I had to skip so many sites due to time and time of year. Mesa Verde National Park closed the Cliff Palace ruins for winter on November 7. I left Austin on November 3. I could not make it in time and would have had to change my route drasticly. Next time. Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesen West was just a hundred or so miles away from my path through Arizona. Next time. I forgot about Four Points until I was half way through New Mexico; d'oh! Next time. I wanted to spend a couple nights under the stars off the Escalante river in Utah; one of the most remote places in the US. The Miata is not exactly suited for off road driving. Next time.

During the trip I managed to go through 12 rolls of film. Twenty-four exposures each. Two hundred, eighty-eight photos. I've lost the recipt since then, but it was more than one hundred dollars in developing costs. Double prints; I'm not sure why I did that. And now I have a scanner and a web site. Beware!

It was getting dark as I got close to the 1062 exit off of 27. I wanted to get there before sunset not only to be able to see and enjoy it, but also so I would be able to see what I was doing while putting up my tent. Farm to nothing road 1062 goes thirteen miles east of 27 across flat ranch land to the entrance of Palo Duro Canyon State Park. It was so flat I could even see Amarillo's skyline. Then suddenly on the other side of the road the earth dropped away into a deep narrow ravine. A second deep ravine snaked in to meet the first and they continued on to the south. I was less than a mile away from the entrance gate of the park. Inside the park the road started to bend and twist over slight rolling hills along the edge of the canyon. I stopped at a look out point along the way. The colors were cool; just like Tinker had described.

In the morning I hiked up to the top of a ridge to catch the sunrise. It was neat to watch the colors of the canyon develop in the ever brighter light. As the sun started beaming in over the edge of the canyon I heard a pack of coyotes start to howl further down the canyon. I laughed as one would howl brilliantly, and the rest would yelp in chorus. This was nature. Then I heard another pack of coyotes chime in on the other side of me. Ok, time to go.

Vacation :: Out of Texas
date: November 4, 1999

This day was just for travel. Finally get out of Texas, bolt across Oklahoma and Kansas and make my reservations in Ogallala, Nebraska. Two things about this day. I never knew when I was in Oklahoma. One sign said Texas. The next said Kansas. And Kansas needs to have its statehood revoked and be reverted back to a territory. There is nothing out there. Nothing. No wonder they make the best murderers.

Vacation :: Carhenge
date: November 5, 1999

Busy day. Head out of Ogallala early and get stuck behind farm trucks driving twenty miles an hour below the speed limit. Third gear, 4000 rpms, then pass. Then there were the old gas pumps with the rotating numbers. I haven't seen one of those in about a decade. By noon I was in Alliance, Nebraska. Alliance is home of Carhenge. I can't seem to find my info on it, but from what I remember, it was built by a local engineer on a corner of the family lands. He had spent some time in England and studied Stonehenge extensively. Carhenge was a reproduction using cars instead of stones. The cars are all about the same size as the original stones and are laid out in the same manner as the stones are now.

Back on the road and heading out of Nebraska at this point. Like Kansas there is a lot of nothing out here, but Nebraska's nothing is much prettier. I kept imagining what it must have been like to travel across this country in a covered wagon. Or to be one of the first Anglo explorers out here. Now that would be my kind of trip. Have you ever noticed that when you are daydreaming while driving things kind of fly by with out even being noticed? Like that Nebraska highway patrol car. He must have been in a neighborly mood. He read my Texas plates and let me go. Thanks.