There wasn’t a sign or literature anywhere saying what specific kind of dinosaur left these prints. But because my inner six-year-old is basically Calvin (see above and at right re: "Currently Reading"), I spent the whole time imagining it was a one of these:
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When Jayson spoke to his family the week before we left, they informed him that they were planning a trip to Durango this week. They decided that, since Durango is only six hours’ drive from Black Mesa, they’d go ahead and meet his family in Colorado. Brian and I, having to be back at work on Monday, prepared Sunday morning to leave the Black Mesa Bed & Breakfast and drive home. We packed up, readied the dogs, and Vicki fed us a wonderful breakfast. I promised her to tell everyone I know to come stay at her place, so here goes:
YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD STAY AT THE BLACK MESA BED AND BREAKFAST. IT’S WONDERFUL.
Okay - whoops, okay.
On our drive in to Kenton we’d passed a Dinosaur Quarry on the highway near the entrance to Black Mesa State Park. We’d been ready to arrive at our destination by then and so we hadn’t stopped; Brian and I decided we’d give the Quarry a quick look-see on our way out:
There’s a big, mounted dinosaur bone on a pedestal by the road there. The Oklahoma Panhandle has been a hotbed of paleontology for quite some time, as evidenced by our visit to the dinosaur tracks the previous evening. The Quarry is a place where a fairly-large dig had taken place in the past; unfortunately for fossil lovers and Panhandle guests, the large bone by the road was not labeled. From whence and what dinosaur had it come? THE CURIOSITY WAS KILLING ME.
Across the road from the Quarry was Black Mesa State Park, which was host to some incredible rock formations:
After checking out the Quarry, and becoming horribly distraught at the lack of information on the Large Giant Dinosaur Bone, we got back on the road:
I had asked Brian if he would mind changing our route. I’m writing a novel that’s set along the Kansas-Oklahoma border, and I wanted to see more of the countryside. So, we took this route home:
We got to see some very, very cool stuff on this drive, including the town of Hooker, where, as one might expect, all the signs sound dirty. Not kidding - you try driving past a sign labeled "Hooker Health Club," or "Hooker Horny Toads" (honest to God that’s their high school mascot), and not laughing like an idiot. Even something that normally would be innocuous, like "Dan’s Upholstery," in a town called Hooker, takes on a whole new level of funny. Still, a certain sense of decorum prevented me from stopping and snapping photos; it just seemed wrong somehow. Also, I was tired.
The towns in northwestern Oklahoma are fantastic. Lots of small towns all over America, including many parts of Oklahoma, are falling apart, it seems, due to poverty and an aging population that’s not being replaced, as young people flee to the cities. This may be happening in northern Oklahoma, but for the most part the towns seemed really nice, very clean and in general were doing well. For instance, the town of Gate, Oklahoma ("The Gateway to the Panhandle"), featured a cafe named after our buddy Laurie:
And across the street was this little piece of Americana:
The plains in this part of the state were rolling and hilly, unlike the Panhandle. Calvin would struggle a little bit up a hill, and then we’d have an awesome rollercoaster ride down. Our eventual goal was the city of Alva, where I’ve set the story I’m working on, but where I’d never been. Kinda dumb, right? So, we stopped and I got some photos. They’re terrible, and awfully uninteresting really, though the whole thing did help me get a sense of what I’m writing. We only stopped in Alva for some lunch at McDonald’s and drove around the campus of Northwestern Oklahoma State University before getting back on the road, where we encountered a wildfire:
And got pulled over in the city of Hennessey before finally making our way back home. Boys and dog were very glad to arrive back at Casa Okay City, where the garden and flowers were in desperate need of some water, but where everything else was mostly in order.
Thanks for riding with me through this three-part debrief of this trip. It really was the best three-day weekend of my entire life, and I feel completely refreshed coming back from it. I haven’t worked through the whole thing spiritually, except that I know it was good, and I feel good about where I am right now. Thanks, Oklahoma Panhandle, Thanks, good friends and my wonderful husband, and Thank You, Jesus.
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We took a lot of photos out the window of the car on this trip, but I think this one was my favorite. Snapped at sunset on our way out to the Three-State marker.
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At about 4 or 5 a.m. on Saturday, two animals were on the roof of the Bunkhouse playing, or fighting. It woke me up, and I slept the next hour or two restlessly, finally rising out of my bed just before dawn. I sat outside and watched the sun come up through the valley.
