Tucumcari Tonite

Tucumcari Tonite - Historic Route 66

Tucumcari Tonite ©2012 Bo Mackison

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one’s self to be acquainted with it. ~ Lord Chesterfield

Day 1 Part 2. The travel notes continue:

We note the differences between Iowa/Illinois and Missouri. Missouri has fewer corn fields. It looks scrubbier, homes are smaller. The land is undulating, like Iowa – gentle hills, lots of stands of old trees, mostly oaks.  There are more horses, fewer cattle and no dairy farms. The barns are used less for protection of animals, more for storage of grains. They are open and often have several lean-to sheds propped against their exterior walls.

Passing Hamilton MO, boyhood home of J C Penney. Hmmm.

Sunlight streams though the stand of oak, all is a rich golden brown in the low sunlight. They look like shimmering cinnamon sticks.

Cameron MO. Gas is $3.07. We finally get on an interstate to make faster time. I-35.

Passing ENCHANTED FROG ANTIQUES. Looked interesting, but not open. Wonder how it got its name?

First time we see gas for less than three dollars a gallon. $2.99 at Exit 40. Why is gas always cheapest around Kansas City area? — we notice this every time we pass through.

Head into Kansas City, MO at 8 am.

Crossing the Missouri River – managed a few photos of the overhead structure of the bridge. The HISTORIC IMPERIAL BREWERY BUILDING is for sale. It has style, bet it was a real beauty, back in its heyday.

Fishing Creek
Turkey Creek
Missouri River

Kansas state line. 34 degrees and sunny as we leave Kansas City, KS. 8:30 am.

Entering the Flint Hills of Kansas. There is a National Geographic spread — 22 pages – on the Flint Hills in its April 07 issue. So the sign says.

Bull Creek
Wolf Creek
Ottawa Creek
Marias de Cinega
Tequa Creek

Kansas compared to western Missouri? Flatter lands, still shrubby. Farms have fewer barns and store more of their equipment and larger household appliances outside. Oil wells – the ones that stand about 8 feet tall – pump in many fields.

Speed limit has gradually increased from 55 in Wisconsin to 65 in Iowa to 70 in Missouri and now it is 75 mph.

The woods are oak, hickory, sycamore. Only an occasional evergreen tree or shrub.

Rock Creek
Coal Creek
Long Creek
Frog Creek
Badger Creek

Why is Marion, KS called the Rhino Capitol of the World?

Stopped at the Tall Grass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge. There is a nearby bed and breakfast, CLOVER CLIFF RANCH. I would like to stay here for a few nights. What a great setting, looks like a great ranch!

Long trains are now frequent. Freight cars pulled and pushed by 4 to 6 engines.

Landscape is mostly grasslands. Fewer stands of trees. Most of the trees we see were planted for windbreaks around ranches and farms.

Emporia KS is the Founding City of Veterans Day. It is a good place for historic buildings, too. Historic district.

Past Emporia, the tenor of the land is drier, colorless. Many shades of brown, but the rich soil is a deep black. The landscape is offset only by a pale blue sky. Most of the land is for grazing. The buildings are built close to the ground – earth huggers – a good idea in this tornado and blizzard belt.

There is an underground salt mine in Hutchinson KS. Hutchinson is called the “Salt City.” It also has a rescue/adoption program for wild mustangs. Gas is $3.21.

Cow Creek
Ninnescah River
Arkansas River

Only scattered farms. Lots of solitude to be found in western Kansas. Still very dry.

Crooked Creek (dry)
Cimarron Creek (dry)
Pony River (dry)
Beaver River (dry)

Now we are in Oklahoma, crossing just a snippet of its Panhandle. It looks like southwestern Kansas – not a surprise. There is sage brush, dried grasses. And the feed lots – which always make me fret over my decision not to be a strict vegetarian.

Now we are in Texas. We are crossing a bit of this state’s Panhandle, too. Gas is $3.27 a gallon in Dalhart, Texas.

We arrive in Tucumcari and find a hotel, order carry-out for supper. It is 5:45 pm.

On out first travel day, designed to be long on driving while we are both fresh, we traveled 14 hours and drove 863 miles.

Tomorrow we arrive in Albuquerque early, and take time off for exploring, before the last leg of our journey.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She loves to document facts and trivia in her travel journals when traveling cross country.

