Along This Road
Historical Marker #4371: “Route of Old Military Road: Opened in 1850s for supply trains and cavalry travel along line of U.S. forts from Belknap on the Brazos to Fort Mason and to Fort Clark near the Rio Grande. Along this road passed great men, including Col. Robert E. Lee, later (1861-65) general of Confederate forces in the Civil War.”
Along this road also passed great women, including my beautiful traveling companion. After almost 3 years together, the 8-hour drives to and from our destination were almost as much fun as the destination itself. We put almost 1200 miles on the rental car. We found something like 20 historical markers on this trip, and it wasn’t until a couple of hours from home that she gently suggested that maybe that could be the last one. She’s a saint.
Our destination this time was Palo Duro Canyon, famously second only to the Grand Canyon in… Length? Girth? Anyway. Second biggest canyon in the U.S. I think. I don’t know. It was pretty, and it was somewhere we hadn’t been together before. Good enough for me!
We drove, we talked, we laughed, we held hands, we listened to Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down” once or twice or 12 times until we knew all the words. It was her catchphrase for the trip. When I was railing against American consumerism and the crassness of our popular culture as embodied by the bizarre and trash-strewn roadside attraction Cadillac Ranch, she said with a smile, “You need to calm down.” It was 10 old cars half-buried in a field, covered in spray paint and surrounded by discarded beer cans and bottles, the spent fireworks of the night before, and endless empty paint cans. Dozens of people parked on the side of the highway and splashed through the mud to see this distinctly American monument. I couldn’t believe it. I’m kind of down on America right now, and this display seemed a little grotesque. She says she never sees that side of me; she only sees the relentlessly positive and optimistic side. That can’t be true. I yell and gesture and make exasperated noises at other drivers on the road all the time. But she was right. It was a cool sight. Even the trash was beautiful.
It didn’t really matter to me what we were doing, though, as long as we were doing it together. She makes me laugh, and she catches me by surprise, over and over again. And I really did need to calm down. I was being too loud.
A beacon of light in the world taking a picture of a rock formation known as The Lighthouse.
On our first day in the canyon, we hiked the Lighthouse Trail. The park ranger at the gate said it was the most popular trail even though there’s no shade, and the park map said that if you’re going to die of dehydration or heat stroke in the canyon, it would probably be on this trail. So how could we pass it up? We couldn’t, that’s how. It was only 2.7 miles one way, and there wasn’t much elevation change since we were already down in the canyon. How hard could it be?
We were surrounded by fluffy purple flowers that looked like they came straight from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. It turns out they were not called Dr. Seuss Flowers after all. They were called “Star Thistles” or “Basket Flowers.” But they will always be Dr. Seuss Flowers to me.
We hiked there and back, about 5 1/2 miles total in about 4 hours. We did not climb up to the base of the Lighthouse. We said, “Yep. There it is. It looks kind of like a lighthouse.” And then we hiked back. It was 115 degrees. That is not an exaggeration. We drank approximately 500 gallons of water. That may be a slight exaggeration. And still, even with all that water and at that slow pace, I feel like we almost died. There were people walking back on that trail who were obese and elderly. There were children. I feel like I’m reasonably active and somewhat fit. I walk miles and miles every day. I don’t know how that trail wasn’t littered with the dead. We were broken at the end of that hike. We were no longer functioning properly. So we went back to our room and stared off into space and ate Thai food and went to bed early.
Pointing out the spot where, if I loved her, I would carve her name.
I love spontaneity. I love being more committed to the experience that we’re actually having than to the idea of the experience that we thought we’d have before we came. We went to Palo Duro for 2 days of hiking. After the first day, we thought maybe we should get up at 6 a.m. on the second day to start hiking early enough that it wouldn’t be quite as hot as the day before. Instead, we acknowledged that we were exhausted, and we slept as late as we wanted. When we woke, it was raining. Instead of rushing to the canyon to hike in the rain, we ate a lazy breakfast. We went to the Cadillac Ranch. We found some historical markers in Amarillo. We went to the nearby town of Canyon to see what’s what over there. And then, in the afternoon, when the cooling rain stopped and we felt relaxed and refreshed, we headed back to Palo Duro.
We were engaged in the reality of the experience instead of married to the idea of some other experience.
Love casts its shadow across the face of the earth.
The second day’s hike was 85 degrees and shady and only a couple of miles along the Rojo Grande trail. We shared laughter and deep conversations. We were dirty and flirty. We just had fun. I would go anywhere with this woman. We checked out the Visitor’s Center and learned all about the Civilian Conservation Corps and looked at pictures and stories from a time when the Federal government was committed both to building infrastructure and to helping people survive a terrible economic crisis caused by the malfeasance of the banking industry. Thank God we’ve learned and changed so much as a nation since then.
I can imagine the look on her face and the sound of her voice telling me, “You need to calm down.”
We finished our day with a short stroll along the top of the CCC trail, a canyon rim walk with beautiful views. We cast our shadows on the cliffside and made them kiss. We sat on the edge and watched the sun set while lightning flashed far away across the canyon. And the next day we drove home again, talking, laughing, and holding hands.
Historical Markers
This time around, we found stories of the founding of churches (Episcopal, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, Methodist), the founding of towns and cemeteries, and in a fun twist in a genre dominated by men, the stories of remarkable women. There was Betty the volunteer teacher and mail carrier, Melissa the wealthy business woman and cultural contributor, Natalie the pioneer in women’s physical education, Mary the chair of the Modern Languages department, and Lorraine the business and civics leader. Alas, there were no slaughters of white settlers by natives. Predictably, there was the veneration of leaders of the Confederacy. My favorite historical marker moment came in the little town of Canyon. I crossed the street from the Mary Hudspeth House to the First Methodist Church and back again, and a soft-spoken man puttering in his yard asked me if I had any trouble crossing the river, referring to the rain-flooded street. I said no, I was just collecting historical markers. He gestured at a marker on one of the posts of his porch and asked me if I’d seen that one yet. Excited to get another one, I stepped up to get a picture and said, “Oh, your house is historical?” He didn’t say anything, letting me read the plaque. It took me two readings to fully grasp that I had been pranked. Where most of the plaques say “Texas Historical Commission” or “State Historical Survey Committee,” his read, “State of Mind Histerical Committee.” Underneath, it said, “On March 2, 1836 Texas declared her independence from Mexico. Wild Comanches roamed the plains, Rangers protected frontier settlements, and this building was not here yet.” I laughed. He said, “That’s a good one for your collection.” It was indeed.