Vicki had asked us the night before what time we’d like breakfast. We told her we were planning on hiking to the top of Black Mesa the next day, and she urged us to get an early start, offering to feed us at 6:30 so we could be at the trailhead by 7. She laid a fantastic spread before us that morning: blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon and fresh fruit and coffee. More than ever, I felt as if we were staying with family, as I remembered so many early-morning breakfasts like this when visiting my dad’s sister’s house in Arkansas. We were full and happy by the time we left for the trailhead.
Laurie had opted to stay behind and have a relaxed morning, and as soon as we started off on our hike, I envied her. We were so full of food that we could barely walk. We packed Brian’s backpack full of water and snacks and took off up the trail, which goes first around the mountain for almost 3 miles before finally starting off to the top. Still, we saw some incredible stuff on that flat hike; nature really took us by surprise.
Do you see him?
The walk was easy and gentle, and even as we started up the slope to the top, it never got too bad. Once you reach the top of the mesa it’s still another half mile’s walk or so to reach the actual highest point in Oklahoma, which, as it turns out, rests only 1,300 feet from the New Mexico state line, and is marked by a large stone obelisk.
We had a snack of beef jerky and granola bars at the marker before making our way to the edge of the mesa to catch a view of the valley below:
I sat on those rocks for a long, long time, just staring off into the distance. It was the kind of quiet you almost never find anymore, and I felt suddenly that suddenly the veil was down a little bit between me and God. For the second time in as many days, I felt I was in the presence of something huge and holy and silent, and that it was time to just sit, and watch, and listen. So that was what I did, for at least half an hour. Finally I felt like I wanted to record the impression, and so I pulled my journal out of Brian’s bag and went to write. I’d just written the date down on the page when I looked at my hand and noticed it was covered in blue ink; my pen had broken.
Brian offered to walk back to the marker, where there had been a guest book in a metal box, and get me the pen from there so I could finish my entry. After he left I sat and silently thanked God over and over and over that I have Brian. The sun was warm and there was a breeze; I almost cried out with gratitude. Brian returned with the pen and I wrote a quick one-page missive:
I’m sitting on a cliff at Black Mesa, overlooking the New Mexico state line, thinking about spiritual mountaintops … Because out here I am absolutely engulfed in the hugeness of God. These skies are so big, so filled and so full. I’m filled with that terrified, sad elation one gets in the presence of the Holy.
We can parse my spiritual revelations later if you like; at the top of that mountain, my feet dangling off that cliff, I think I felt more at peace than at almost any other time in my life.
It was getting hot, so after I was done we turned around and headed back down. As we walked I was watching Brian, and this feeling, like a word, like a megaphone into my soul, went through me - "This is good. What you have with him is good." I took his hand as we walked across the top of the mesa and felt aligned, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
The hike down was harder; it was noon by this time, and I stripped off my shirt so I could feel the occasional breeze all over myself. This was a mistake, as I now I have a painful sunburn, but completely worth it at the time.
We were exhausted by the time we made it back to the car, and we had all agreed that the best way to spend the afternoon would be to completely relax at the Bed and Breakfast, and so this is what we did. We drove back to our air-conditioned rooms, the temperature outside now reaching the mid-90’s, and made some wraps with lunch meat and tortillas we’d brought along in our coolers. Laurie, Brian and I watched an episode of Weeds on his computer. We all took short naps.
As dusk began to fall Brian and I took Sam for a walk in the pasture behind the ranch house. More on that on Friday.
We had all agreed that we’d go back out to the three-state marker that evening to watch the sunset, and we had looked online to see *exactly* what time that would be happening. We packed up the coolers with stuff for dinner, a few beers and Cokes. We each had a camp chair, and we set off. A thunderstorm was blowing up in the west, obscuring the sun, but it looked like it would miss us.
Our first stop on the way out to the marker was something we’d seen the night before but for which we hadn’t stopped, as it had been too dark. Just off the road, only a few hundred feet past the Black Mesa trail head, was a sign marked "Dinosaur Tracks."
In the floor of a dry creek bed there are several sets of dinosaur footprints that have been essentially cemented into the rock over the course of hundreds of millions of years.
