Plains Ponderings (by Sunshine)

Driving across Texas

I write this as we drive west through the Texas panhandle. As far as I can see is a wide open expanse of grassland occupied by cattle and dotted with occasional homes. It is so different from Wisconsin and holds its own beautiful mysteries. What a treat it is to be able to watch a storm move across the sky; to see the huge white thunderheads; the lightning flashing in the night sky. I appreciate being able to watch the sun rise and set while standing in the same spot; my view not blocked by buildings or trees. I can’t help but imagine what my life might had been like if I were from this part of the country. If I had grown up on a large cattle ranch; perhaps met Jim while working a summer job at the local feed store. I am thankful for the opportunity to see so many different landscapes on this journey.

So cute!

Waiting for bison to cross the road

We spent the past two nights at Caprock Canyons State Park in the Texas panhandle. It is home of the Texas state bison heard. The heard is a remnant of the bison that used to roam the Texas plains. They have free range of the 14,000 acre park with the goal of increasing the heard size. The park also protects beautiful canyons layered with red sandstone and white gypsum. I love watching prairie dogs and there was a whole town of them between our campsite and the bathroom. Their shrill little peeps that come out as an alert when you walk by their holes makes me smile. We were fortunate to visit two days after the first soaking rain of the season so the wildflowers were in bloom and trees and grasses were all greening. Hiking into the canyons is the best way to explore so we loaded our backpacks (Jim with Walden and me with lunch and water) and did our longest hike of the trip thus far – seven miles! We’d been working up to it so both felt better than expected. Walden was a trooper. He cheered Jim on during the strenuous climbs up the cliffs, was engaged looking at the rocks, hodoos, and plants, and entertained us with songs on the flat stretches.

Beautiful deep red canyons

We are finding that some of our favorite stops on the trip are the ones we didn’t plan. We have a list of sites we want to see that guide our travels and are happy when we arrive and explore them. I’m not sure if it is because we have expectations when we arrive or have preconceived notions of what they’ll be like but often we leave feeling like “okay, we did that, it was nice.” When we stop somewhere unplanned we often leave feeling like “wow, that was really neat, I’m so glad we went there.” This happened when we took time to go to the Great Smokey Mountains in Georgia, Apalachicola National Forest and Gulf Islands National Seashore in Florida, and Caprock Canyons State Park in Texas. We are also finding that traveling with a three year old shapes our view of and experience in places we visit. Walden doesn’t appreciate historic sites and cultural attractions like we do. It is understandable but means we have to work extra hard to make those stops interesting to him. In some cases it is not worth the effort so we pass by and know we can always come back when he’s older or we are alone. I’m now doing my best to try to build in a stop at a playground each day, even if it is only for a short time while I’m preparing lunch. Overall Walden has done a great job adjusting to life on the road and for that we are thankful.

Just in time to see the wildflowers bloom