Texas - Day 4 - Palo Duro Canyon, Floydada, and to Lubbock

Lubbock KOA, Lubbock
Friday, 6 November 2020

today's route (northern part)

today's route (southern part)

The map had the Panhandle in a separate section from the rest of Texas, which is why today's route is in pieces.  The yellow line is from when I was here in July; the pink is this trip.  This stupid new "interface" won't let me align the photos to show the trip as a whole.  (I'm living with it but still not resigned to it.)

One thing I missed while I was in Dalhart was the XIT Museum, about a ranch in this part of Texas that played a prominent role in Texas history.  Between 1885 and 1912, the ranch included 3,000,000 acres and ran 200 miles along the TX-NM border with up to 150,000 cows at a time.  In other words, a big deal.  Sometime when we're not fighting a pandemic, I'd like to learn more about it.

On the road
The land at first was mostly flat, with occasional gullies carved by rivers, though currently without rivers.

I passed a turn labeled for Boys Ranch and wondered if it were a town or the actual ranch.  Apparently it's both.  It has a post office and its own zip code but it's unincorporated.  It was begun in 1939 for what we now call at-risk youth and makes fulsome claims of the help they offer boys and girls.  However, I found a Fox News item from last year about men who are now coming forward about the horrors of living there 50 years ago.  It sounds like what we've been hearing from the survivors of people abused by Catholic priests.  Sadly, the Boys Ranch people give token acknowledgement of the problems they say are in the past, but don't seem to take it very seriously - much like the Catholic church has been doing.  Even the Wikipedia page makes no mention of these victims.  Here's the link if you're interested in what the men are saying.   https://www.foxnews.com/boys-ranch-more-men-allege-abuse

As I drove south, I passed vast fields of mesquite and cactus.

I passed a wind farm where half the turbines were motionless and half were going just fine.  It looked odd.

In Vega, pop. 884, I saw a sign for the Milburne Price Culture Museum.  Its website is on Facebook so I can't tell you what it is, except that Trip Advisor says it has exhibits about local history.  And I also don't know if it's named for 1 person - Price (first name Milburne) - or 2 people - Price and Milburne.  Life has so many mysteries.

I came to the town of Wildorado, and the name intrigued me.  Turns out it's named for a nearby creek and once had potential for grandeur.  In the early 1900s it had a railroad station, a bank, a post office, a hotel and a newspaper.  Today it's an unincorporated town of fewer than 200.

I heard someone on NPR explain that COVID-19 got its name from the 19 pounds of extra weight people put on during lockdowns.  Like the Freshman 10 that kids gain their first year of college.  Actually, I find that a reassuring idea, making me feel not quite so alone in my changed habits.

I bypassed Amarillo and headed south toward Palo Duro Canyon, located close to the town of Canyon.  In that area I saw a sign at a church that said, "In the Name of Jesus - RAIN."  Which gives a clear picture of the weather around here lately.

I also passed a sign advertising the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum at Canyon.  Online I learned this museum is on the campus of West Texas A&M University and is the largest history museum in the state.  It includes the history, geology and culture of the Panhandle from prehistory to modern wind farms.  It actually sounds interesting, yet another place to visit on a return trip.

Palo Duro Canyon

I got lucky here, because I got here before 9:30.  The office told me they only allow visitors with reservations - even for day use only - but since I was so early they were willing to let me in without one.

Palo Duro Canyon is the 2nd largest canyon in North America (behind the Grand Canyon, of course).  For some reason, none of the park's literature or signs wants to give its dimensions, but I found online that it's about 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide in places, and 820' - 1000' deep.  To see anything much of the canyon, you have to drive down into it.  The state park has a road the warns of a 10% grade with many double-s curves.  The park ranger at the entrance told me the round-trip drive takes about 45 minutes.  The road is your standard mountain-type road and, after what I went through at Mariposa Pass in Colorado, it was a piece of cake.  Unlike the State of Colorado, Texas State Parks has heard of guard rails.

Not too far from the entrance is the visitor center and a viewpoint, where I saw 2 separate couples taking photos.  Here're my photos from there.

facing south

facing north

Spectacular, isn't it?

There was also a display in honor of the CCC, who built this park in the 1930s.

The park didn't have any signs saying "look here at the 4 distinct layers of rock" so I wasn't sure what to look for.  But this photo might be showing some of them.

As I drove down into the canyon, I saw red dirt, red rocks and brown rocks, blue shadows where the morning sun hadn't penetrated, green cedar/juniper and mesquite and, here and there, bright yellow gingko trees.  The yellow splashes were a relief from all the earth colors.