I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a child, and I’m sure my parents are very thankful that I did not know, then, that these footprints were there, as I’d have been begging us for weekly trips to the Panhandle to see them. From the base of the creek bed, we looked back up toward the car and got a laugh, as it seemed that Calvin was starring in his own commercial:
I can’t begin to tell you how much I love that car.
From here it was another few miles out to the marker, where the sunset was now putting on the full show:
So, we set up our camp chairs, made ourselves each a sandwich, and watched:
The thunderstorm had begun to come apart by this time, but its outflow provided our location with a constant breeze, which more or less kept the bugs off of us. We took turns putting our butts in three states at once:
It was quiet as the sun set and the stars began to come out, and we sipped beers, talked, and quietly observed the dying of the light. The moon set shortly after the sun did:
The stars came out one by one, as did the Milky Way. As we had the night before, we saw satellites moving across the sky, and shooting stars, and quick flashes of lightning in the fading thunderstorm. I was so sad that our time at Black Mesa had almost come to an end, but at the same time, as I watched the night sky, I once again felt compelled to whisper, or to keep quiet altogether, and just to allow myself to be. I felt the way people often feel at the edge of the ocean: small, insignificant, and yet, connected to something larger, holier.
Brian and I lay on the hood of my car for a long time, both of us just silently staring upward, holding hands, and being quiet. It was a perfect moment.
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This is Guaranty Abstract & Title Co., in downtown Guymon, Oklahoma. There is a lot of this kind of mid-century signage in small-town western Oklahoma, as that was a time of major growth and change in that part of the country. When I see buildings like this that are no longer occupied, or businesses that seem to be suffering, in small towns, it makes me incredibly sad. Brian and I both grew up in small-town western Oklahoma and know the personal and communal tolls that the losses of small, locally-owned businesses have. This photo is going to be framed and hung on my bedroom wall.
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We’re back. My mind’s all blown apart by the awesomeness of this past weekend, so much so that I may have difficulty putting the whole trip into words. I’ll at least be posting photos about it all week and probably into next. As to the story, so much happened this weekend that I’ve decided to write it one day at a time, effectively dividing the whole thing into three parts. Today’s installment concerns Friday, July 4, 2008, the first day of the trip. I’ll try to keep mostly with the basics, though also let me be sure, right off the bat, to point you to the photos of the entire journey over at Flickr. Just because, well, this is going to be a long one. So if you want to skip right to the photos, that’s fine.
We left Oklahoma City at about 9 a.m. on Friday morning, stopping only in Woodward for gas and to let the dogs pee (a full report on how Sam did on such a long trip is coming on Friday). I don’t think I need to belabor the point that I find no place on Earth more beautiful than western Oklahoma, an opinion that places me in a very small minority of human beings, I know, but just driving up through the plains was, to me, calming, and if we’d just spent the entire weekend in the car kicking around western Oklahoma, I’d have been perfectly happy. But, we had places to be. Still, we did get this photo of a wind farm outside Woodward:
Our first official stop, the first thing I’d been dying to see for quite some time, was Optima Lake, which, on any map of Oklahoma, looks something like how our Garmin showed it:
Looks like a very large lake, right? Here’s what Optima Lake *actually* looks like:
The lake has never reached more than 5% of its planned capacity. An Army Corps of Engineers project, the lake is one of the earliest examples of unintended environmental consequences - the dam and adjacent state park were built just as the aquifer was being tapped more and more to attend to local agricultural needs. It is one of the most eerie places I’ve ever been. A complete state park was built along with the dam, including at least two campgrounds, recreational and picnic areas, a boat ramp, and scenic drives. The problem is that since the lake never filled up, none of this was ever used, and now the entire place has a very post-apocalyptic kind of feel, like what America’s roadways would’ve looked like after a 1950’s-style nuclear holocaust:
I’m gathering thoughts, facts and notes for a story I’m going to pitch to either the Gazette or Oklahoma Today, because the whole thing is so fascinating to me, this monument to what America once tried to be. Also, since a great deal of my novel is set in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas, I’m adding Optima Lake into my scenery; it’s too ripe a topic.
By the time we left Optima Lake, it was lunch time, and, while perusing a directory of Guymon businesses earlier in the week, I had learned that Guymon - has a Taco Tico. This was our next stop, for lunch:
So, after gorging ourselves on delicious Mexican food and choco-tacos that melted all over our faces in the midday heat, we fueled up and got back on the road. The Panhandle is, to me, an absolutely fascinating stretch of land, though I can see how someone might go crazy driving through it. It’s the flattest part of the state; probably one of the flattest parts of the world.
