Texas - Oklahoma 26 Sept. 2010

It was good to see more open grazing country in Texas and Oklohama but we were soon to find considerable variablity, then intensive cropping and cattle feedlots as well as oil wells.

It was well indentified as we crossed inot Texas.

Flat and wide, but otherwise more of the same.

Grain store and feed mixing for cattle feed lot operation next to the highway.

Company signage in front of the mixing plant.

Cattle were in open pipe railed pens with wide lanes between for feed trucks to traverse.  There must have been thousands of cattle in the extensive array of pens some of which can be seen in the distance.  A couple of stockmen were along a lane on horseback but must of the activity was machine based.

Oil and crops in the same location was common.

Not all raod has grain silos at the end but grain storage was part of the landscape.

As were oil processing plants and some were identified as plants manufacturing nitrogen fertilizer of the extensive cropping area.

Cereal may be for feed lot use as it was autumn and the plants appeared to big for winter wheat and too late for the current harvest season.

Cotton became more frequent as we travelled east and dropped in altitude.

Most of the corn (maize) it irrigated by centre pivot irrigators.

Sorgam,  ???

While oil "nodding donkeys", cattle and crops were expected these wind turbine were a surprise.

And some "nodding donkeys" were almost a showpiece matching the smart new wind turbines.

The sune rises in Oklohama clearly showing us the way east.

...and some new vistas.

...with tidy roadsides...

 ...as well as tidy paddocks.

Another lunch stop with a visitor...

...the water snake had just caught and swalloed live a small fish near the shore.  So you see we had lunch together before leaving Oklohama.

New Mexico 26 September 2010

Dropped down into New Mexico (NM) from Colorado on Highway 84 near Chromo.  It was a relief at first to find good grazing land immediately but this changed and varied as we travelled as can be seen in the selction of photos below.

First impressions were of cattle grazing on reasonable pasture.  A significant change from the scrubby land of Utah and the little of Colorado we went through.

We were soon rapidly increasing altitude as we climbed through the Carson National Forest but not away from cattle grazing.

A grazing permittee's mountain grazing base at over 7,000 feet ASL in the National Forest.

While the sign looked impressive the corners were not so dramatic.

Nice highway driving through the forest.

Even at over 6,000 feet hay was conserved.  Typical stock handling yards.

A shock was awaiting out on the plateau above the Rio Grande River.  Unpalatable scrub and scattered shack settlement.

It appeared to go forever but when viewed on the map is not very large, being about 25 miles across as the road goes.

The bridge over the Rio Grande was completed about 1966.

It must have been a special feat.

This is the bridge.  The carrigeway is concrete.  While it may be an engineering feat it did not feel to secure standing on it with traffic crossing.  A normal utility vehicle crossing made it vibrate which made me wonder how long this can go on without metal fatigue occurring.  Bob Hall may have a comment on that.

The parking area was a market for local trinkets and some produce.

The river was little more than a samll discoloured river at the bottom of a deep and impressive canyon.

El Prado and Taos situated a few miles further east featured adobe buildings.  These were also being built on a nearby "lifestyle" subdivison.

Some of the livestock near Cimarron on the historic Santa Fe Trail.

This little chap had a large harem and took pride in overseeing them.    Frequently seen across the plains.

A large working ranch owned by the Boy Scouts Assocaition of America just out of Cimarron.

Some of the extensive range of very well maintained buidlings on Philmont Ranch.

It was not long before the extensvie plains lay before us to the east.

The extensive cattle grazing depended on stock water pumped by windmills filling very large round shallow tanks providing both storage and a drinking troughs.

Colorado

24-25 September 2010
Apart from the visit to Mesa Verde NP Colorado was really an overnight stay in the town of Durango to remind Andrew the origin of the name of his/our horse.  The town was a short distance west of the park.

Some of the horses were quite quiet and could be patted in the street park.

While others remained under the control of riders.

However modern transport was also prevalent.


This array of transport was superceded by an old narrow gauge steam train that ran daily excusions some 100 miles along a winding track to the north and back again each day.  It hooted to wake the town in the mornings and celebrated its arrival back into town in the evening, all the time billowing smoke with whatever wind was blowing.  It seemed everyone who visited the town rode the train or just enjoyed sucking in the smoke and steam for the town was full of people visiting.

Mesa Verde NP - Colorado

23 - 24 September 2010
Mid afternoon on 23rd we travelled south east from Mantecello in Utah into the south west corner of Colorado to the Mesa Verde National Park but this time a very different scene, concentrating on the human influence rather then the natural.  We stayed over night in a lodge building, small motel type room, and to offset the cost cooked for ourselves on the outside balcony.  It saved a lot of travel time and easily enabled us to get to the conducted tour time of 9.30am for the Cliff Palace visit.  Other places could be viewed  on our own which either could not be directly accessed or had staff present.

The park contains over six hundred sites of construction remnants built out of stone and clay from about AD 750 to AD 1200 at an altitude of approximately 7000 feet ASL.

Cliff Palace is the largest of the cliff settlement dwellings.  Recent archeological studies have confirmed there were 150 separate rooms built in the period AD 1190 to AD 1279.  In case you are in doubt the photgraph is of the real place not a model.

Present day exit by three similar ladders.  Access when lived in is thought to have been by cling toe and hand holds up the sandstone cliffs.

Another less complete site across the canyon.

Hand grain grinding stones.  The top loose stones are replicas.

Roof of a Kiva or community room, reconstructed, showing the underside.  Above this clay plaster would be laid so the roof area formed part of the ground surface around it and the Kiva was like a pit below the terrace floor.

Open round Kiva is within the people.

There was also wildlife in the park.

...and many visitors.