And for scenery:

As I was driving out of the canyon and the park, I decided that, as interesting and impressive as all of this was, I really prefer my natural wonders from a distance.  It's one thing to see scenery like this when I'm driving through it along the road, and another to drive down inside and dissect it, so to speak.  I preferred the aerial view at the visitor center.

The brochure I got at the entrance described an atrocity that occurred here in the canyon in 1874.  The so-called Red River War was a campaign the US Army waged against the Southern Plains Indians to clear them off their lands and onto reservations in Indian Territory in OK, so the lands could be seized and developed by white people.  On Sept. 24, 1874, Col. Ranald Mackenzie, who is undoubtedly burning in Hell (I only believe in Hell when I come across people I think deserve it), led the 4th US Cavalry down into the canyon where 5 encampments of Indians were set up.  They attacked the first of those, a Kiowa camp, where the Indians ran, leaving behind all their possessions.  The army burned the teepees and all the winter food supply, then confiscated some horses for the troops and shot the remaining 1,100 horses.  This left the Indians without food or horses with winter coming on.  They had no choice but to walk to the Fort Sill reservation, forever losing their traditional way of life.

The morals of that story: don't trust the US Government if you're not white; don't trust greedy people; don't camp in a canyon, however valuable the shelter it provides; always have a Plan B.

One of the beneficiaries of this episode was Charles Goodnight who, in 1876, with his partner John Adair founded the JA Ranch in the canyon.  Goodnight allowed others to shoot the Southern Plains Bison herds still in the area, so his cows would have more room, but fortunately his wife Mary Ann worried the bison would go extinct, and their efforts managed to save the herd.

Back on the road

I saw one lone wind turbine out on its own in a field, with no others in sight - and the sightline in that part of the country runs pretty far. Because I saw several houses in that general area, I'm guessing these local folks banded together to buy one for their joint use.

Google's directions for getting from the park onto !-27 southbound were just wacky.  Instead of the obvious left turn under the overpass to merge onto the highway, they suggested either taking a FM road for miles to pick up another highway entrance or else to go straight for a mile, then turn left, then turn left, then turn left, then turn right to get back to the highway.  Huh??  I could see the obvious route from their own aerial view.

I'd driven down the highway a few miles before I finally figured out where the rush of cold air was coming from that I'd felt all morning.  When I cleaned the windows the other day, I must not have completely closed the passenger door, and as I drove it seemed to be getting looser and looser, which is how I figured out the problem.  I thought there was supposed to be a warning light telling me a door was ajar but, if so, it didn't work.  Thank goodness I figured it out before it flew open, likely taking Dexter with it, since he often leans against it when he's napping.

I got to the town of Happy, pop. 678, whose motto is The Town Without A Frown.  They also claim to be The Financial Center of the Universe.  I have no idea why.  When I tried to look it up, the only thing of interest I found had nothing to do with that but instead with Texas secession.   https://www.huffpost.com/10-things-we'd-lose-if-texas-actually-seceded  Regarding that issue, I prefer Doonesbury's 1-week take on it, and the best link I could find begins here.   https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2012/12/10  Keep clicking the forward button to the end at 2012/12/15; it was 6 days's worth.

Happy, by the way, was named for a nearby draw (water source) by the cowboys who'd been happy to find water there.

I was nearly out of the Panhandle by this point and decided that area is all about agriculture, and especially beef.  There are support industries there, but the main financial driver must be cows, and the agriculture needed to support them.

I passed one of those electronic signs that said, "End the Traffic Fatalities - 3010 deaths on Texas roads this year."

I'd been seeing cotton fields since Amarillo, but when I got to the town of Kress, pop. 715, I started seeing more of them.  The land was very flat in this area.

At Plainview, I cut off the interstate to head southeast.  I bought gas at a Valero station for $1.51/gallon, the cheapest price I've found in a while.  There's a strong Hispanic presence in this town.

Floydada

I was aiming for Floydada, pop. 2,750.  I noticed the town's existence when I was young because I thought the name sounded funny.  It's pronounced floy-DAY-dah, by the way.  So since I was in the vicinity, I thought I'd stop by.

Once again, Google's information was a problem.  They'd directed me into town via a dirt road which did not run past a park, as they'd said, but instead through a very industrial section devoted to agriculture, cotton in particular.

These are cotton bales, in a form I hadn't seen before today.  They're long rectangles and must weigh a lot.  I'm not sure the point of packing them like this, because they don't look very portable.  But after I saw this site, I started seeing these rectangular bales in fields.

Floydada is in the wind corridor of the country, running from Minnesota down to the TX Panhandle.  The town also sits at the intersection of 2 power grids, so it's in a favorable position for developing wind power, but I didn't see any signs that that was being done yet.