I find it oddly haunting, the huge skies, the fields. Also, we were having some weird music moments in our car - "Vein of Stars" by the Flaming Lips came on, and I was almost freaked out by how perfectly the song seemed to complement the landscape. Both are haunting and beautiful. Even though I never tired of seeing the plains flying past, I was excited, as was everyone else, when we finally reached our next stop, Boise City:
We only stayed a few minutes, long enough to check out the bombing memorial and the courthouse, and to let the dogs go pee, because our final destination, Kenton, was only 35 miles away. Along the stretch of road we watched the tabletop-flat landscape begin to roll and fall away into canyons and rise up into mesas. A high-plains thunderstorm blew up as we approached Kenton:
We arrived at about 4 p.m. Mountain Time. Kenton is the only town in Oklahoma that is not on Central Time (though, technically, it’s located within the Central Time Zone). We’d reserved a cabin at the Kenton Mercantile, but it had been cancelled at the last minute. Luckily Jayson had managed to reserve us two rooms at the Black Mesa Bed & Breakfast.
The proprietor of the B&B, Vicki Roberts, met us outside and instantly I knew we were in for a great stay, that staying with Vicki would be less like renting a room and more like visiting beloved family. I was right on all counts. Vicki greeted us warmly and showed us to the Bunkhouse, where we were staying. Only the screen doors on the bunkhouse were closed, and as the rain began to move in, you could smell it richly in the air. The midday heat completely abated as the shower fell. Vicki just put a new front porch on the main house of the bed and breakfast - which also sits on a working cattle and horse ranch - and we, Vicki’s family and the other guests, sat on the porch and watched it rain.
Rains like those are a welcome sight; Cimarron County has been in a drought of late, which tends to set the people who live there on edge; this was, after all, the heart of the Dust Bowl in the early 20th century:
The rain lasted only half an hour or so, and it cooled everything down; suddenly the evening felt less like July and more like early April. Vicki and her husband, Monty Joe, had invited us into town for a Fourth of July celebration the town was having at the senior center. We arrived and were greeted with warm conversation and some of the best food you could imagine:
That’s a burger (does anyone else put chips on their burgers? I DO!), beans, a jalapeno pickle, deviled eggs, a bowl of fresh watermelon, and Country Time Pink Lemonade. And for dessert? I chose a piece of coconut cream pie, and some of Vicki’s homemade peach ice cream:
This is the kind of meal that I remember having growing up during the summer, and it made me feel so happy, so nostalgic and connected and, well, dammit, patriotic. I love this America, where people invite strangers along when their town has a cookout, and they go to lots of trouble but nothing is pretentious and everyone’s just so darn polite and genuine. It made me not want to ever leave Kenton.
After dinner the four of us walked around town for awhile. Kenton’s not a big town, so we were able to see most of it. The sun was back out by this time, and the rain had passed but the upflow was giving us a cool, rain-scented breeze. A perfect evening for a walk. We got to see the Merc, which was closed due to a family emergency (hence our cancellation):
After we walked around a bit we returned to the Bed and Breakfast, where we sat on the porch and watched the most amazing sunset:
Things got a little dicey when Vicki & Monty Joe returned from town and Vicki saw the Obama 2008 sticker on my car; she pulled me aside and urged me - begged me, even - to at least promise to pray about my choice of candidate. Someone else could’ve done this to me and I’d have been offended; I could tell, though, that Vicki was being genuine, and not really confrontational, and so I assured her that I do pray about my vote, every day, and that I felt good about Obama. It threw me for a loop a little bit but confirmed to me even more that this stay at the Bed and Breakfast had been a good choice; I really did feel like a part of the family at the Roberts’ place, even if I was a bit of a black sheep.
I’d brought along a brown grocery sack full of stuff I’d picked from my garden before the trip - about eight cucumbers, two dozen tomatoes and a half a bushel of fresh green beans. To show Vicki that there were no hard feelings, I gave her the entire bag.
The last item on our agenda that day was to drive out to the place where Oklahoma meets Colorado and New Mexico. There’s a marker there, and Jayson has been telling me since we met - ten years ago - that I need to see the night skies out there. On the drive out we came across a large racoon making his way across a cattle guard, and two large deer, including a many-point buck, that dashed over the fence beside the road.
