Sunday, 30 August 2020
I got only 2 hours of sleep overnight at Black Mesa State Park.
I woke up feeling like we were under siege by the stickers and flies, afraid to leave the RV, and not even able to get on the internet to be constructive. I had no phone signal, no TV reception and no town nearby - let alone another campground. Even if I took the road west, it deteriorates into a seasonal road, meaning not one I'd want to be on even in the summer. I just felt trapped. And the longer I lay in bed feeling this way, the more determined I was not to stay here for 2 more nights.
I decided to go on north to Colorado and, when I got in range of an internet signal, check on campsite availability at the KOAs and state parks I'd already researched for the Labor Day weekend.
I rousted the dogs out even before first light and took them for an abbreviated walk using a flashlight. No flies, though there were mosquitoes or something out instead. But the stickers were a constant worry because I already knew they lined the pathway and the dogs had to relieve themselves somewhere.
Because I knew we were leaving, I'd already taken steps to get the cabin ready for road travel, so we'd had breakfast, I unplugged the hoses by flashlight (to avoid the stickers), and we were on the road just as light was starting to break. I think I've left that early only once or twice before - I prefer to travel in daylight.
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| today's route |
It turns out I exaggerated yesterday about the cattle guards: there were only 5 of them on the 6-mile drive back to the highway. Plus a very low low-water crossing.
There were also lots of flocks of birds flying across the road and I had to slow way down to keep from hitting them. Don't know why they wanted to cross the road (to get to the other side, probably) or why so many of them were flying around so vigorously this early in the morning.
I stopped at a batch of historical markers I didn't want to take time for yesterday - most of them about the Santa Fe Trail.
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| see some of the text below |
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| detail from the sign above |
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| I'm sorry I couldn't get some of that "excellent camping." |
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| upper part of sign |
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| lower part of sign |
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| It's not too hard to picture these folks moving across this land. |
I guess they decided to plunk down a bunch more signs now that they'd cleared a spot to put them in. Here are some others that were there.
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| I guess they're talking about the Santa Fe Trail. |
Remember I said I'd gotten us on the road before sunrise? Here's proof.
Official sunrise in Kenton about 10 miles farther west was 6:27, but I didn't see the sun come up until 7:20. Maybe a difference in elevation? There's a herd of cows in the field at the front of that photo that you can't see because if I'd lightened the contrast it would have messed up the pretty colors. Two young cows kept staring at me when I was taking pictures.
Once the sun came up, it actually made it harder for me to see than before because all the way into Boise City I was driving almost directly into the sun. The sun was too low for the visor to help, so I had to hold up my hand to block it out of my vision - except we humans have that stereoscopic vision so holding up my hand only blocked the sun from one eye. That 20 miles or so was a 40 minute drive, partly because the sun made me drive much slower that usual.
Plus there was a stretch of heavy ground fog across the road - yet another reason for going slowly.
Fortunately, it was just yesterday that I'd come through Boise City, so I knew there was a major detour in the smack middle of town. That meant the directions I'd gotten from Google last week were useless because I knew the road it wanted me to turn on was blocked off and I hadn't seen a detour marked for it. So I found a place to park in town across from the hospital and got an internet connection and studied a map of Boise City to find an alternate route. After the dogs and I walked a bit, I took off again.
Except that alternate route I picked assumed the key road wasn't blocked off for its entire length, which it was, and it no longer connected to US 287, which would take me north to Colorado. I wandered around the streets in Boise City - not a metropolitan area with a population of about 1,200 - and kept finding dead ends and nothing that seemed to connect to the highway.
Finally, in desperation I flagged down a passing car and asked for help, and she said just turn around and go until I got to the field and turn right and I'd find the highway. Then she saw the blank look on my face and said I could follow her if I wanted to. Thank goodness. I'd never in a million years have found the route she took me because, in the first place, she crossed that blocked road at an intersection that had signs saying do not enter, and then she led me down what seemed to be an alley that I'd noticed before but didn't think it was wide enough for me (it was), and then turned right on what wasn't much more than a dirt road alongside a cropfield, and kept going farther than it seemed like we should go and then, sure enough, we got to the highway. Definitely the local knowledge route.
Her kindness, and the incredible local-ness of that route, made me feel very happy. After that truly awful experience in the campground I was really glad to be leaving Oklahoma on such a high note. It kept me smiling for a long time.
Then I saw a sign saying, "Welcome to Colorful Colorado."
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| Colorado - my 26th state |
Quite soon after I'd crossed the border I saw a sign saying there's a statewide mandate for masks in public places.
Eastern Colorado is still High Plains country, and the landscape looks just like the western part of Oklahoma. The first 50 miles of highway passed through Comanche National Grasslands. Despite having visited the Black Kettle National Grasslands a week or so ago, I'm still not clear about what constitutes a set-aside area. This area just looks like the same scrubland I've been driving through for several days.
I passed cows, a few trees, and occasional plowed fields, which made it clear this is brown dirt here, not the red dirt of OK.
We stopped in Springfield, both for a walk and for me to regroup. I needed to figure out where we were going to sleep for the next 2 nights. With an internet connection, I could see there was room at Lathrop State Park, where I already had reservations beginning on the 1st, so I reserved a campsite online.
We'd stopped at the empty parking lot of a community center, and they had a big Welcome to Springfield sign that said, among lots of other things, that they grow sorghum, wheat and prickly pear here in Colorado.