Floydada claims the title of Pumpkin Capital of the USA, and I did see a small field of pumpkins, but it was next to a field of cotton.  My impression is that Floydada is all about cotton.  It seemed to be an old, tired town.

Back on the road

From here we had about an hour to go to get to Lubbock.

Most of the way, what I saw were fields of cotton and wind farms.  Surprisingly, no oil wells today.

I passed through Cone (pop. 70 in 2000), Ralls (pop. 1,827), and Idalou (pop. 2,291 in 2018).  In Idalou, I came across the Texas A&M Forest Service, which seemed a bit bizarre and Aggie-like since there really aren't many trees out here.  But it turns out this is where they have the West Texas Nursery, which is A&M's only seedling nursery in the state.  They produce and sell about 20 different tree species each year.  They say their forest service has been protecting and sustaining forests since 1915.

And then we came to Lubbock, pop. 229,573.  When I was here in July, I visited several places, including the Buddy Holly Museum, and it had been a long day, so I went straight to the campground, where we had plans to stay for 3 nights.

Texas - Day 3 - Rita Blanca National Grassland & Lake Rita Blanca

Corral RV Park, Dalhart
Thursday, 5 November 2020

I saw a shooting star when I was walking the dogs this morning.  I haven't seen one of those in a long time.  I should remember this as a place to come during the time of year when meteor showers are more common.

Speaking of shooting stars, yesterday my windshield got hit by 2 rocks at the top and bottom at almost exactly the same time, and the resulting stars seem pretty big to me.  Not knowing anything about the strength of these modern windshields, I figured I'd better get a professional to take a look at it.  When the campground owner finally showed up late yesterday afternoon to check people in (I think she has a day job), I asked for a windshield recommendation, not having found much online.

Today I called her suggested guy, and he came right on over.  His opinion was that he'd be glad to take my money for a new windshield but I didn't really need to replace it.  He said he could fill the stars if I wanted, and I decided to do that, remembering when we did it on Momma's Honda.  But then he noticed that the star at the top of the windshield was bad enough it couldn't take the pressure he'd need to use to fill it and would start cracking the whole window.  

I summarized his advice as being I could replace the windshield if I wanted to but it would be perfectly safe not to as long as I didn't push directly on that one star.  He said neither cleaning the windshield nor wind pressure while on the road would change that situation.  Since both stars are in the exact middle of the windshield and I can't reach either one without actually climbing on the hood of the RV (which I don't intend to do), I decided to leave things as they are for now and keep an eye on them for further cracks.  I prefer things to be whole and perfect, but my life on the road makes that impossible so I'm learning to accept imperfection.

So off we went.

today's route

On the road
Just out of Dalhart I passed the Hilmar Cheese Co.  I didn't know Texas produced cheese.  Farther along the road I passed the Boer Dairy.  

I drove past green crops growing - winter wheat? - and grazing land.  The land became really flat with not a tree in sight - and I could see to the horizon.  Even a windmill stands out in such a flat landscape.

A tumbleweed blew into the road and hit the RV.

I passed fields of corn and sunflowers.

And then I came to the TX-OK border.  There'd been no sign indicating the turn for FM 296, which passes through the grasslands I wanted to visit and then goes on to the town of Texline.  Either the road or the town or the national grasslands should have merited a highway sign, and there wasn't one for any of those.  I did a U-turn and, southbound, there was indeed such a sign.  And I thought I could trust the TX Highway Dept.

Rita Blanca National Grassland
FM 296 runs for 32 miles across the grasslands.  These are photos I took along the way.  The road was 2 lanes, but they were so narrow that I drove down the center of the road most of the way.  It was no problem seeing oncoming traffic (of which there was little) in time to move over.  Take a look at these photos and you'll see.

I don't know if that fence (above) was strung up by a farmer protecting his private land or by the park service protecting the grasslands.  I passed individually-owned farms all along the way, which bothered me because how can you say you're protecting grasslands if you're letting people come plow them up?  You see, I was still trying to figure out what the point of the grasslands is and why we're protecting them.  

You can see on the map above that the Rita Blanca National Grassland covers a pretty good chunk of the far northern Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma's panhandle as well.  On the New Mexico side of the border is the Kiowa National Grassland.  I can't see any reason the 2 are split.  I found this explanation of the Rita Blanca part online, and it seems to echo what I found a few days ago at that Lake Marvin/Black Kettle Grassland.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Rita-Blanca-National-Grassland

While I was searching for some reason that Rita Blanca and Kiowa grasslands are managed separately, I found this page about the grasslands in the US and finally! I've got a bit of an understanding of what I've been looking at.  Take a look at this US Forest Service page.   https://www.fs.fed.us/grasslands/aboutus  I remember noticing at that previous grassland that, if it had once been part of the Dust Bowl disaster, its recovery had been spectacular.  This page sounds as if that was exactly the point.  And not only has the land itself recovered, but all the critters that depend on that particular kind of habitat are recovering as well.

