Day 28: Lubbock, Texas, to Blackwell, Oklahoma

Sunday 20 October – There’s a secondary road that takes a traveler most of the way from Lubbock to Route 35, the north-south interstate that runs from the Mexico border at Nuevo Laredo all the way to Lake Superior, near the Canadian border.  Route 35 would be my companion from Oklahoma City to Kansas City, but first a few hours on the road less traveled, which was very lightly traveled indeed.  I don’t know whether that’s usual, or whether Sundays are quieter on Route 82 than another day might be.  I imagine a lot of truckers and others might prefer to take superhighway 40 to the north.  The smaller road is pretty generous with its speed limit – I think it got up to 70mph – but pulls it back for every small town, dropping to 55, then 45, then 40 or 35 according to the size of the town.

But, oh, those towns!  The heartland is everywhere, and in west Texas in late 2013 it takes the form of towns of a few hundred or a couple thousand people, about 10, 20 or 30 miles apart.  I’m sure this isn’t true, but it seemed to me that each town had its Dairy Queen, like the pub that defines an English or Irish village.  Also common:  a cemetery, a gas station, a tractor shop, and a building or two, or more, whose boarded-up, crumpled-up, or tumbled-down states attested to what the English gentry bemoaned, in the 1950s, as the Drift to the Cities.  Crosbyton was unusual in presenting a big field with two horses and a hillock topped with a life-sized statue of a gorilla.

The Dairy Queen in Seymour, Texas, was further testament to the Drift.  Four weeks into my trip, having eaten mostly healthy food throughout, I was overwhelmed by a craving for a Peanut Buster Parfait.  So I stopped.  Coming into town, I’d noted the population posted on the sign announcing Seymour:  2,908.  The DQ had faded photos of local scenes on its walls, including one of the town-limits sign showing the population as 3,657.  I’d guess they update those with the ten-year census...

Sorghum in foreground; cotton at back.

The photos also included a few of a crop I’d seen along the road, and that I couldn’t identify.  As a crusading journalist, or perhaps curious tourist, I asked a couple of local-seeming young mothers sitting beneath the picture what the plant was.  They looked around vaguely, eventually located the wall and its artwork, and guessed, “some kind of corn, maybe?”  I smiled even more vaguely and said, “It doesn’t look like corn,” and a very unkempt, somewhat smelly, but quite handsome young man informed us all that it’s sorghum.  I would have asked him first, but his grime level and oil-field maintenance-company t-shirt, plus the way he slumped over the table, suggested he was weary.  Also, he had a gigantic backpack, and I didn’t want even to suggest that I might welcome a hitchhiker.  I had too little room in the car, and too much risk aversion.

Ignorance enlightened and parfait consumed, I left Seymour, wondering about the SHS Panthers, for whom Panther Pride and Win the Day slogans decorated the DQ windows.  I bet the high-school sports teams in the area travel ridiculous distances to find matches and games.

If this cotton field isn't sparkling, check your monitor's settings.

They travel through beauty, though.  The dark green leaves of the cotton plants sparkle with a copper sheen in the sunlight; the grasses on the median strip and by the side of the road gleam silver-white, like an early moon, and red-gold and many shades of green; the balls of cotton, almost ready for harvest, are like the bright white, round lights that encircle the dressing-room mirror of a movie star.  This sparkle of flora has accompanied me, off and on, all around the country, and I’m curious about what causes it.  In Illinois, I thought it was the angle of the sun; by South Dakota, I wondered if it was the wind.  The scrubland doesn’t sparkle.  My yard, in Virginia, doesn’t sparkle.  Does the Miracle-Grow green of lawn grass absorb sunlight in a way that grain does not?

There are also animals around here, not sparkling, and mostly well hidden.  I saw a few of the classic ranch entrances, with the rounded sign above a tall gate announcing the name of the ranch – Haystack Mountain Ranch; Pitchfork Ranch; Coller Ranch.  They’ve got to have animals, although for the most part I saw only scrub.  There were three black cows by one fence, and then two cute little red-brown pigs, clearly escaped from a pen, eating grass or something by the side of the highway.  I would have cheered their bid to escape becoming someone’s Christmas ham, but I suspected they’d probably end their lives, and soon, as roadkill.  Not too far past the pigs, I saw a herd comprised of a mix of black cows, variously-colored horses and a few deep-brown llamas.

Sorry, Lil, if you're looking.
AnoninTX, if this isn't a coyote, please let me know!

