Cross Plains, Texas. Home of Robert E. Howard,
creator of Conan the Barbarian. We were driving past, and I was compelled to stop and take a few pictures. What a geek I am.
It was locked up. You have to call ahead to get someone to come by and open it up for you. That was far too much planning in advance.
Amarillo, Texas. Ozymandias. The plaque (warning-large) is hilarious. It looks like a genuine historical marker, but reading it quickly dispells that. Created by Stanley Marsh 3. He's more well-known for creating...
The Cadillac Ranch, famed in song and story. Visitors are encouraged to paint the cars. There were a huge number of empty spray cans scattered all over the place. The paint in some spots was easily an inch thick. Here's Wendy, Gwen and Moira.
I drive to Denver every couple of years to visit family. In New Mexico, there's this cool-looking volcano that I pass every time. And every time, I say to myself "That's a cool-looking volcano. I should stop and check it out." But I never did, because I never had time. But this time, we did. And it was well worth it.
This is the view from the parking lot of the ranger station at the base. It's an extinct cinder cone that erupted around 60,000 years ago. There's a paved road up to the crater rim.
This is the view from crater rim, looking down at the ranger station at the base. There's a mile-long trail around the rim. The kids and I hiked it while Wendy stayed at the car.
This is the crater rim parking lot from the other side of the crater. You can also see the trail leading down into the crater itself.
Here's a 360-degree crappy panorama (crapanorama!) of the view from the crater rim.
What's really cool is that all the mountains, bluffs, mesas, etc, you see in the background of the above pictures are all volcanic in origin, part of the Raton-Clayton volcanic field. They're either more extinct volcanos, lava flows, or other stuff like that. They say the field is dormant, and not likely to erupt again anytime soon.
It occurred to me that you can buy land in the area. Land that contains its own volcano. This means that you too can have your own volcano lair! Act now! Supplies are limited!
The place is also on a ladybug migration route or something. Some of the trees were covered with them.
On to Part 2!