To me, I'm still looking at grass, but I guess the point is that it's grass I'm looking at, not mounds of blowing topsoil like we had after we dug up the prairie grasses in the early settlement era.

Texas Parks & Wildlife has a description of the kinds of critters that can be found here at Rita Blanca at different times of the year including, apparently, a prairie dog colony.  I didn't see anything except hawks and meadowlarks, which doesn't mean the others aren't there but that I was afraid to stop much along the road.  Anyway, this same "wildlife trails" page has similar information for the Lake Marvin area and others in the Panhandle.   https://tpwd.texas.gov/wildlife-trails/rita-blanca-loop

Back on the road
There was a rest stop at the other end of FM 296, but I'd only just left Dalhart and didn't want to stop when we passed it.  But on the Texline end, we were all ready for a break.  The trouble was that Texline, pop. 597, has other things to worry about than providing parks.  It looks like a casualty both of the move from small towns to bigger ones and also of the economic fallout from the virus.  We ended up stopping in the parking lot of a motel that was boarded up with a For Sale sign in front.  Dismal, but we were at least able to walk around the parking lot and get some lunch.

From there, we drove back through Dalhart to another small wildlife area I'd heard about on the south edge of town.

Lake Rita Blanca City Park
We passed through a very nice, large city park to this small lake, which is completely undeveloped.  I came because I'd heard it's a magnet for migrating birds.  And, in fact, I saw surprisingly large quantities of birds.

You can see this is an undeveloped area
at a small local lake.  But the birds love it.

birds both flying and swimming

birds in the water

I tried to get these shots enlarged enough so you could see the clouds of birds flying in the photo upper right, and the mass of birds swimming in the photo lower left, but my photo program doesn't allow anything better than these.  If you can enlarge them yourselves, you'll see how many birds were around.  The oddity to me is that this is just a little lake, nowhere near the size of - say - Lake Meredith not far southeast of here.  But I guess it's got something special that appeals to the birds.   If you scroll down the page shown in the link for Rita Blanca Loop above, you'll find information about the critters at this little lake as well.

Driving through Dalhart
Dalhart is situated in 2 counties - Dallam County and Hartley County.  The dividing line runs right through town.  Guess where the town's name came from.

It seems to be a complicated town, with some very fancy houses and some very ordinary houses and an overall dusty cowtown sort of feel.  But the pervasive influence is the smell of cows.  I talked to a store clerk who said she'd moved here from Lampasas, where her family is.  She said she just hadn't been able to warm up to Dalhart because of the smell of the cows.  After staying here a couple of days, I can agree.

Texas - Day 2 - Alibates Flint Quarries, Dalhart

Corral RV Park, Dalhart
Wednesday, 4 November 2020

Last night's campground in Amarillo had some odd features.  When I first got there, an employee led me to our campsite, and then leaned into the driver's side through the window to tell me things about the park.  I still had my seatbelt on and leaned as far away from him as I could, thankful I hadn't taken my mask off after being in the campground office.  For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he thought being in my face - even without the virus - would make me feel welcome.

And I barely got any sleep during the night both because of lots of lights in the campground, and because of lots of noise.  I've been in plenty of campgrounds right by highways and railroad tracks, but in this one the noise was somehow amplified.  Usually I find the background noise almost soothing, but here it was pounding in my ears so I couldn't sleep.  I finally got up early and took the dogs out.

Actually, the noise and lights were only the reason I first woke up.  What kept me awake was wondering who'd won the election last night.  I was awake by midnight and up before 1:00, which was when I learned we were still a long way from knowing who won.  I watched NBC's broadcast of election returns, with breaks for walking the dogs, until it was time to get back on the road.  

Having spent several years as an election judge in my precinct in Austin, I have a pretty good idea of the kinds of procedures and safeguards that are being followed in all these states, trying to deal with a mountain of absentee ballots.  I know the kinds of pressures I got from disgruntled voters, and it sounds like those were dust bunnies compared to what election workers are having to deal with now.  My hat's off in appreciation of their dedication and hard work to complete the vote count for the country.

