Blue Goose ~ Day 210

December 23, 2014 ~ Hereford, TX to Sweetwater, TX

The wind was blowing hard when I woke up and the van was rocking, but the rain/snow had passed and there was no ice, except once later in the mooring when a semi passed me at high speed throwing off large chunks of it from the top of his truck, which crashed into my windshield, not doing any damage...but startling me.

So my day began like many of them do: me and a table of local guys and a few other lone drifters hanging around McDonalds. I had awakened at 4:14 and the sun didn't rise until 7:30 so I had three hours before I started driving. (I am now again on Central Time.)

I have been wearing the same clothes for a week: a pair of black jeggings and a nice shirt I bought in Arizona. I do change underwear though if anyone is curious about that and half the time I have intimate clothing in my purse. I dug out my Uggs which are cozy warm and easy to drive in. I took too many clothes but am slowing using 75% of them as the weather and temperatures change.

I had this rule to stay where it gets 50 degrees by noon; lately I am pushing that boundary. I need to head south. But first today, I went to Buffalo Lake NWR not far from Hereford. Unfortunately, the water that originally was available for migrating waterfowl is no more, and the refuge is now managed for creatures adapted to living in arid landscapes, with a few windmills bringing up some water for them.

Buffalo Lake NWR - TX

WWW.FWS.GOV

Tierra Blanca Creek and natural springs fed Buffalo Lake for decades, until the 1970s. Irrigation and urban water pumping sapped the water table and simultaneously, the rains decreased. Tierra Blanca Creek dried up and eventually so did Buffalo Lake. After a torrential rain filled the lake to capacity in 1978, Umbarger Dam was condemned and the lake drained. In 1992, the Fish and Wildlife Service replaced Umbarger Dam with a modern flood control structure. Major storms occasionally flood Tierra Blanca Creek, but water quality suffers from upstream cattle feedlots. The refuge manages the dry lakebed for wildlife habitat. [Underlining mine.]

It's still a refuge, just not as much as it was, having lost the water fight.

I drove the 11-mile auto route in a strong wind, seeing a Red-Tailed Hawk, a couple of Kestrels, meadowlarks and four White-tailed deer.

The people at Bitter Lake told me I should visit Palo Duro Canyon, near Amarillo, part of the eastern escarpment of the Llano Estacado. So I did.

Palo Duro Canyon - TX

They were highly enthusiastic about its beauty; it is known as the "Grand Canyon of Texas" and is an area full of cowboy and Indian history: Charley Goodnight and the John Adair (JA) Ranch were some of the cowboys, and the Comanches and Kiowas the Indians who were finally subdued and placed on reservations. Mr. Adair was from Ireland and Charley managed the ranch. At one time it covered parts of six counties with over 1.3 million acres and 100,000 cattle. Here is another thread I could follow for hours but this information came from Wikipedia. Adair descendants still run the ranch. I am adding a Charley Goodnight biography to my reading list. I think he is third or man I've encountered on this trip that requires further investigation. I also bought the book Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History (author S. C. Gwynne), another strong recommendation by the people I met at Bitter Lake.

Llano Estacado - TX

It is amazing to be driving on the Llano and suddenly come to this huge stunning red-rock canyon. A road goes to the bottom where there are many hiking trails and camp grounds. The wind was fierce today and there were no obvious birds, but apparently it is a avian sanctuary much of the year. While it is a grand canyon, nothing in the US compares to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. I would have hiked a few miles in better weather. There were five dips in the road marked as "Water Courses" with measuring rods firmly fixed in place and warnings not to drive through if the level was over six inches.

Water course #4 in Palo Duro Canyon - TX

The rest of the day I drove south, back on the Llano, dropping off to the west of Sweetwater where I stopped for the night. This was the day I was in a McDonald's three times, all for kind of wimpy reasons like food cravings, Internet access and no other suitable nearby restaurants. I was seeing holiday travelers with their sleepy small children again...."No, honey, we're already half way..." or a little Asian boy barely awake on his feet, looking blankly around the restaurant. Another dad was carrying a small child and a tray of food when the open liquid on the tray tipped and spilled on the floor. He was frantically trying to keep a firm grip on the child and prevent further spillage which only made the situation worse.

It was still windy but I stayed up later and thus slept later, waking in light for a change.