezing temperatures. And don't worry, I shall be hitching back today to complete the stretch I didn't walk.