Jaye’s right about the skies; I’ve never seen so many stars gathered in one place. As we sat, staring upward, I felt compelled to whisper, as a sense of holiness and wonder such as I’ve not felt in a long, long time went through me like a slow-moving bullet, rendering me speechless and humble. It had been a day full of miracles, happiness, love, and beauty; I said very little while we sat out there, choosing instead to send silent prayers into the skies that seemed at once so close you could touch them, and to go on forever.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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While Brian filled up the car with gas in Guymon, Oklahoma, on our way out to Black Mesa, I went inside to pick up a very important item that we’d forgotten to bring along: a beer opener. While inside the Shell station, I saw this hat and immediately bought it. Guymon is nowhere near Route 66, and I’m not a big wearer of caps, but this thing was just too awesome for me not to own.
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7 July 2008
"FireStorm uncovers the fascinating world of altered time to the viewer, allowing a unique look at nature’s fury. Shot with 3 cameras over a period of 28 hours during September 28-29th 2005. Firestorm shows a a unique look at the Simi Valley fire which consumed 25,000 acres. Look for Mars, Orion & the Moon rising in the distance…"
How About Some Good News For Once?
I read this page whenever I feel really, really hopeless about the state of the world; it’s a fake Google news page that assists me in wishful thinking. My personal favorite:
"Citing the budget surplus from massive defense cuts, President Obama signed the Universal Health Care Act into law this morning on the White House north lawn. "Now everyone on American soil, regardless of nationality or immigration status, will be entitled to…"
An online gallery and ongoing discussion of some of the greatest title sequences in film history.
In a guest post for dooce.com, Todd Levin describes perfectly the way I feel every single time I go to a rock concert lately.
"I get frustrated over drink prices and coat check lines. I roll my eyes at every person snapping an Al Qaeda-quality video of the band on their cell phone, or the fact that the Tallest Man Who Has Ever Walked The Earth decided to position himself directly in front of me instead of standing at the very back of the venue with his back pressed against the wall, like a decent person."
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Why is Sam trying so very hard to get into Eley’s, so hard, in fact, that he frightened a couple children who were coming out? Because Sam - Sam is in great health!
I wasn’t happy with our old vet. I found him condescending and unfriendly, and if ever I asked how much something was going to cost, he’d look at me like I was Hitler with a mullet. Then he’d say something snarky, like, "Well, if it saves the dog’s life." Touche, Mr. Vet, but I do have other bills to pay, and anyway, what’s wrong with asking? I ask MY doctor how much things are going to cost. Also, I felt that maybe he was overcharging me a bit.
Turns out I was right, and a couple weeks ago we went searching for ads for new vets. We found a wonderful one who seemed to have opened a brand new office up in Edmond, and so, this past Monday, I took Sam up there.
Turns out that Sam: weighs 55 pounds, peed on the vet’s floor, is now current on his shots, no longer has a heart murmur, and is in wonderful health. Also, he’s wonderful at taking his shots and his medicine, and is just all around the greatest dog ever. Wouldn’t you agree?
Muah!
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This morning I got a phone call from our friend Jaye, who had himself received a phone call this morning that the proprietor of the Kenton Mercantile was checked into the hospital for a fairly serious problem, and that the whole thing would be closed over the Fourth of July weekend. For a moment, it looked as if the second leg of the Great Oklahoma Road Trip might not happen, after all.
So, my wonderful friend Jaye started scrambling and calling around. Turns out there’s a Bed and Breakfast up at Black Mesa, and it looks like this:
Gorgeous, right? Jaye got us booked into a couple rooms up there for the weekend in their bunkhouse:
The B&B is right at the base of Black Mesa and from the looks of its website, the rooms are gorgeous. We plan on spending a lot of time staring into the clear night skies watching the stars and generally relaxing. The 20-person town of Kenton, Oklahoma is having a community cookout tomorrow night that we’ve been invited to for the Fourth of July, and I’m looking forward to climbing up Black Mesa and looking out over the rest of Oklahoma and parts of New Mexico and Colorado. The nutsiest part of all this? The place has free wireless internet! So, if I feel like it, I’ll be posting updates from way out in the Oklahoma panhandle. JUST DON’T COUNT ON IT.
Sam Fridays is written and will post tomorrow.
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