At long last we were making another trip to Colorado. But first we had to drive through the huge state of Texas, which to us was a new sort of wonderment after our Texas history studies of how geology drives history.
Amarillo by Morning
As we drove we sang Amarillo by morning, from San Antone with George Strait.
Throughout the drive, the scenery changed from hill country to brush country to rolling plains with long buttes and finally to the panhandle plains where we saw lots of dust devils.
Those are like mini tornados of dust that suddenly rise from the ground and quickly swirl and vaporize into the sky.
Mesmerizing to watch, they twirl hodge podge over the terrain…two here…one there.
Other times when there’s been more rain and the ponds and creek beds had water, we didn’t see the dust devils.
Palo Duro Canyon
Excitedly we awoke the next morning to explore the nearby geological feature, Palo Duron Canyon, the next largest canyon in America after the Grand Canyon.
I had always wanted to see it and I couldn’t imagine a canyon in this flat land.
But when you drive to it, the ground suddenly opens into a deep hole as far as the eye could see: 800 feet deep, 120 miles long and 20 miles wide.
We hiked a little bit, but only just enough to get a flavor of the terrain. Temps can get as high as 150 degrees in the microclimate of the canyon, and we weren’t prepared with water to walk a 6 mile round trip to the Lighthouse, the prime geological feature in the canyon.
So we drove around in breaks of air conditioning to see the old huts on the land where much history happened in the late 19th century.
Once the scene of battles between the Plains Indians and the US Army, by 1874 the land fell into private hands of Charles Goodnight, who had developed the iconic chuck wagon and John Adair who together formed the JA Ranch.
After our short hike, driving around, and then touring the visitor center (which is thankfully air conditioned) we drove into town to rest in air conditioning because there was a big event for us that evening.
Texas Musical
At 6pm we returned to the canyon for a BBQ dinner and a musical drama called Texas.
The show began as the sun started to set, which made a great backdrop.
Through song and dance a romance told the story of the area’s history.
Pyrotechnic fans will love how they staged a lightning strike in the canyon and a prairie grass fire.
Concluding the program is a fireworks show.
Later I found out that they next wanted to create a tornado for the show.
(For more photos click on any of the pictures for my Flickr set.)
XIT Ranch
The next day we awoke and drove through portions of the old XIT Ranch, famed for raising money for building the state capitol in Austin.
We had studied this in school, along with the history of longhorns, cowboys, chuck wagons, cattle drives, and other ranches throughout the state.
It had become my goal to collect branding irons to showcase in the kitchen (and use for cooking).
I didn’t see any for sell to tempt me, but I recalled seeing some at one of the shops in Gruene. I’d have to investigate that another time.
Meanwhile it was neat to see for ourselves the panhandle geology the comprised the terrain of the XIT Ranch.
Hopefully we can one day return to attend the annual reunion rodeo and tour the local ranch museum.
Also amazing were the massively huge irrigation systems the farmers used for their crops. That there were even crops in this heat. It was certainly a land of extremes on the outer edges of the state.
