The trail followed the ridgeline, from around Harbor Bay north to a smaller bay where the trail ends. Views of the water were soothing, but the closeness to some of the homes took away from the solitude. We crossed four drainages and all of them were dry. Only one, with murky water and covered in water bugs, had water in it. Both dogs drank from it on the return hike. When we finished the hike three hours later, I let the dogs dip into the lake. They were like kids in a waterpark, biting into the water, splashing around, pushing their snouts in the cool lake.
Many of the same plants that dotted the trails in Palo Duro SP where here as well: starthistle, Gallardia, zinnia, daisies. The red clay dirt compacted the trail, but this is not a trail I'd want to do right after the rain as it sticks to shoes like snake snot.
We never saw a soul on the hike. And when we got back to the campsite, I noticed that all the other campers closer to the lake were gone. We were all alone in Harbor Bay! Now, however, all three of us were too tired to care. It was time to eat lunch at the Dairy Queen in Fritch, a mile from the lake. My server, a woman not much older than me, said she was from Amarillo (40 miles south) and had never been to the lake before. Some people just don't get out much!
This Dairy Queen is the center of town (population 2117). It's a big building and people young and old were coming as I sat at a corner table eating my meal and typing this. There are a few other places to eat in Fritch, but I'm glad I stopped in here for a cheap meal. I also stopped at a Lowe's Grocer for more canned dog food and chicken legs for the dogs. (I may regret buying those!)
The rest of my drive ended up being a spontaneous whirlwind tour around five states. The Oklahoma Panhandle is surrounded by Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. Why not try to hit all five states in one big loop? That's basically what I did once I left Lake Meredith and this loop took me longer than planned because I kept stopping to explore the old towns along the way. Old stuff fascinates me. The one area of peculiar interest to me was Elkhart, Kansas, only eight miles into Kansas, but home to one original stretch of the Santa Fe trail along the Cimarron River. This would have been a nice place to camp for the night, but the dogs barked at the nearby deer too much and that would not have been fun. So I enjoyed walking around the old stagecoach area, imaging what life was like here for the passers-by in the 1870s.
I was in the Cimarron National Grasslands. Luckily I had the foresight to pick up a map at the main office in Elkhart before driving into this area. Point of Rocks is three miles west of KS27. I drove west on dirt road 600.3, but that ended at a barbed-wire fence. Turns out I was driving on land leased by nearby ranchers and I was driving on their access roads. No wonder there were all these curious cows staring at us! I would not have been able to maneuver the dirt road after a heavy rain. There was still mud puddles in parts of the road, and tall weeds growing in the middle. Suicidal locusts jumped into the open window on my side while driving, surely succumbing to traumatic head injuries as their lifeless bodies dropped to the floor panel.
I was thankful to finally get back on K-51, but pavement ended at the stateline with Colorado's County Road M. There was no "Welcome to Colorado" sign here, perhaps to dissuade out-of-towners from driving here. For endless miles I was on a wide dirt farm road, driving past darkened farm homes and more endless fields of cattle. The sun set before I could reach Campo, CO so I opted to drive south back to Boise City, OK, and from there spend the night in Felt, OK, where overnighters are welcome to park. Felt is just outside the official boundary of the National Grasslands, 22 miles northeast of Boise City, OK.
No comments:
Post a Comment