Thursday (Aug 11)
I started the engine and moved a few feet twice this morning chasing the shade in my remote and rapidly warming parking lot. I have phone bars so I was enjoying chewing up some megabytes on my new 5Gb plan – a mixed blessing since I’m doing that instead of the usual stuff such as this blog.
I guess is not as remote as it feels to me, because right at the moment I started to put on my clothes for the day with the door wide open the Fish and Game weed-whacker guy shows up to give the picnic area it’s periodic trim. Lucky me. He is a hardworking federal employee. Pulls up, whacks weeds for a half hour, pauses at his truck to wipe his brow, tosses the weed-whacker in the back and drives off. No lolly-gagging for him. I did not envy him in this heat and the dust and dirt he raised. He did tell me that the water from the pump in the middle of the field was good water. So I filled my big bottle, and it turned out to be the tastiest, sweetest water I’ve had for a while!
The only coffee and wifi within 80 miles the direction I’m going is in Woodward OK according to Yelp. It’s a little out of my way, I have to drive east a little and due north rather than the more direct northwest diagonal, but I ain’t in no hurry … except to get out of this heat.
The coffee place started out as a Christian outreach place where you check out Christian audiotapes that also served coffee. Over time the coffee shop became a much bigger draw than the outreach, but the sitting area is still a little lending library of Christian books and audiotapes. Real nice barrista, and he kept kept the Christian rock music at a low volume, so I found the place very pleasant.
I didn’t notice the replica of a 5,000 year old stegosaurus until I went outside to leave. It caused me to have emotions – the fellow was very nice and a good man, everyone was polite and rational and able to use technology, but they evidently passionately believed things that I think belong in another century.
When I got back to the van after taking a few stegosaurus pictures, the van thermometer read 109°!
The plan is to to bite off a good sized chunk of miles today. The scenery is pretty but monotonous, and the camping opportunities are few, and it’s more pleasant to be in the air-conditioned van than to be outside anyway.
Temperature remained in the 100’s for 70 miles or so, until I drove into the wall of thunderstorms that had been looming ahead. That marked the arrival of the cold front my weather app has predicted. Low 80’s now, much better.
WHUFU page for: No Man's Land Regional Park
There's no signs to say it's ok to overnight (or not!). Allstays says they allow it, so I did it and it was great.
I parked at the edge of what used to be the dump station loop, behind the Information Center building. There's a couple of trees, a covered area (with no picnic table), looking out over the skateboard park 100 yards away.
Nobody bothered me from 7pm to 10 am. Kudos to Guymon!
tonight:
There's no signs to say it's ok to overnight (or not!). Allstays says they allow it, so I did it and it was great.
I parked at the edge of what used to be the dump station loop, behind the Information Center building. There's a couple of trees, a covered area (with no picnic table), looking out over the skateboard park 100 yards away.
Nobody bothered me from 7pm to 10 am. Kudos to Guymon!
Getting myself settled in tonight was a bit of a clusterf—k.
- Arrive at the edge of Guymon and check out the city park where Allstays says you can camp overnight … and where I eventually ended up six bullet points later :-\
- Drive through Guymon and a few miles north to check out the other option, a private campground that is NOT at it’s listed GPS location.
my home for the night, Guymon OK - Backtrack to be sure it’s not there. then drive a little further north .. still not there.
- Drive back through Guymon to the city park. It’s very pleasant there, so hang out for an hour or so and think things over.
- Call the campground, they say they are a few miles farther out that the GPS on the web.
- Hang out some more, then decide to go find the campground and pay for a spot for the peace of mind of not being awaked in the middle of the night by the sheriff.
- So … drive back through Guymon again and a few miles more, but still no campground.!
- Back at the west edge of town, stop at the Walmart and sit there for a few minutes, decide fuck it, the park is way nicer than this.
- Drive through Guymon again. back to the park at the east edge of town, find a dark spot and stay the night.
Friday
I didn’t sleep very well, but even so, I think the evening worked out pretty well. I had a little unease that I would be awakened by a patrol car at 3 am, but mostly I was really upset with myself because I couldn’t find my flashlight when I looked in the usual spot and was quite sure I had lost it. Last night I decided to prolong my sunset enjoyment by doing my Tai Chi form on the little pier in the lake. I could picture setting the flashlight down by the path, but could not picture picking it back up again afterward. So it was completely plausible that I left it there. Every time I turned over I would think about it and get pissed at myself all over again and sleep would be gone.
Finally awaken in the daylight at 9 am. I was not bothered all night! Puttering around in the morning I saw the squad car drive past on the highway a couple of times. If I could see them then they clearly would have seen me driving their patrols in the wee hours of the morning. But they left me alone, so hooray for Guymon!
And then it gets better! There’s my beautiful flashlight, hiding in the back in an entirely random spot under a blanket where I must have left it back with I used it to rot around in the back of the van at Black Kettle two nights ago.
It’s the first pleasantly cool morning in three weeks: the park is beautiful, my spot is quiet, my flashlight is NOT lost – life is EXTRA good!
