Saturday 11 April, 2015

DAY 5

Leaving El Reno

The girl with the flatline tatoo at the desk of the Best Western had told us when we checked in that the breakfast was 'homemade...eggs, pancakes, biscuits, fruit...homemade,' she said. Not exactly: white bread, grits, buns, pancakes, sweet rolls, really dubious snake parts and a bowl of stony green apples.

We had already checked out the in-town breakfast options; the most likely was closed Saturday, open Sunday, and both Sid's Diner and Robert's Diner were dedicated to the onion burger. So, forgetting for the moment that in Texas the next town is not 10-12 miles away but 40-50, we pointed at Amarillo.

An hour later we pulled into Elk City where the highway-side choice was Arby's or MickeyD. We circled around for the gas station and noticed a sign on the front of a deceased Ramada, 'Cowboy Cafe'. There were trucks in the lot, a stuttering neon 'open' in the window murk. All the servers were either softball women or their daughters, and the tables were jammed with locals. 

Very satisfactory breakfast—rye toast glazed on the griddle with the hash browns, scrambled eggs. Unfortunately Adri was past his coffee time and suffering the howling fantods.

Amarillo was the solution to our wobbly morning. Beginning at Cadillac Ranch: 

The unceasing Texas mistral bounced Fisher-Price-coloured spray can tops through the furrows as we watched our fellow visitors participate in what has long become post-ironic performance art. I didn't survey the license plates of the dozen or so vehicles parked at the roadside, but surely they were mostly out-of-state, and on holiday, as we were.

The cars themselves are significantly more aerodynamic than when they were planted in 1974 (relocated closer to the interstate in '97, further enabling the spray-art addiction we were witnessing in all its compelling freedom.) In another twenty years, Body-by-Fisher will be unrecognizably round.

As we left, four bikers, two men, one woman, one too heavily clad for certainty were taking pictures of one another with I-Pads.

Back into Amarillo to check into the Baymont ($77 tax incl.) and then 25 miles south to Palo Duro Canyon State Park, the second largest canyon in the US.

Palo Duro (hard stick) is 21 miles long and as accessible as a canyon is likely to be...lots of overlooks, ranger station, gift shop, party pavillion, and off the road which winds down to the canyon floor many campsite groupings and RV hookups. This area covers maybe three or four miles at the Canyon's mid-point. There are mountain bike and hiking trails snaking out from here. ('Warning: map is not to scale', although it's likely that the high-water dipsticks at the bridges over the insignificant—in April anyway—piddle winding its way along the bottom which were indexed to a level higher than the Mazda are certain to be more accurate.)

Adrian unlimbered the panoramic camera—four exposures on a 120 film (everyone below the age of film is welcome to disregard arcane technical references,) and reefed it down on its whimpering tripod (think watermelon on a stick.) And someday we will see the pictures.

On the way out we stopped to talk to some large mammals.

                                            Our first Texas Longhorn 

Supplementary Reading 

What does it mean to be the second largest canyon in the US? To be second to the Grand Canyon? Jerry Vail to Tony Bennett? Diana Dors to Marilyn Monroe? (Move along, folks...no timely comparisons here.) Al Gore to Bill Clinton? (that's better) Dick Chaney to George W Bush? (maybe not) Taylor Swift to Dolly Parton? (I like that one, if only because of its trans-generational ironies.)

What second greatest may mean is that you're not the target. Anybody going through Diana Dors' trash bin? Working on the destruction of Al Gore? (Vice Presidential Disclaimer:  Shortly before WWI White House wags filled the bathtub of 300 lb President William Howard Taft with lemon jello; but even at 300 lb (137kg) he almost certainly wasn't on the Grand Canyon side of this conceit.)

I suppose we can be confident that foreign elements wishing to terminally embarrass (and limit the freedom) of America will kidnap Dolly Parton instead of Taylor Swift and Palo Duro will escape the jelly flood.  

Tomorrow....Santa Fe