The first Saturday in February. A long time ago, some time after my dad retired from the Marine Corps and my parents moved to Grand Prairie in 1974, he and his brothers and sisters and all their spouses decided - since several of them were Aggies, I suppose - to create a tradition: on the first Saturday of each month one of the families on a rotating basis would host a Parker luncheon at some restaurant in the Metroplex. Sometimes in the early years the turn out was small - just the siblings and their spouses, since the next generation were busy raising their own families. But more often than not, at least a few of "the cousins" would show up as well. Before long, cousins started showing up with some regularity, and occasionally the highlight of a luncheon was the presence of a representative of the third generation. In the last few years, fourth generation family members have graced the table. When I lived in Fort Worth, I looked forward to the first Saturday luncheons and, since I moved to Austin, the luncheons are one of the things I miss most.
I had just been thinking about going up for the February luncheon when Stephen mentioned needing to take a desk up from Austin to Arlington for one of our nieces. We might have gone up together to deliver the desk and attend the luncheon, but I had another self-imposed task I wanted to check off. For several months I've recognized I'm in a rut, so I've been planning trips to places I've long wanted to visit and photograph but, for one reason or another, haven't gotten to yet. One of them is the Big Bend country, southeast of El Paso on the Rio Grande. Another is the Palo Duro Canyon, just south and east of Amarillo. Well, I took Stephen's desk up to Cat, had a great chicken fried steak at the Parker luncheon, visited with Angela and Cathie in Arlington, and checked the Paolo Duro Canyon off my list.
I believe the picture above was taken between Seymour and Crowell as I headed northwest for the Palo Duro. I expected the land here to be flat, but it was so broken up, so clearly unfit for farming; that surprised me, and the red dirt too, which reminded me of Georgia. I was still a long way from the Canyon and most of it did turn out to be farmland. But that farmland in winter is singularly uninteresting. There was never any question of my stopping for pictures. Anyway, the peculiarities of this stretch of road aside, this is a picture of flat. Clear to the horizon, not a hint of a change in the elevation. And, hours of it. I think the
Llano Estacado (Staked Plain) is subjective, and begins when the traveler can't remember what a hill looks like, let alone a mountain.
It's still just as flat on the caprock, but the bottom of the
Llano Estacado suddenly drops out to form Palo Duro Canyon. After so much flat, even a negative change in the elevation is welcome. Certainly the Comanches thought so. They knew the Canyon well and made excellent use of it, frustrating the US cavalry for years. In 1874, Col. Ranald MacKenzie managed to bring the era to a close when his troops captured about 1200 Indian horses and destroyed them in a southern arm of the Canyon east of Tulia. Unhorsing the Comanches was nearly as effective as disarming them, and MacKenzie escorted the band to the reservation in Oklahoma.
This is the visitor center near the entrance of Paolo Duro Canyon State Park. It was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) shortly after the State of Texas bought 20,000 acres at the northern end of the Canyon and created the State Park.
The line of deciduous trees (devoid of green) that curves through the center of the view above marks the path of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, a very small watercourse which, amazingly enough, carved the Canyon over tens of thousands of years (it's the second largest canyon in North America). A team led by Captain Randolph B. Marcy mapped the Canyon in 1852, seeking the headwaters of the Red River.
When I left the Metroplex I was expecting bright blue skies. It wasn't long before I realized I wasn't going to get that. Still, clouds are good if they can provide drama for the photographs. And, of course, this is Texas. . . so folk hereabouts don't complain much when the drama is in the form of rain. My visit was dry, but one of the low water crossings at the southern end of the park was closed until they could remove several inches of red mud left by a flash flood a couple of days before.
The picture above suggests (with great subtlety) one of the reasons the Comanches, the Kiowas, and the Apaches before them appreciated the Palo Duro Canyon as much as they did. Up on the caprock the ever present West Texas wind (about 30 kts and gusting) was assuring everyone in the region had a bad hair day. Down here, protected by the Canyon walls, there was but the merest hint of a breeze.
After more than three hours in the Canyon the skies started to clear in one direction or another. It didn't matter. By the time I climbed back out of the Canyon - back in the realm of the West Texas wind - I couldn't find a trace of blue skies. No rain though; just windy grey.
It was a long day. The drive to the Canyon was much longer than the time I spent in the Canyon. It's not without charm, and its history is particularly interesting, but its isolation from anywhere but Amarillo or Lubbock pretty much takes the shine off this gem, at least for me. I like to line up my attractions in a manageable sequence that I can hit, one after another, then sit down and peruse the images on my computer at my desk. I still expect to do the Big Bend in the near future. I understand the verdict may be the same - too far to go more than once unless circumstances take you to that vicinity - but you never know until you've tried it at least once.
