You meet the most interesting people at RV parks.

We made an acquaintance the other evening. An elderly couple is traveling toward Calgary, Alberta to attend the Calgary Stampede. They were parked a few yards from us at an RV park in Dodge City, Kan. I noticed the Texas license plate on their fifth wheel.

“Where in Texas are you from?” I asked. He said he lives in McAllen.

We chatted a little bit. Then he told me the “drought is broken” in South Texas.

“Wow!” I thought. That was news to me.

He said they got about 7 inches of rain in a single day. The Rio Grande River is flowing nicely, he said.

I mentioned to him that we’ve nearly achieved our annual precipitation total so far — and the year isn’t quite halfway done.

Their drought is broken? But not ours?

I’m not going to challenge the gentleman’s assertion directly. Heck, for all I know the National Weather Service’s drought declarations for South Texas haven’t been as severe as they’ve been for much of the rest of the state.

But the drought surely is far from broken way up yonder, in the Texas Panhandle or all along the High Plains.

I will say this, however, about what we saw on our four-day excursion to Dodge City: The range land is remarkably green and lush. We didn’t see many playas on our travel north of Amarillo, through the Oklahoma Panhandle and into western Kansas.

But the ground looked gorgeous.

Is our drought broken? Hardly.

I hope our acquaintance from McAllen is correct about the drought condition in his part of the state. I’m a bit skeptical, but only because the drought hung for so long and it might take a bit longer for it to be declared a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, we could use some more rain to keep our grassland so green.