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Canyon with Crows (1917) from here |
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L: Alfred Stieglitz's photo of Georgia O'Keeffe in front of her charcoal drawing of Palo Duro Canyon R: No 15 Special (1916-1917), painting of the canyon |
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Canyon with Crows (1917) from here |
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L: Alfred Stieglitz's photo of Georgia O'Keeffe in front of her charcoal drawing of Palo Duro Canyon R: No 15 Special (1916-1917), painting of the canyon |
March 20, 2021
Our first stop of the day was a trip to Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, 7,664 acres of protected prairies, marshes, and woodlands.
Roadside sign on our way to the refuge |
Once inside the park, we drove on a dirt road (Bob's favorite kind of road) that made a giant loop. The unimpressive scenery mostly looked like this:
March 19, 2021
Not far from Palo Duro Canyon is another state park, Caprock Canyons, which was established in 1982. It is 15,314 acres, just 1,088 acres smaller than the 16,402 acres of Palo Duro State Park.
One of this canyon's claims to fame is that it is the home of part of the state's official bison herd. At one time, the Texas plains were covered with bison, but by 1888 there were fewer than 1,000 bison in the entire state. Some individuals and groups undertook extensive conservation efforts, and eventually the Texas State Bison Herd (yes, that is their formal name) grew to a half-million head.
In 1996, 32 bison were moved to Caprock Canyons State Park, and the herd now numbers 150. Not a bad growth rate for 25 years. I wish my stock portfolio did as well. By comparison, however, there is a herd of 3,000 bison in Yellowstone Park.
Right off the bat, we were introduced to our first bison.
Visitors' Center |
March 19-20, 2021
One of the carrots that Bob used to entice me to travel to the panhandle of Texas was talk of Palo Duro Canyon. At 120 miles long, an average of 6 miles wide, and 820 feet deep at its deepest point, it is the second largest canyon in the United States behind only the Grand Canyon. It surprised me that I had never heard of it.
After visiting the Slug Bug Ranch, we made our way across the ever-so-flat Texas prairie, where the wind that once swept all the topsoil into the air to create lethal clouds of dust in the 1930s now powers huge windmills.
October 18, 2020
We had one more highpoint to summit on this trip: Black Mesa, the highest point in Oklahoma. One of the interesting thing about this highpoint is that Black Mesa actually extends into Colorado and New Mexico, and the highpoint in both of those other states is higher than the highpoint in Oklahoma (but is not the highpoint in those states).
October 17, 2020
After our exhausting climb to the summit of Mount Sunflower 🤣, we needed some nourishment, so we stopped in Syracuse (Kansas, not New York) for lunch and had a very mediocre tostada in a restaurant called "Porky's Parlor." The name alone should have warned us away. Not one other person besides us was wearing a face mask. Yep, Trump county.
However, at least we got to visit the "Home of the USA's First All-female City Council." That was a treat!
Mural in the restaurant parking lot |