Glen Campbell had a big pop hit, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," in which he leaves his wife, sweetheart, or otherwise romantic figure, whom he had "left so many times before," and sings about the things she’s probably doing, while he’s passing through places like Phoenix, Albuquerque and Oklahoma.
If old enough, you’ll probably recall hearing the song played over and over again on the radio, juke box, whatever (no Homer, blackberries, iPAQ’s, or whatever they’re called, hadn’t been invented yet).
Anyway, upon leaving the snowy mountain cabin in New Mexico this week and heading back to Ellis County, we passed through about six hundred and 70 miles- worth of places both interesting and, maybe, not-so-interesting.
Let’s try making the trip into a kind of travelogue, just for the fun of it. Don’t expect the trip to be a hit of Glen Campbell proportions, right off.
Yes, the night before and early morning of the trip found a surprise snow blanketing the ground, still falling at six-ish o’clock, up there at the 86-8700 ft. mountain-side cabin.My Chevy headlight beams shining through the falling snow, made the sight very impressive.
So we’re off, and down the mountain we go, right past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and to the floor of the Moreno Valley just out of Angel Fire.
Here, about a couple or three hundred feet lower, no snow was falling…not even rain. Go figure, and then go left.
We pass by Eagle Nest Lake, dammed up in 1919 by the CS Ranch, but sold to the State of New Mexico a year or two ago.
Hasn’t been full in the ten years we’ve been up in that country, kind of like the New Mexico state treasury these days (same as for most gov’t treasuries of late). It is a beautiful lake, nonetheless, containing trout and salmon, with ice-fishing available when the temperature drops just as little more.
We climb up through Touch-Me-Not Pass, just past the village of Eagle Nest. Snow-capped Baldy Mountain looms to the north, mined for gold as early as 1866, with former boomtown Elizabethtown sitting at its west foot.
Not near as many people as there was a while-ago, especially shortly after the grizzled old prospector came running down into camp shouting, "Gold, gold, thares gold in that-thar mountain!"
Down from the pass we curl through the twisty Cimarron Valley, alongside its fast-flowing river of the same name.
The colors have been spectacular through it this fall, as they have been all over our neck of the woods up there in Northern New Mexico, especially the Aspens.
Cimarron is a neat town, but keep your speedometer at thirty or below when passing through, even lower in the school zone. Their speed-control revenuers stay wide awake.
Philmont Scout Ranch, donated by Oklahoma oilman Waite Phillips in 1938, is a rugged 137,493 acre retreat for Boy Scouts (aged 14 – 18), Explorers (young men and women aged 14 – 20), along with Scout leaders, who must sometimes wait for years to attend this magnificent high country retreat. Philmont is north AND south of Cimarron.
We got the chance to harvest a little firewood, stacked by Scouts for firebreak purposes, high up at its Beaubien Meadow Camp this year. It was an hour and a half trip from ranch headquarters to the camp, past Lovers Leap, twisting and climbing all the way.
Beautiful.
My two-wheel-drive Chevy pickup did the up and down just fine, though we saved the Porcupine Grade for the drive back down.
On another day, we toured the portion of Philmont, north of Cimarron. Not as high, but very scenic, containing a large petrified Tyrannosaurus track. Not far away were Indian petroglyphs.
Couldn’t quite make out what they were trying to communicate, though you’d think my one-sixteenth (more or less) Cherokee blood would help me out.
But back to the trip home to Texas; after making it the hour to I-25, we went through Springer, thence an hour and a half later to Clayton, turning right there for the 11.9 mile trip to Texline, TEXAS.
Along the way we went through Dalhart and down to Hartley (wonder if there’s a story of the two "hart(s)?"
Then to Channing, taking a left there, singing and dancing our way east, over to US287, turning right and riding the north wind south, over the Canadian River and on to Amarillo (by morning; actually it was about noon).
From Amarillo to Childress, we pass Claude, Clarendon, Memphis, Estelline and the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River.
Back behind somewhere we whisked through Goodnight (remember Charles?) and Ashtola (our halfway point), not to mention a town-sign nailed to a telephone post bearing the official looking name of Tolbert (wonder if that sign was related to the author of Tolbert’s Texas, a travel-column in the former Dallas Times Herald?)
A good cotton crop was being harvested all along this segment, even further on down the highway, but rain was a-comin’ fast behind, and one but wonders if they got it all in. Probably not.
There’s some more to be shared, but for another time.
Be sure and vote on Nov. 3 (if you’ve prepared yourself).
May Yahweh (the name of the real God) bless.