Having driven across town for the fifth time (aaarghh…) I discover one of the best coffee house experiences I’ve had on this trip. Its dumb name notwithstanding – Urban Bru Cafe was pretty awesome. Staff was nice, refills were free. I treated myself to a lovely fruit tart, then I noticed they had bagel and smoked salmon for a mere $5.99, so I had both! Perfect way to start a long driving day.
On the way out of town I pass that false GPS location for the seventh and final (thank god) time, then a few miles even further on, after US 412 has turned east, finally there is the campground. It exists! It looked ok driving past, although I think I stayed in a nicer place for free.
60 miles to the town of Boise City OK, notable for the old school way the highway goes straight through the middle of town through the town square, where they’ve made a kind of rotary surrounding the old town hall in the middle. I didn’t stop, but I thought it was cool.
I wrote that yesterday was Kansas south. I was off by a day. This is really Kansas!. Today I am going straight across the length of the Oklahoma panhandle, and it is pure Kansas. Green and fertile and flat as a pool table to the horizon. Or so it looks to me – occasionally there were signs – “Possible flooding next two miles”. I guess it’s SO flat the water doesn’t even run off!
It’s cloudy today, and the unsettled weather has brought the temperature down about 25° from yesterday! Instead of 100-102, which it was all afternoon yesterday, it’s 77-79 – much better!
The OK-NM border is a time zone boundary. I am going to have phone reception when I cross it, and I am ready this time. Driving with my phone in my hand, watching the readout say “2:17” as the pavement changes from Oklahoma asphalt to New Mexico asphalt … nothing … But within a mile it has magically changed to “1:17”. I love that!
First town in New Mexico is Clayton. We came through here in 1975, on our epic trans-Canada road trip – a sort of Last Hurrah after I got my Masters but before I settled into my first real world job. I think we stayed at a cheap motel on the edge of town like always, but we had breakfast at the Hotel Eklund and then for some reason had a pitcher of Coors in the bar. I remember it fondly.
New Mexico is just a cool place, no two ways about it, one of my favorite states. The difference in native charm between the last town in Oklahoma (Boise City) and the first town in New Mexico (Clayton) is huge. It’s the terrain and the blending of the culture – cuisine, architecture, etc. – of the pueblo people and the other indigenous peoples and old Mexico. This of course used to be part of Mexico, and European culture was here 150 years before the United States was formed). Whatever it is, I dig it, and you don’t have to be in Taos or Santa Fe to feel it.
Today’s excitement is Capulin Volcano National Park. Never been here before, had no idea whether it would be good or just so so. Turned out to be a really cool place to visit on a day when I have time to enjoy it. It’s a big ole cinder cone jutting out of the northeastern New Mexico plain. The drive to the top is spectacular, then the loop hike around the crater rim is even better. You can see for miles and miles in every direction. Today was a “scattered thunderstorms” kind of day,
The hike is roughly one mile, with a 315′ elevation change, from 8100′ at the parking lot to 8415′. Rain clouds and occasional lightning in three directions, just a spectacular day to be up there. I worried about what might happen if the lightning came to my mountaintop, but it never did. An amazing afternoon.
Back down in the flatlands, I rejoin US 64 west. Down the road a bit most of the traffic is pulled over on the shoulder. I do the same, and voila! There is an epic rainbow behind me!
US 64 clips the south edge of Raton NM, then joins I-25 south before veering off to the west again. I turn off on a little county road, destination is an alleged camping area by a lake in a Wildlife Refuge south of here. I take the first turnoff that says “Refuge”, which turns out to be a mistake. All the directions are with regard to the main entrance road, and this ain’t it. I bounce around on long dusty gravel roads for way too long until a helpful map at the park headquarters gets me oriented so I can find my really, really nice spot:
WHUFU page for: Lake 13 Campground
Took me a bit of wandering down unmarked gravel roads to find the camping area, but I'm very happy I did.
There's a toilet and a picnic table. Drive a little, there's boat access, a couple of trees, and a grassy area which I think is the official camping area, then the road wanders half-way around Lake 13.
Nobody used the grassy area. The rain had made it a mosquito-infested bog. I parked at a wide spot in the road by the entrance, and at least one bunch of fishermen spent the night on the far side of the lake.
Super nice place!
tonight:
Took my a bit of wandering down unmarked gravel roads to find the camping area, but I'm very happy I did.
There's a toilet and a picnic table. Drive a little, there's boat access. a couple of trees, and a grassy area which I think is the official camping area, then the road wanders half-way around Lake 13.
Nobody used the grassy area. I parked at a wide spot in the road, and at least one truck spent the night on the far side of the lake.
Super nice place!
The theme of no helpful signage continues, so I scope out the area to see what’s right for me. Right at the tirnoff for the lake is the toilets with a picnic table and a some gravel, on a ways is the boat launch area and a grassy area with trash cans which I take to be the official camping area, then the road continues about a third of the way around the lake. There are three or four groups fishing over there, and at least one spends the night. The only good shade is at the boat launch. The camping area is way too buggy. So I set up near the entrance, away from the lake and in an open area – not buggy. Works out very well. Sunset is epic, and in this open, flat plain with mountains in the distance in three directions it’s quite beautiful.