Traveling Companion: None
Vehicle: My truck
With my graduate school days behind me, but my new job not starting until mid-August,
July seemed
like the perfect time for a road trip out west.
| After leaving North Carolina and working my way through Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana,
Illinois, and Missouri, I made it to Kansas, where the real siteseeing began. In Cawker City, I saw the
world's largest twine ball. (Read about the twin ball themed paintings around town
here.)
From there I went a few miles northward to Lebanon, home of the (souvenirs of the) geographical center of
the conterminous 48 states, which was the geographical center of the United States from February 14, 1912,
to January 3, 1959.
Then I worked my way westward into the setting sun. After 20 or so miles on county dirt roads, I arrived at Mt. Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas, just as the sun was setting. It's not exactly the most exciting peak, being just a gentle rise in a very large open field. However, it does have a certain subtle beauty. |  |
| After collecting a couple of new counties in Kansas and Colorado, I spent the night in Burlington, CO. The next morning,
I began by stopping at the Kansas-Nebraska-Colorado tri-state point, where I entered the great state of Nebraska for
the first time.
To further inhance my Nebraska experience, I worked my way northward to Alliance, Nebraska, home of Carhenge. This is what America is all about, folks. Someday, I will make my own replica of something from antiquity out of modern junk. Tanker Wat, or Kitchen Itza, perhaps. |  |
On my way southward from Alliance toward the highest point in Nebraska, I noticed some ominous storm clouds on the horizon, and so I decided to go ahead and enter Wyoming for the first time, and I hung out at the A&W in Pine Bluffs just across the border in Wyoming for a little while. After the storm passed, I headed first to the Wyoming-Nebraska-Colorado tri-state point, and then to Panarama Point, the highest point in Nebraska, which are both located on the same farm, where the buffalo literally roam.
Here is where our story takes an awful turn. When you enter the field with the sign for the highest point in Nebraska, there is a knobby hill with a wooden pole on top just inside the gate to the right. It appears to be the highest point that I could see. However, shortly after I returned home, I learned that there was a marker at the true highest point, which is atop a different knobby hill on the same farm. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed.
But that was still two weeks into the future. At the time, I was quite happy as I drove back to I-80, and then through Cheyenne, WY, and then southward to Colorado.
After that, I worked my westward towards Leadville, which until very recently was the highest incorporated in the country. On CO-91, I saw an official roadside sign alerting me to the local informational radio station which was devoted to the Climax Mine, which for most of the 20th Century was the world's largest molybdenum mine.
I camped just across the dirt road from one of the Mt. Elbert trailheads in the San Isabel National Forest
Halfmoon. Early the next morning, I packed up my tent, crossed the road, and then started my ascent of
the third highest state highest point. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done. I went
slowly, stopping every few minutes to rest and curse the false summits. I think I even fell asleep twice.
But once I finally got to the top 14,440 feet above sea level about seven hours after I started, it was
perhaps the most excited I have had ever been. The view was like nothing I had ever seen before.
| Also at the top were a guy who would find out where the Peace Corps
would send him in two days and a group of Japanese tourists. We all made sure to sign the log,
which is kept in what looks like a pipe bomb attached to the mountain by a steel cable. The way down was
not so nice as I ran out of water just after beginning my descent. I spent the following evening lounging
in the comfort of a hotel room watching the Major League All Star Game.
Interesting enough, according to this report, just before I got there, the USGS resurveyed Mt. Elbert and found that it was in fact 14,440 feet high, 7 feet higher than previously thought. |
 |
I spent the next day resting as I drove to the only point common to four states.
After spending the night in nearby Cortez, CO, I toured the amazing ruins of Ancient Pueblans cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. I had seen pictures of them before, but I had no idea how many ruins there were.
I then drove eastward across the incredibly flat San Luis Valley where I could see the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the horizon, and this light brown spot at the foot of them. That spot was where I would camp that night, the Great Sand Dunes National Park, It's the nation's second newest national park and home to the largest sand dunes in North America. They're beautiful.
When I got to the campground at Black Mesa State Park at about 10:00 PM, I saw a sign telling me that the phrase No Man's Land was coined to describe the Oklahoma Panhandle, which due to various limitations of the Louisiana Purchase, the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and Texas surrendering land north of 36°30' in the Compromise of 1850 so that Texas could be a slave state, was not part of any state or organized territory until it was designated Cimarron Territory in 1886 and then became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907. However, I doubt that this is truly the origin of the phrase.
 |
The campground part of Black Mesa State Park is about 15 miles away from the part that actually contains Black Mesa. Despite some car trouble, I got to the trailhead at about 8:00 AM, and not surprisingly found that I was the first car at the parking lot. The trail is 8.4 miles round trip but has a vertical gain of only about 800 feet. However, since this is the hike to the top of a mesa, it is essentially a very flat hike for two miles, then all the vertical gain in about a half-mile, and then another essentially flat 1.5 miles to the granite obelisk marking the highest point. (Of the state, that is. The highest point of Black Mesa is to the west in New Mexico.) |  |
There are several mesas in the vicintity due to the extinct volcanos near the Capulin Volcano in New Mexico. The black igneous rock from these volcanos both supplied Black Mesa with its name and also created the mesa by forming an errosion resistant cap while the surrounding valleys were slowly washed away over the millennia.
 The switchbacks up the side of Black Mesa |
 The view of other mesas from the edge of Black Mesa |
I did pass two other people a mile from the parking lot on my return hike, and so maybe it's not No Man's Land after all. The rest of the day was taken up by driving through the rest of Oklahoma, ending the night in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
