“Texas” and “energy” usually go together with “oil.”

Well, here’s another fact to consider: Texas also has the most installed wind power capacity of any state in the country. As illustrated in this photo, we saw lots of wind turbines as we drove east across the state from El Paso to Beaumont.

So, too, in Montana, where these were among the many wind turbines we saw from the highway:

As we’ve made our way across the country, we’ve also seen wind turbines in California, the Midwest and elsewhere.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised to see wind energy becoming more common, at least based on our own limited observations. This isn’t to say the United States is shifting quickly enough from fossil fuels to wind power and other renewables; obviously, much more action is needed, especially as climate change accelerates.

Yet even G has been encouraged by what we’ve seen blowing in the wind as we’ve driven around the country. He posed for this photo in La Grange, Texas, the city immortalized by ZZ Top. We didn’t tell him the windmill behind him is for pumping water, not generating electricity. After all, we figured, it’s still turning in the right direction.