On the other hand, there was a beautiful sunrise.

today's route

On the road

As I was leaving Amarillo, I passed a large plant labeled Asarco Grupo Mexico - Amarillo Copper Refinery.  I hadn't realized Texas had copper deposits so I looked it up and learned that there was a lot of copper mining from the late 1800s until 1947.  Almost all of that was in the Van Horn area, though, out in west Texas, rather than in the Panhandle.  Now Texas processes the copper that's still mined in other states, with refineries here and in El Paso.  Grupo Mexico is one of the world's major copper producers.  So now I know.

As I drove north, the land stopped being flat and I started seeing hills and arroyos.

More strong wind today - so strong, in fact, I was driving 62 in a 75-mph zone, moving over to let people go around me, being thankful I was back in a state where drivers actually would go around me.  It's not just altruism: it relieves my guilt at going so slowly and it gets them off my tail so I don't have to keep a close eye on them.

Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument

This was another locale I found on the AAA map, not having heard of it before.  I found you don't have to be a geologist to find it interesting, though at least a smidge of background in geology would help, and I didn't have even a smidge. 

This is the country it lies in.

You may not be able to see it in these photos, but the soil here is the red dirt I found in Oklahoma and southern Colorado - no coincidence, though, since here we're not far from the borders with both states.

This monument was created in 1966 and was Texas's first - and for many years Texas's only - national monument.  It protects this area where a unique kind of flint was mined in prehistoric times, and for many years afterwards.  It also protects the remains of housing some of those who lived here established.

The exhibits at the visitor center were clearly geared for younger people, but they're still somewhat informative.

(pronounced to rhyme with the Bates
in Bates Motel)

These early people (see left) were part of the Clovis culture, which was named for tools found near Clovis, NM, in the 1920s and '30s.  Those tools have been carbon-dated back to 12,900 - 13,000 years ago.  

Alibates flint was prized partly for its beauty, but mainly because it was unusually hard so could cut through bison skin more easily and make more useful tools.  Its crystal structure can't be seen under a microscope.  Only expert craftsmen can "read" a piece of flint to know how to cut it to produce tools.

The flint lies in a 6'-thick ridge just below the earth's surface.  Scientists assume early people were able to collect flint from veins exposed by erosion, so they didn't have to dig.  More than 700 quarries have been found so far in this protected area, and they're all 5' - 25' wide and 4' - 7' deep.

The visitor center also had an interesting video, but unfortunately I didn't take a notebook with me and instantly forgot everything it said.

I tried to walk the dogs around the area but we found a great many stickers, and I got tired of taking them out of the dogs' feet so called a halt to that.  (Sometimes that sticker-removal process ends with them stuck in me, and they hurt.)

Back on the road

I crossed the Canadian River and saw this information-packed historical marker about it.

This entire area is covered in red dirt with many canyons in sight.

I ended up behind 2 huge cargo trucks full of cotton.  Not baled cotton, just cotton as it comes off the plant.  And I passed major fields with cotton, and fields with those round cotton bales sitting where cotton was still growing.  I hadn't figured the Panhandle as a cotton-growing region, but it clearly is.

And on into Dalhart, pop. 7,930.  I wanted to come here because I've heard this name all my life but never been here.  I'll be staying 2 nights.

Texas - Day 1 - grasslands and Panhandle

Amarillo Ranch RV Park, Amarillo
Tuesday, 3 November 2020

One more difference in this stay at Alabaster Caverns State Park versus in August - back then it was almost completely dark during the night here.  The darkness was so unlike any place else I'd stayed that I found it unnerving.  Of course, I expected that same level of darkness this time and was stunned to find how light it was.  Then I realized we still have a full moon going on, and it's amazing how much light a full moon puts out, considering it's not even the source of the light itself.  It wasn't quite like daytime, but it sure wasn't a pitch-dark night either.

Yesterday, it was so warm I turned on the air conditioner for the first time in a while.  Such a contrast with the below-freezing temps we had in Kansas just a week or so ago.  And I needed the cool air because I turned my mattress yesterday afternoon.  I was glad I'd spent the time and money to get a mattress I could turn, to make it last longer.  But even just turning it endwise is a major production because of all the cabinets and walls that hem in the bed space.  It's more of a 2-person project, and I remember my brother helped me turn it over last May or so.  But it needed to be done, and it took a while but I did it.  Then I took the rest of the afternoon off.

I saw 5 deer grazing in the tent area yesterday evening, so I knew to be cautious when I took the dogs out for walks in the morning.  I did see 1 this morning, but it saw us too and disappeared right away.  Dexter didn't really see the deer, just the movement, so I got really lucky.