I stopped the car outside of Seymour, by a ranch gate titled ‘La Escalera III.’  For some reason, I’d decided to take a closer look at a coyote corpse.  It was a beautiful animal, clearly killed recently, with thick, healthy fur.  What struck me most, though, standing by that small highway, was the sound.  All of this plain seemed to chirp (a few birds and tens of thousands of grasshoppers), buzz (power lines overhead, grasshoppers leaping and flying from ground to hip level) and rustle (wind through the grass and bushes), occasionally enlivened by the soft, lonely lowing of a cow.  And this is not a scenic viewpoint, where you’re supposed to stop and be struck by beauty.  This is just a dead coyote, a ranch gate and a middle-aged tourist willing to be amazed.  Incapable, really, of not being amazed.

I should note, too, that there were New Mexico sunflowers all over Texas.

After 200 miles of fields and tiny towns, I reached Wichita Falls, boasting a population of 105,000.  That’s a bit smaller than Lubbock, but Wichita Falls looks more like a city to me – more compact, and higher.  Lubbock spreads out quite a bit, which may reflect the sprawl of Texas Tech.

As I considered the two small cities, turning onto mega-route 44 with mild regret that I wouldn’t explore Wichita Falls, I suddenly realized – son of a biscuit! – I was in Oklahoma.  I’m pretty sure there was a welcome sign, but I was distracted by the sign announcing the Red River.  The river was well-named, and seriously red.  The water level was low, and the dirt of the river bed is red, and so...  That red dirt, specked with spring-green shoots – maybe a field of winter wheat? – made for a beautiful view from the superhighway.

View from the entrance to the WMWR

My introduction to Oklahoma – where I really hope my EZPass works, as I just blew through a couple of toll booths without thinking about it much – offered relatively flat land, some cultivated and some probably used for grazing.  There were some mountains, or at least big hills, on the northern horizon, though, and as I drew closer to them, I started seeing signs for the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  The signs didn’t promise, but strongly implied, that I would see bison there.  After the brief and by now accustomed tussle between my impulses to drive farther and to see more, I chose see more, and as per am entirely glad I did.

The refuge had a sign welcoming people back after the government shutdown, a sturdy but not intimidating fence separating it from Fort Sill, and a whole lot of cattle guards on the roads.  When I stopped to take a look at a peaceful lake, I thought I heard wounded bison crying from the bushes, which was very alarming.  Once I figured out it was just the sound cars make as their tires vibrate against the cattle guards.  Much less alarming.  There were some warning signs at the start of the trail, though, that were slightly alarming in their liberal use of sarcasm.

Sarcasm, NWS-style, with possible copyright violations.

It was a bit close to sunset, so I chose a short trail that promised spectacular views, and came through spectacularly.  I think it was called Elk Mountain, but the only critters I saw on trail were some fairly unremarkable bugs and one snake.  The snake sighting was not entertaining, though it didn’t take me entirely by surprise.  I have no idea what kind it was, or whether it posed any possible danger.  I hope not, because I stopped to take its picture, which would be a really dopey thing to do with any dangerous animal.  I did see critters galore as I drove to and from the trailhead, though, including prairie dogs, longhorn cattle and dozens of bison, mostly in groups.  There was one especially big one, though, grazing by the visitor center as I left the refuge, and entirely ignoring the several cars pulled over to look at him.  They are both majestic and fuzzy; I am so glad I got to see them.  I am also really glad that my taxes help provide them with a place to live successfully, and roads and trails that allow me to look at them.  There are more pictures from the refuge here.

two bison

one bison

one longhorn - not a native species,
but subject to preservation for heritage

prairie dog!  They had to re-introduce
the species at the WMWR

Well exercised (the trail was very steep) in body and spirit, I resumed driving with Oklahoma City as my goal.  The sky was dark as I got close, and the pumpkin-orange moon, nearly full, was rising over the city.  Curiously, there was also a giant, glowing orange dome – a human creation – that dominated the city skyline.  Or at least a part of the skyline; Oklahoma City seemed to me to stretch for about 30 miles.  Looking at the municipal website, I have just discovered that, “At 621.2 square miles, Oklahoma City is in the top five largest cities in the country in terms of geographic area. The City spreads into four counties: Oklahoma, Canadian, Cleveland and Pottawatomie.”  I suspect the glowing orange dome may have been the stadium where the Thunder play, since it looked a bit like a basketball, but I can’t find anything to confirm that.  It makes a good theory, though, and I like the idea.

One of the five largest cities in the country was too intimidating to me, and I wasn’t at all tired anyway, so I kept heading north.  Many of the towns I passed had official highway signs inviting motorists to “See Perry” (or Tonkawa, or wherever), followed by a bullet-point list of attractions.  Some of Oklahoma’s highlights include a Victorian town, oil baron mansions, Indian heritage, antiques malls, outlet shopping and town parks.  Blackwell, Oklahoma, offered a choice of cheap motels, so I pulled off there and booked into an EconoLodge with a pool.