Day 6 - Oklahoma - Texas - New Mexico

The only vertical things in Oklahoma and Northern Texas are Billboards and Semi Trucks.

And that is amazing.

Driving through the midwest makes you feel so incredibly small.  The sky seems endless and all consuming, and you feel as though you can see for miles and miles.  I had to ward off all desires to pull over and just watch the sky slowly pass over me.

And then... there's Texas.  I must say, northern Texas surprised me.  After driving through endless flats I went about 30 minutes out of Amarillo and found myself at the Palo Duro Canyon.  The land just drops off and you are left with a basin of bright red and white clay gradient.

I drove down into the canyon and hiked around for a bit.  I found an incredible cave along one of the walls, which had a clear streak of white clay through the center of it.  That was one of my favorite aspects to the canyon was seeing the changes in color throughout the walls - I will definitely be referring to this color scheme in some of my works.

I managed to hobble up to the cave and get a new view of the area.  I was wishing my leg was in better shape because the hiking and mountain biking there looks top notch.  I guess I'll have to come back to Texas (Honestly never thought I'd say that).

Even made some new friends in Texas.

I pulled off on our way to Santa Fe in Santa Rosa to check out the Blue Hole.  The blue hole is an incredible natural hole in the ground that is 60 ft wide and 81 ft deep.  They offer scuba diving as well as just swimming.  Thanks Rikki T for suggesting the pull off - this was incredible!

Onward to Santa Fe!  Managed to drive right into the center of a nice rain storm, but it also offered a picture perfect sunset over the mountains.  A deep azure blue sky with a glow from the mountains turning pink to gold to tone on tone.  No wonder Santa Fe is known as such an artistic city - the scenery is spectacular.  Can't wait to check out the town more tomorrow in the sunshine.

For the record - thanks to Tennessee I have had Blue Suede Shoes stuck in my head for going on 48 hours.  While I'm a fan of The King, this is getting to be a bit much.  Don't worry, I made sure the King lived on through some of the Postcards that I sent out to individuals involved.  Although, according to many inhabitants of Tennessee, Elvis lives, he may be working at McDonalds or mowing lawns in Florida.

Thank you, Thank you very much.

Day 5 - Memphis, Arkansas, Oklahoma

I'm starting to think all Southern Cities don't wake up until the afternoon.

But that's okay, because it means that when I get up early to ride my bike around the city I don't have to worry about traffic.  And that is just how I did Memphis.  What a treat.

The other bonus to that is morning light is one of my favorites to shoot photographs in - long shadows and a warm glow.  The city is full of amazing old buildings and factories along the railroad tracks.  Many of them closed and/or abandoned, but some have been renovated into lofts or other businesses.  It was tempting to weasel my way inside to get a look at the gutted interiors, but, for the sake of my parents' sanity, I stayed on the outside.

 Let me start by saying, I love Southern hospitality.  After trolling around the old factories, I started to make my way back to the hotel.  I found a closed road that led to train tracks which would lead me back to Memphis.  A train was coming about 50 yards away, so I figured I would wait for it to pass and check the train out.  The train approached slower...and slower... and then stopped.  The conductor then got out of the front of the train and yelled over to me "Are you going to cross or what?  I stopped the train for you."

!

I'm still laughing about it.

 

Since we were staying about a mile from Sun Studios we decided to walk over and check it out.  What a cool building - of course decked out with some outrageous sign (in this case a Gibson Les Paul) in what seems like pure Memphis fashion.  Unfortunately, this is the start of Elvis Week in Memphis, so the place was packed like a sardine cane inside.  Needless to say, we quickly toured and got the heck out of there.

Off we went - away from the storms to come and towards Arkansas / Oklahoma.  We lucked out and narrowly missed some quarter sized hail and flash floods in the area... phew!  We decided to stop in Ozark, Arkansas to stretch our legs and see the city "Where it All Begins".  The town was more or less shut down for miles of yard sales and tag sales, so we aren't quite sure if the motto is valid.

We left Ozark just as a Flash Flood Advisory warning went up and put the pedal to the floor towards Oklahoma City, OK.  With a stroke of luck we drove next to about 30 miles of black sky and lightning, but made it out safe and dry.  So beautiful seeing a dark wall of weather duking it out with sunshine.

Sunshine won in the end.

While Oklahoma City seemed like a neat place to spend the night, we decided to push another hour or West towards Santa Fe.  Clinton was our final resting stop, and boy did we rest.

Off to Texas and New Mexico!