Nothern Arizona: The ancient and unexpected

Humphreys Peak near Flagstaff

Every morning of this spring 2026 western swing, I seemed to chase the full or mostly full moon to the western horizon. 

First, I had to drive through a pummeling rain. The skies opened over Glorieta Pass and poured till Santa Fe. Spring rains have their perks in the desert, as creosote and a rich petrichor scented the Santa Fe twilight. Beyond a green chile cheeseburger, I didn’t demand much of adobe-clad Santa Fe this night, just a five-hour headstart on a sprint toward Las Vegas. The earthy, herbal tones stayed rich into the early hours. 

Smells only went so far. Interstate 40 wears on drivers, thanks to its near-endless stream of semis. Funneling cargo from the Port of Los Angeles to the rest of the country, the road frequently turns into a wall of trucks. 

Elevation shifts I-40 in Arizona from high desert into more montane ecosystem past Flagstaff, with pine forests and small towns. 

When the highway essentially turns into rubble near the Las Vegas turnoff at Kingman, Arizona, one cannot say farewell to the infernal road fast enough. The best of Kingman was Andy Devine Avenue, named for the character actor from westerns including Stagecoach and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, who hailed from the northwest Arizona town. Kingman was the last Arizona town of the trip (plus the many barren miles toward Hoover Dam), but many stops preceded that turn. 

After Holbrook, distance gets measured less by mileage and more by proximity to Humphreys Peak, the tallest mountain in Arizona and heart of the San Francisco Peaks, largest of the region’s dormant volcano. Its snowy heights gleamed from more than 100 miles away. Before an eruption 400,000-plus years ago, Humphreys Peak might have ranged up to 16,000 feet high. 

At Winslow I made a brief stop for coffee and to see the street corner. GPS almost took me back of out town, as Winslow’s main business district is laid out on two one-way streets. In the coffee shop across from the street corner, the clerk let me look at the Diebold bank vault near the counter. I found that just as interesting as the monument to the Eagles. 

Winslow’s other famous tourist stop was easier to pass. The famous meteor crater seen in the movie Starman lies outside of town – old advice from a friend once again filled me ears - “They charge you $30 to look at a hole in the ground.” 

Despite the nearness of Arizona’s signature natural feature, my plans focused on northern Arizona’s lesser-known National Park Service sites. I would save the Grand Canyon to enjoy with someone. The smaller monuments were more my speed on this trip. 

The Flagstaff area served up a trio of related national monuments – Walnut Canyon, Sunset Crater Volcano, and Wupatki. 

Main settlement above Walnut Canyon

 

Walnut Canyon walls

In retrospect, I would have started with Wupatki and finished with Walnut Canyon. The dramatic, innovative community citadel built into the rise above Walnut Canyon had few rivals. The road takes you to a visitor center that gives up no secrets. The trail to the cliff dwellings descends from there on a series of stairs. A second, steeper trail travels to the canyon bottom, and I didn't have time for that. 

The main collection of dwellings sits on an outcrop above Walnut Canyon. These ancestral peoples carved their homes from the cliff walls, creating a village almost impervious to attack. Other dwellings were carved from the canyon walls. In the main village area, some dwellings were accessible to visitors. 

 The Sinagua people (Spanish for “without water” owing to the dry region) occupied Walnut Canyon for about a century more than 800 years ago before migrating out. They farmed above the canyon and hunted game below their settlement while trading with both local and far-flung tribes. 

The steep hike to the dwellings was worth the time, as the morning sun demonstrated why its former residents build the homes where they did. It’s an ingenious way to settle a difficult place, even if it just thrived for a short time. 

A short drive along the eastern edge of Flagstaff brought me to Sunset Crater Volcano. Despite my expectation that it would be a relatively similar experience to Capulin Volcano and the northern New Mexico field of extinct cones. 

Sunset Crater and its nearby volcanoes are relatively young and considered dormant, but not extinct. Sunrise last erupted 1,000 years ago, which the nearby peoples would have witnessed and had their lives upturned. 

Sunset Crater

 The people settled around the volcano were forced to flee, although it had an unexpected benefit for the Wupatki people in the volcanic ash enriching the local soils. The ponderosa pines run tall here, with large groves that frequently blocks of Sunset Crater. Unlike Capulin, no trails access the Sunset Crater or its cone. While not expected to erupt again, the volcano field feels more akin to the formations and black rock of Craters of the Moon in Idaho. 

Even at 1,000 years old, the lava flows feel contemporary. Wildflowers grow from the dark soils and lava formations. Few people journeyed past the national monument eastern boundary, where a scenic drive connects to Wupatki National Monument via Coconino National Forest. I expected the same crowds I saw at the visitor center but had the scenic drive to myself until the Wupatki border. 