It's such a tiny campground that there really isn't much of anywhere for us to walk, except places coated with stickers, which are out.  I felt like I was short-changing the dogs but didn't see an alternative.

today's route

On the road

Twenty miles from the campground, we came to Mooreland, which is where I clearly remember getting stuck for a long time waiting for multiple trains to cross the road.  And sure enough, the railroad crossing arms were coming down today too, just as we were approaching.  But unlike last time, today there was only 1 train, and it was moving along at a brisk clip, so we didn't have long to wait.

I remembered there was a decent grocery store down the road in Woodward and stopped there, and managed to find everything I was looking for.  I didn't expect that from a small-town grocery store, but I've been surprised that way several times before.

In Woodward, I was waiting at a traffic light and noticed next to me was a Maserati.  I was so surprised I didn't even notice the license plate.  Not a make of car I'd expect in a small Oklahoma town.

I heard on the radio that OK law doesn't allow poll watchers while the polls are open.  Even Texas allows them, with certain limits of course, so that really surprised me.

OK has a town named Fargo.

Shattuck Windmill Museum

The last town in OK before the Texas border is Shattuck, a town of just under 2,000 folks.  When I was double-checking Google's plan for my route, I accidentally noticed this windmill museum was here and decided to take a look.  Here's a sample of what I saw.

dedicated to the pioneering settlers

they're all different

The cows were thirsty
The sheep were too
They got their water
When the wind blew

a homemade windmill

detail from left

As this windmill shows, these other styles that are mostly familiar to us are all store-bought.  Several that I saw were tagged Montgomery Ward.

This museum is free and nobody seemed to mind that I walked my dogs out to look at the windmills.  It's quite a place.  I was glad I stumbled on it.

Back on the road

And then, Welcome to Texas!

Texas - my 28th state

Texas, where everyone is born with a set of car keys in their hands, as I used to say.  This is not a state where mass transit has ever caught on, which has long been a serious problem for the less financially-advantaged Texans.

In practical terms, what it meant to me today is that the speed limit on most of the roads I saw today was 75 mph.  Even when they were just 2-lane roads, albeit with shoulders.  But I went the speed I was comfortable with and moved over for the real Texas drivers.  And thank goodness I was back in a state where drivers knew to pass me when I signaled to the right and moved over.  Not one of them hung back and made me come to a complete stop, as I've had to do in some states; if they could see a clear road ahead and I pulled over, they passed me.  It's a relief.

I passed scrubland and grazing land with occasional cows.  I passed a lone bicyclist out in the middle of nowhere - well, there was nothing around but very large ranches without a building in sight.

I turned on FM Rd. 2266, which is a very narrow 2-lane road with blind curves, no shoulder whatever and no margin for error.  But, this being Texas, the speed limit was 60 mph.

I passed through the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area and saw a couple of men dressed in camouflage.  That reminded me that this is hunting season and made me nervous about walking my dogs.  At least the road through that area was paved; the road into the Lake Marvin area was unpaved and very bumpy.

Lake Marvin National Grasslands

Lake Marvin

Lake Marvin is supposed to be 63 acres, though you can see from the sandbars how low the water level was when we were there.  Presumably a product of the ongoing drought in many parts of Texas, including the Panhandle.

It's also considered a prime spot for birdwatchers at times during the year.  In the winter, for instance, the lake hosts a multitude of species of birds, especially various ducks and woodland species.  They say they even get a few Bald Eagles in the winter.  The website I found for TX Parks & Wildlife also lists species for spring and summer, but nothing for the fall, which is now.  I saw some duckies on the lake but couldn't tell what species they were.

The dogs and I walked around for a while until I got tired of pulling stickers out of their feet.  I'm still trying to figure out what constitutes a grassland worthy of federal protection.  To my untutored eye, I've been passing a whole lot of grassland for some days now so don't understand what it is about these areas that needs protecting.  But I can tell you that the State of Texas bought this land in the 1930s to try to return it to its natural pre-Dust Bowl condition.

These are samples of the grassland I saw there.

As you can see, there's grass there, and even I could tell there were a number of different types of grass.  But whether this was what they were protecting, I couldn't tell you.  There were no exhibits or signs anywhere to explain this to me.

You may remember when I was in OK in August I stopped at the joint visitor center for the Washita Battlefield and Black Kettle National Grasslands (this area is part of that grasslands).  They did have exhibits there, but I guess I'd need somebody to stand by my side and point and explain before I'll truly understand why they're protecting this.  Although, if this area used to be part of the Dust Bowl - well, I've seen photos of the lands back then and I'd say their rehab process here was a success.

one more picture of grass

Driving back out of the Wildlife Area, I stopped at a couple of historical markers.

I don't remember seeing historical markers being written in the style of telegraphs, but these sure were.