The highway signs that give the names of towns don't provide any other information about them. Not so for the water bodies, though. I can tell you that Bear Creek, for instance, has an elevation of 4,330'.
I passed a driveway for something labeled Shipwreck Ranch. I couldn't find anything for it online and wonder what the story is with that name.
The land here seems nearly flat, though there are occasional towering land masses. I saw one to the northeast that seemed pyramid-shaped and, as I got closer, saw that there are 2 of them and they're called Two Buttes.
I passed a homemade sign that had too much message for me to be able to read it all. The words I got were something like, "Bush's Rapists Are Abusive" and "Thief Trump ___" (I couldn't read the missing word). For some reason I looked up the first one and learned, to my surprise, that Pres. George HW Bush was a known satanist and an evil pedophile, part of a satanic cult that hunts and hurts naked children. Yeah, right. Me too. After that, I didn't even bother trying to figure out where the Trump thing was going. I know this QAnon stuff is popular, but what I can't figure out is how so many people can believe there's a long-standing pedophile ring going among the Who's Who in Washington, particularly one that drinks children's blood and consists of cannibals, while absolutely zero law enforcement people - from any agency - have managed to find them. Why does it make people happy to believe stuff like this?
I started seeing mountains on the horizon, and thought I might be seeing smoke. Anna had sent me information about wildfires in Colorado - there are 4 of them spread out in the western part of the state with 2 in the Denver vicinity. So that's probably the source of the smoke I'm seeing
In Lamar (pop. about 7,700), elevation 3,622' they say, I saw 2 statues that I now know I should have taken photos of. One was called Prairie Wings and showed 2 flying geese - very nicely done. It was in Centennial Park, where the dogs and I walked around a bit. The other was called Pioneer Mothers and I remember it as being a pioneer woman with a couple of kids. I can't find either one of them online, and my search for Pioneer Mothers insists I saw a statue I didn't see. I'll have to go back sometime.
I'd been told by several highway signs and some other materials that I'd find a state Welcome Center in Lamar. It must be very well hidden because I looked diligently but didn't find it.
From Lamar I turned west on US 50 and started seeing goats and maybe sheep (hard to tell once they've been shorn), as well as cows and horses. I passed several huge feed lots that were packed with thousands of cows. Well, I hear it comforts cows to be in tight spaces, so I guess they felt nice and calm here. I'd never seen anything like it though.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a one-room building with a sign that I thought said, "The Star School, built 1812." I guess I got most of it right - I found this historical note online with only the date different. And that building in the picture looks the way I remember this building looking. I can attest that it's still standing after 120 years. They built it real good. https://www.waymarking.com/Star-School-McClave-CO
I saw my first Red-winged Blackbird in months.
US Hwy 50, that I'm on here, and then US Hwy. 350 that runs farther south than I'll be going today, parallel the old Santa Fe Trail, and I saw a sign saying so.
Around the town of Hasty, the land suddenly seemed much greener than it has been - but there's lots of crops grown here so maybe there's more water available.
The land also gradually begins to climb. At Las Animas, it's 3,901' up. Farther down the road, La Junta is at 4,066' elevation. And at Walsenburg, where I'm going tonight, the elevation is 6,185'. I never noticed the climb, though, which is how I know it's done gradually.
In Las Animas, the highway makes a 90° turn at an old building. Google tells me it's now used for driver's licenses or something like that, and maybe that's right. But this building was built long before cars were built. I'd like to go back and see if there's a historical marker on that building.
La Junta, aka The Junction, has a population of about 7,000 and is the Otero County seat. You can maybe tell the Spanish and Mexican influence in this part of the state. There's still a large Hispanic population in southern CO. On the county courthouse grounds, where I walked the dogs a bit, they have speakers playing '70s music - Eagles, Crosby Stills Nash - like that. La Junta seems to be a very attractive town, but I'll learn more later this week. I've got a reservation to cover the Labor Day weekend at the La Junta KOA.
I switched highways - US 50 heads up to Pueblo but I'm heading farther south to Walsenburg and Lathrop State Park down State Highway 10. I passed multiple signs along the road telling people: "No Snowplowing 7 PM to 5 AM." Something about that message seems odd to me.
Sadly, many many butterflies kept hitting the RV. Maybe they're migrating now?
For a change, I started seeing square hay bales instead of round ones. I guess the cattle farms around here are on a smaller scale than in OK.
The land changed again, now back to the yellow/tan scrubland, where the only plants that are sticking up are varieties of cactus. This state highway is very straight and flat, but also very bumpy; Dexter's having trouble sleeping, even sitting on the front seat.
I can see the mountains are coming nearer and am having some very strong wind gusts hitting the RV.
Scrub and juniper, bare-topped mesas, what I think are the Rocky Mountains ahead.
I passed a trim little farmhouse with out buildings and a homemade sign saying, "Not 4 Sale." Wonder what made that sign necessary.
I came to Walsenburg, elev. 6,185' (meaning I've been doing some climbing, even though the road seemed flat). Walsenburg, The Heart of Spanish Peaks Country, and Gateway to the Great American West, per various signs.
And on to the campground, just 3 miles west of town. Where I found out the campsite I thought I'd reserved didn't get reserved. Honestly, every state's got a different system. The weird part is most of them use ReserveAmerica.com so you'd think they'd be standardized, but they absolutely aren't. Luckily for me, no one had come in during the day to rent that spot, so I got it anyway. I should have plenty of time during the rest of the month to get this system figured out - it took me a bit to figure out OK's, after all.
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