 

A Time for Every Purpose under Heaven

Wisconsin River Sandbars

Sandbar Fingers © 2012 Bo Mackison

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares that will not withdraw from us. ~ Maya Angelou

It is autumn along the Wisconsin River.

The river is low, a result of the drought in spring and most of summer. August’s rains were not enough to fill the banks of the river. And so sandbar fingers stretch from shore. As far as I can see, peering from the bridge, there are sandbars edging from shore and sandbars rising from the river’s middle.

Trees across the river have changed their summer greens for autumn oranges and yellows, and soon, it seems too soon, the glorious autumn colors will change again. They will turn into autumn’s piles of crisped, brown leaves below bare branched trees.

Change. Nature manages its changes, coinciding with the seasons, recycling over and over. Nature responds to changes that aren’t cyclical on a yearly calendar also, ones that track over decades and centuries. Rivers overflow, flood the nearby lands and the nearest buildings and roads in river towns. Rivers run low, exposing land that is usually hidden from sight, once only the realm of underwater creatures.

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven.
~ lyrics from Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds

It is autumn in my life, too. I walk through the yearly calendar’s changes. Month by month, I anticipate spring, summer, fall, winter. Sometimes I know what to expect. Some things are planned – a joyous wedding, a planned holiday with family, a special birthday. Some events are unplanned – a family member’s lost job, the death of a close friend, a change in a long-standing relationship.

Perhaps one of the most difficult is the aging of parents and the responsibilities that come with that change in family status. Elderly mothers and fathers are no longer the matriarchs and patriarchs in charge; middle-aged sons and daughters are no longer the ones that obey. Shifting responsibilities, shifting emotions.

Our lives follow similar patterns to those found in nature. The river runs low. Our energies run low. Sandbars are exposed, exposing that which had been underwater, out of sight, for many years. The status quo is disrupted. Secrets spill open, lives are altered. There is no taking back the time, no denying the newly discovered information.

The trees drop their leaves and only the gray skeletons remain. Some changes are short-term, like the bare limbed trees. Spring brings budding leaves; summer, a fully leafed tree. Flowers bloom, grass grows.

Sitting silently
Doing nothing
Spring Comes.
The grass grows by itself.
~ Zen Haiku

Some of nature’s changes take longer periods of time, like the deep river that will only stretch to its edges after many rains and deep snowfalls. Even then, there are subtle changes in its ebb and flow.

Some of the changes – severe damage to the earth from which it cannot recover in a many a generation’s lifetime or a death in a family – they leave a more enduring mark of change. Time passes. We adapt to the constancy of change.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is searching for clarity amidst many changes.

Three Trees and a Cloudscape

Three Trees

Three Trees © 2012 Bo Mackison

The sky and the strong wind have moved the spirit inside me til I am carried away trembling with joy. ~ Wavnuk

August Break 2012

 

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking an August break from writing long blog posts, but the photos continue.

A Few Views from Zion National Park

Red Rock and Rainbow

Red Rock and Rainbow © 2010 Bo Mackison

After our visit to Cedar Break National Monument, we traveled a couple of hours south to Zion National Park. We saw a rainbow as a passing storm system heading away from us.

Hiking in Zion

Hiking in Zion © 2010 Bo Mackison

With the elevations in Zion ranging from 3,600 to over 8,700 feet, the park is home to many habitat communities.  There are species from the Colorado Plateau, Basin and Range, and the Mojave Desert, and these all blend to create a place for more than 900 species of plants, from riparian (river) plants to desert plants.

Sunset Glow, Incoming Storm

Sunset Glow © 2010 Bo Mackison

Zion National Park is on the edge of the Colorado Plateau. The many layers of rock have been pushed upward and tilted to form a geological feature called Escalante, or the Grand Staircase. This amazing line of cliffs stretches from Bryce Canyon to the Grand Canyon. One of the large steps stretches from Bryce Canyon, the bottom step, to Zion, the top step. Another step rises from Zion, the bottom step, to the Grand Canyon, the top of the step.

Cliff Tree

Cliff Tree © 2010 Bo Mackison

In 2009, President Obama declared much of Zion as a Natural Wilderness Area. According to Congressional Guidelines, a wilderness area is, in part, defined as:

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Waiting for the Storm

Rural Sauk County

Red Barn and Silo in Rural Sauk County

A little rain would sure help green things up a bit.