Leaving the volcanic field, the road soon crests and reveals unexpected views of the Painted Desert. I had no idea it was so vast, but the desert runs across Navajo Country from northwest from Petrified Forest from the eastern edge of the Grand Canyon. I sat for a while and watched its quiet expanse. 

Coming to Wupatki, I saw a visitor center up the road but a much older structure to my north. I aimed there first. Set upon a patch of flat rocks, the rust-colored Wukoki Pueblo rises from the plain. 

Wukoki Pueblo

The Wupatki Pueblo, the monument’s largest, is built in the same red style as Wukoki and stands behind the visitor center. Other pueblos sit further out, including the Lomaki and Box Canyon residences that sit on the ledge of a canyon. A crossroads for millennia, Wupatki has reveal ample evidence of trade, including shell necklaces and the skeletal remains of a macaw, which is native to Mexico. 

While the culture that built the pueblos dates back 800-1,000 years, the region’s role as a crossroads goes back 13,000 years. Only when overfarming drained the soil of nutrients did the Wupatki culture move on.  

Wuptaki Pueblo

Below Humphreys Peak and serving as the Grand Canyon’s gateway, Flagstaff has remained the same crossroads as the region was for its Native residents. I was glad to see the Native role in shaping the region is so integral to its character. The ancient settlements and slumbering volcanoes combined to provide a 1,000-year view of changes in Arizona’s north country. 

While this was my first time near Flagstaff in 22 years, the crossroads of northern Arizona seems a place worth landing again. 

Humphreys Peak from the north. 

Denver Days: Zoo after the snow

 

Not Bodhi. 

I failed at my one goal when visiting the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance - I wanted to see Bodhi. 

The mid-2000s star of the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium’s Asian elephant exhibit lives at the Denver Zoo in City Park. 

Not Bodhi. 

The 300-pound sausage who hid under his mother was now the tallest of the six male Asian elephants in Denver, owing to his long legs. His mother, Phoebe, still lives at Columbus, and had a female calf in 2025 at age 38. 

As for Bodhi, he was off-exhibit this Saturday as the other male elephants grazed in the massive elephant enclosure. “You might be able to see him if you look down that way,” one zoo staffer told me. But I couldn’t. There would be no Bodhi for me. While I got over missing Bodhi, pretty much everything else at the Denver Zoo was enjoyable and up to the standards of a big-city zoo. 

The boys

Bodhi has quite a life at 5,280 feet of elevation. Elephant Passage is rated among the best zoo exhibits nationwide. The six male elephants range 11 years old to 56-year-old Groucho, who gets daily cognitive challenges to keep his mind sharp (he has outlived the average age for Asian elephants). 

The Elephant Passage contains three areas reminiscent of different southeast Asian environments - The Chang Pa Wildlife Preserve, The Schoelzel Family Village and the Village Outpost - and two miles of trails spread across 10 acres. 

The boys get a choice between multiple enclosures each day. The keepers have developed a system of symbols for each elephant and one (usually Bodhi) gets to decide who joins them in which yard. They have access to multiple ponds and mud wallows for enrichment. That way, they can be outside but not crowded, and the exhibits also house greater one-horned rhinos and Malayan tapirs at different times. 

Situated in City Park east of downtown, the zoo was an early pioneer in natural exhibits. Dating back a century, the zoo moved away from the concrete and bars to settings that stressed the animals less. Bear Mountain, the original natural exhibit, still operates, although the bears were deep in winter slumber. 

Denver received a heavy, wet snow the previous day, but a 50-degree Saturday seemed perfect for the zoo. The penguins thrived in this weather, and dove for fish rewards. 

The African building with the lion blind has space for the West African dwarf crocodile, who was content to chill in its heated water and let the world go by. 

The male lions greeted everyone with their roars. We didn’t get to the portion of the exhibit with the four cubs born in 2025, but a zoo docent told me they are pushing 75 pounds and not the blue-eyed cubs everyone hopes to see. 

The two species of bighorn sheep – desert and mountain -did not mind the elements., finding sunny spots to rest. The African penguins came out for their twice-daily show, eager for the small fish that came with their appearance. 

Most of the apes, monkeys, lemurs, and other primates moved to indoor enclosures until warmer days. Several nocturnal primates received exhibits with low-lights. The orangutans did venture out for some vegetable snacks. 

A keeper discussed the gorillas as they milled around the indoor enclosure. A male gorilla stormed up to the glass where my friend stood. His speed was frightening for his size, but we agreed he was probably more of a gentleman than much of the Colorado dating pool. 