Back on the road

I crossed the Canadian River and, just like the sign said, I saw the railroad tracks, complete with moving train, on the non-town side of the river.  But the current town of Canadian, pop. 2,649 (remember, TX puts population figures on its city limits signs), is no Hogtown and, anyway, the town has grown enough so the location of the train no longer matters.

In Canadian, I passed a nursery with a sign that said, "You can't buy happiness, but you can buy plants and they bring happiness."

Although the land looked much like I'd seen in western OK and KS, the hills seemed much higher.  The strong winds were back and felt much more dangerous at the high speeds allowed on these roads, so I slowed down considerably. 

I passed a highway sign that said, "Low Visibility - Blowing Dust - Next 1 Mile."  Glad they warned me but not something to induce a high comfort level.

Oddly, I didn't see any Trump signs along this road.

Several counties had signs posted about a burn ban in effect.

I passed huge cotton fields and huge plowed fields and large fields where a crop - likely winter wheat - was growing.  

The land suddenly became very flat and I could see a long way to the horizon.  I passed a huge field full of hay bales, and the Red River Dairy.

Pampa

I drove around the town of Pampa, pop. 17,994, a little, because I've heard of it all my life and just wanted to see what was there.  The main thing I saw was that their solution to possible flooding in the streets was to make the curb gutters deep ditches.  I had to take them all at a crawl (I actually scraped my rear end on one) and got sick and tired of doing that after a few blocks.  These deep ditches crossed every intersection to continue between each block, so they were like a reverse speed bump.

I also noticed that some of the traffic lights were the old-fashioned kind that were on short poles, rather than suspended on an arm over an intersection.  I wondered if they kept these because they were useful in strong winds.

I passed a large factory labeled Cabot, which I hadn't heard of but they make chemical products and at this plant they manufacture carbon blacks (which I thought was a color, not an item) to be used in toner, sealants and coatings.

My overall impression was that Pampa is a flat, dusty Plains town.

Back on the road

Driving away from town I was overtaken by a fancied-up bus with one sign saying "Harvesters" and a bunch of signs saying "Go Lady Harvesters."  You know, I didn't question that formulation back in the early days of women's sports, but it's been enough decades now that it seems to me it's time to stop this nonsense.  To keep things in parity, if they call the girls' team "Lady Harvesters" they should call the boys' team "Gentlemen Harvesters."  They shouldn't be acting any more as if the boys' team was the real team and the girls' team was just an afterthought.  Especially since the girls' teams often win more than the boys' teams.  (Women's soccer, anyone?)

There's a town named White Deer, pop. just under 1,000.  Established 1906, their sign said.

All along the way I've been seeing lots of duckies and geese in the various bodies of water I've passed.

The town of Panhandle, pop. 2,452, claims to be "A People of Pride and Purpose."

I drove parallel with a long train hauling containers, and several of them called themselves "Ecocontainers" because, they said, they had bamboo flooring; some also were made of light steel.

Another highway sign that said "Gusty Winds Area."  Which was a little unnerving since I've been driving in gusty winds for most of the day, but it was indeed a gusty area.

Coming into Amarillo, I passed a very large Tyson plant.

Either Google told me the wrong thing or I wrote the wrong thing down, because I turned the wrong way for tonight's campground and got a non-scenic tour of the frontage road for I-40.  When I figured that out, I found the campground without much problem.  

This campground is owned by the Big Texan Steak Ranch, the one that says they'll give you a free 72-oz. steak meal if: you eat the steak and a shrimp cocktail and a baked potato and a roll with butter in 1 hour or less; you sit at their designated table; no one else touches your meal; you may not leave the table during the hour; if you get sick, you lose; you must pay the full $72 up front, which they'll refund if you meet the challenge.  They've got the winners back to 1960 posted on their website.  I'd rather buy a steak and cook it myself and eat what I want, for a lot less money, but lots of people do it.  There were lots of vehicles parked in their parking lot at 3 PM.

The campground will deliver food from the restaurant to your campsite, which I declined.

Traveling to Texas via Oklahoma

Alabaster Caverns State Park, Freedom OK
Monday, 2 November 2020

today's route

Today's drive wasn't particularly long, as you can see, but I decided to stop here for the night instead of heading for Texas in 1 day of driving for several reasons.  For one thing, there aren't many campgrounds in the Texas Panhandle.  The most northerly state park is at Palo Duro State Park, which is south of Amarillo, and Amarillo's where the only Panhandle KOA is.  So I was limited to private campgrounds for a place to stay, and there aren't all that many of them.  And for another thing, driving straight through would be about 8 hours for me, which is more than I want to put us through if I don't have to.  And for still another, there are a lot of places I want to see in the Panhandle and I didn't want to whiz by one or more and then have to backtrack later on, or have to miss them entirely.  So I stopped in OK for the night.

