A few photographs from the last day of my meandering...
Visited: Dodge City, Jetmore, Ness City, Ransom, WaKeeney, Ogallah, Ellis, Hays, Plainville, Zurich, Palco, Damar, Bogue, Hill City, Edmond, Logan, Speed, Glade, Phillipsburg, Prairie View, Almena, Long Island, and Woodruff, Kansas.
Tucumcari is a long, long way from home. So I began the trip home by visiting the Oklahoma panhandle and found my way to Dodge City, Kansas for the night. I traveled through what have to be some of the least populated areas of the United States, where "towns" are 30-40 miles apart and there are far more roadrunners than humans. Tomorrow is western Kansas and home!
Some thoughts..
New Mexico Highway 406, which runs from Clayton up to Kenton, Oklahoma, is a fantastic drive. Incredible isolation and desert-like environment, then through rocky outcroppings with plenty of elevation changes and curves.
Kenton is one of the most fascinating places I have ever been. It's an incredibly small place in an impossibly remote location, located very near the northwest corner of the Oklahoma panhandle. If you ever really want to get away, I saw signs for a bed and breakfast near the Black Mesa Reserve, just a few miles outside of Kenton.
Tucumcari is very nearly heaven for a photographer interested in disappearing America. Much of the area is like a slowly decaying time capsule, a shadow of what it once was, but with enough preservation that there's still some life to the place.
I've learned that there is a very narrow slice of the Texas panhandle that should belong to New Mexico. Due to a old surveying error, the Texas state line is a handful of miles further west than it should be. If you look at a map, New Mexico's border with Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle don't quite line up as they should, and there are many border towns that should rightfully be in New Mexico, not Texas.
Visited: Tucumcari, Logan, Nara Visa, Clayton, Rita Blanca National Grasslands, and Seneca, New Mexico. Dalhart and Texline, Texas. Kenton, Boise City, and Keyes, Oklahoma. Elkhart, Rolla, Hugoton, and Moscow, Kansas.
Post title: John K. Samson - Winter Wheat
I'm exhausted after a long day on the road that spontaneously traversed the Texas panhandle and ended up in Tucumcari, New Mexico. So much empty, forgotten space.
Visited: Lahoma, Meno, Ringwood, Cleo Springs, Fairview, Gloss Mountain State Park, Mooreland, Woodward, Fargo, Gage, and Shattuck, Oklahoma. Higgins, Glazier, Canadian, Miami, Pampa, White Deer, Panhandle, Vega, and Adrian, Texas. Glenrio, San Jon, and Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Day two brings me to the middle of Oklahoma via US Highway 60 through the Osage Reservation. It was another near-perfect day and I had nothing but friendly interactions with people I met along the way. I even commiserated with an old man in Lamont over the loss of the Nebraska - Oklahoma football series. It's hard to believe it's already been 20 years since the two teams played every year.
Thoughts..
Northeast Oklahoma really is a lot like Nebraska. Not as many fields dedicated to crops, but it does all feel very familiar.
Picher, Oklahoma is one of the strangest places I have ever been. Once a city of a few thousand, the U.S. government moved everyone out of town after mining companies polluted the town beyond repair. All that remains are a handful of building shells and an abandoned grid of streets. The area is being slowly being reclaimed by nature.
Not near as many Trump signs today. And a few Clinton signs. Not what I expected considered how the polls show Oklahoma as one of the most Republican leaning states this election.
I'm excited for tomorrow. The wide open great plains are calling my name.
Visited: Joplin, Missouri. Galena and Baxter Springs, Kansas. Picher, Commerce, Miami, Narcissa, Bluejacket, Vinita, Nowata, Bartlesville, Pawhuska, Burbank, McCord, Ponca City, Lamont, Pond Creek, Nash, Jet, Helena, Goltry, and Carrier, Oklahoma.
Post title: Leonard Cohen - Bird on the Wire