The Day of the Panhandles, and Liberal, Kansas

This has been a strange, sad, and yet incredibly beautiful week. A dear aunt of mine died, almost a year after another much loved aunt. The latter taught me to savor life, living it with a great sense of humor; the former taught me quiet, intelligent, love. Both had taught teenage me the fun and wonder of hiking the Oklahoma hills, looking for arrowheads. My large family reunited for the funeral this week, and we shared our deep loss, celebrated my aunt’s life, and reaffirmed our family’s closeness. Especially incredible was the memorial hike we took afterwards at the favorite hiking spot of both aunts.

The top of my aunts’ favorite hiking spot

Afterwards, I did something I have wanted to do for a while – drive out through the Oklahoma panhandle and see the countryside. I thought about renting a car, and having a nice quiet day of driving, but I convinced my dad to take a detour on his way to see an ill brother in the Texas panhandle, so we both could experience it.  One of my aunts had called it beautiful countryside, but some of my cousins just called it flat.  But we decided to go see.  Our drive became the “Day of the Panhandles.”  This day also included a short stint to go see Liberal, Kansas, conveniently located just north of the Oklahoma state line. I mean, how can one not stop by a place called Liberal in Kansas? But more on that below.

So this post is mostly photos, beginning with three more photos to provide context as to my starting point – the type of country my family had grown up in and still lives in, and thus the kind of remoteness that I was expecting during this drive.

 

A former church and community center.

Diamondback rattler

Hat stand, with family hats

 

From where we had our memorial hike, everything west was new to me, but beautiful, and peaceful – when I wasn’t asking Dad to stop the truck so I could take pictures.

Old car, with bullet holes.

Distance to families, instead of towns.

Buffalo, Oklahoma.

Conservation grass and oil pumps.

Cattle trailers, going to the feed lots of the Oklahoma panhandle (and Liberal, KS)

Sagebrush and yucca

Sagebrush and windmill

A snowbreak – a row of cedars planted to keep snow from drifting on low portions of a road.

Liberal was supposed to represent the type of town Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz came from, and had a museum with a farm house created to represent the one in the movie, etc.. I didn’t buy the admission ticket, but both Dad and I appreciated the sign anyway. Kindof speaks to the journey.

Shortly after reaching the Texas panhandle, the country became ‘broken’ again.

In Oklahoma, the land was clay, here it became limestone.

Dad.

Almost tree free.

Until now, I had thought of the trip as wild and wonderful, but here it began to feel like what Dad called it “desolate country.”

Dust storm on way into Pampa. Not a bad one, but telling.

Dust storm while in Pampa.

Heading south, the dust lightens, and there is an Irrigation line at the edge of a cotton field.

More dust and a bug-splattered windshield (poor insects.)

Coal train. One wonders how much coal dust blows off of these things.

shortgrass prairie

After we got out of the panhandle, things became greener. There were many more pictures I wish I had taken (but then it would have taken three days to get home, instead of two), but only one do I really regret missing, and that was of an oil field with 20+ rigs, just west of Wichita Falls.  That was not beautiful, but it was admittedly interesting.

But once I started seeing green trees – though short and shrubby, I began to realize how “desolate” the western country had been. We drove through northern Texas…

 

Northeast Texas.

…to reach our final destination of east Texas, the land of the Piney Woods.

 

The End.

What varied landscapes. I love the fact that my New Year’s resolution encouraged me to do this, and that this one especially was inspired by my aunt’s love of the outdoors and of travel.

In memory.

-A