I had an advantage because, as you can see from the map, I was along part of this route in August, so I knew what the campgrounds were like.  Alabaster Caverns and Boiling Springs State Parks are very close together, and I stayed in both and still remember them clearly.  I chose Alabaster Caverns because I remember picking up an internet signal here, and I couldn't at Boiling Springs.

On the road

The last town in Kansas I came to was Caldwell.  This fancy decoration downtown makes the town seem much larger than the 1,000 it has.

In the vicinity of this arch I saw a historical marker that I didn't stop for but did look up.  It was for the Last Chance Saloon and, as often happens with bits of history from just post-Civil War, it's interesting.  You can find it at this link.   https://www.hmdb.org/Last-Chance-Saloon

In Oklahoma I came to Medford, a town of fewer than 1,000, which seems to have some residents from Poland or Czechoslovakia or wherever they use this kind of letter, and name: Smrčk.  As I was coming into town I passed Smrčk's Cafe.  In town I found this memorial.

memorial of the Oklahoma Land Run

detail

more detail

The dogs and I took a short walk and passed a house that still had decorated pumpkins in front.  One of them had letters carved in it: C I N K.  I puzzled about that for a while and decided maybe it was the name of the family living there.  Then when I was leaving town I noticed a business called Cink Services Inc.  So yeah, it was a name.

I also passed a house with a big sign out front that said, "Welcome Home Radar."

I passed through the tiny town of Jet, which isn't on the AAA map, but I remember it from when I turned there to go to the Great Salt Plains State Park.

When I was here before, I didn't go past Jet so the next part of the drive was new to me.  I saw a sign saying I could turn left to go to Yewed.  I pondered that for a bit and managed to turn it into the word Dewey.  And just then I passed Dewey Road on the right.  There's got to be a story about that.

In the town of Cherokee, I saw a sign at the Methodist church saying they're holding worship services at the fairgrounds, which sounds like a good plan for protecting against the virus.

I passed the Short Springs Cemetery Association building and wondered if I'd missed the town of Short Springs somewhere.  But there's no town, just the cemetery.  The odd thing about that building is - well - first, that there's a building at all and also that it's a tiny building.  I'll bet they can't have a meeting of 10 people in there.  And besides all that is that it's not even at the cemetery but down the road a bit from there.  

Today, like yesterday, I was fighting a strong crosswind.  With these narrow roads I'm driving, it can be a little scary sometimes.

At the town of Alva, I stopped on the outskirts for gas at a Phillips 66 station, where I paid $1.75/gallon, which is the lowest I've paid in quite a while.  Oddly, about a half mile farther into town, several gas stations were charging $1.99 and $1.96.  That's a big jump and I can't see that a half a mile should make such a difference.

In Alva I passed a church with a sign that said: "If your life stinks, we have a pew for you."

I parked by a church to walk the dogs and noticed in several places a small sign that said "POW Trail."  So of course I looked it up and found an odd story from the local public library about the POW camp for Nazis that was built here.   https://www.alvaok.org/Public-Library-Camp  There are so many odd stories sitting around the towns of this country.

I passed a farm that advertised a Hay Maze, that I think they built using the round hay bales as the walls of the maze.  That same farm had Alpacas grazing in a field.

I passed a sign that said, "Eat Wheat."  I remember that sign from when I was here before, and to me it sounds like we're being urged to eat raw grain, like chewing on grass.

I ran out of reception for any NPR station a little while back and was left with my own thoughts - always a hodgepodge - and came up with a New Yorker cartoon that I think may have been by Booth.  It showed a middle-aged couple in a dismal, 1-room apartment with a bare bulb hanging down from a wire as the light fixture for the room.  The wife was disheveled and ironing clothes, and the man was coming in the door from work carrying his lunch pail.  He said to her, "I heard a bit of good news today - we shall pass this way but once."

That's just about the way I'm feeling about the upcoming election.

When I got to tonight's campground, I was surprised to see there were already 2 RVs and a tent pitched.  There are only 9 campsites here plus a small tenting area, and when I was here before I was the only one for both nights I stayed here.  Of course, this being November I didn't think there'd be anybody this time either, which shows how wrong I can be when I try.  But I go to bed so early that I didn't notice anybody else.

What I hadn't forgotten was that there are a lot of stickers in the grass here, and that hasn't changed.  I took the dogs for a walk and Gracie got 6 stickers in 1 foot, 2 more in each of 2 other feet, and 1 more in the 4th foot.  Painful for her, and painful for me when I took them out.