For Australia, the zoo’s kangaroos and wallabies share a large yard, which allows visitors to get close to the gentle marsupials. One kangaroo made an immediate impression – with her white fur, pink nose and eyes, I knew the zoo had a rare albino kangaroo. 

But how did the harsher UV rays impact such a sun-sensitive marsupial? This seemed like a bad climate for any creature with a sun sensitivity. A zookeeper told me she had been trained to apply sun block to her nose, the most vulnerable spot. Hard not to enjoy when a zoo has a good answer for a potential animal hazard. 

The giraffes huddled indoors, their building tall enough for their stature but the one exhibit that felt a little dated. To be fair, with the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo known for his 15-head giraffe herd, it would have felt small no matter what. 

Tropical Discovery covers amphibians, reptiles and serves as the zoo’s aquarium. The amphibian exhibit displayed a worldwide range of frogs and toads of all sizes and colors. Many rare frog species caught my eye, including the Titicaca frogs. They sat underwater and seem undisturbed by the activity around them. 

Two intimidating Komodo dragons sat motionless in their enclosures. Part of a captive breeding/species survival program, they looked stately but as though they could spring to motion and haul down prey. The famously don't have to do more than bite and track - their neurotoxins and anticoagulant saliva slow down their prey.

DZCA finished a renovation of its seal exhibit in 2025, with the deep pool surrounded by a wharf-inspired setting. The seals seemed just fine with the new digs. 

The Denver Zoo acquitted itself quite well, from the elephant and lion displays to little nooks for thumb-sized frogs. The big urban zoo moves by at a leisurely pace, as gentle as the grazing horses and buffalo.

Titicaca frogs

Amphibian wealth

Take the picture already. 

Denver Days: Beware the vacation commute

My coworker said it all – “You were the last person I expected to see today.” I trudge into the office in snow-covered boots, and he was the only one there. No one would know what getting there entailed that Friday. 

A vacation weekend in Denver necessitated the dangerous drive. I would not be denied my little jaunt north due to a little snow. I just wasn’t quite ready for a lot of snow and low visibility along the 50 miles I drive regularly. Nor was I willing to start a vacation weekend late. I needed out and need to work remote into the afternoon to make it work. 

A dusty snow fell on central Colorado Springs. I knew that would not last driving north – the interstate rises to higher elevation as it heads to the county line. It would get worse and within 10 miles, the storm revealed itself. 

My hope for relief once passing the county line and descending Monument Hill faded as quickly as the visibility. I jumped in the toll lanes and stayed there – no trucks, and no one zooming up behind me. At worst, the highway was slushy. The snow couldn’t stick to such warm pavement. 

The real danger came from the mist. The snow fell but the trucks produced a wall of moisture cutting the visibility down to 100 yards or less. 

Had I not driven this route twice a week for three years, I might have felt lost. These days, I knew every landmark, every construction zone, every bump. Still, I felt relief the second I left the interstate. 

If the snow touched Colorado Springs, it lashed at Denver. At Park Meadows, I pulled into a parking lot with more than 4 inches of snow. Wet, heavy snow that coated the lawns and the parking lot. The speed with which it feel shocked me, even in an otherwise dry winter. Around Centennial and Aurora, the snow piled on the grass and vanished into water on the streets. A dormant golf course turned into a pristine white sheet. By the next afternoon, those 6-8 condensed into a brittle icy crust, the warmth shoving away the winter.  

Moonset

Last shadow of the lunar eclipse

Would the clouds clear by 3 a.m.? The moon spent the early evening somewhat obscured by a thin haze above Colorado Springs. Odds felt against seeing the last lunar eclipse to darken these parts for three years. 

 I had hope enough to set an alarm for 3 a.m. The blood moon proved too much for my schedule. With an hour of totality from roughly 4-5 a.m. Mountain, I could not muster the energy for a start that early. 

I got out of the house for the eclipse’s back half. It felt high although it would set in less than an hour. Totality slipped away, but coverage still exceeded 80 percent and the blood red color ran deep. 

It all reminded me of past lunar eclipses I witnessed. August 17, 1989. We stayed home from our annual Connecticut visit that year, and I remember watching its transit through the earth’s shadow from the backyard. A decade ago, I remember heading into the pre-dawn in Nashville to watch ruddy phases of the moon. The lunar eclipse gets less attention than the solar, but still provides a show. 

The moon mirrored my journey north, occasionally falling into an island of cloud. The blood red began to wane once the shadow’s coverage pulled back. 

I crossed the Palmer Divide expecting it to vanish, but it stayed aloft for my trip through the mesas of the uninhabited Greenland area (not that Greenland). In the light traffic, I could take the occasion glance at the shadow creeping back. That shadow slipping away was not a picture I dared take. 

The mountains would not cut off the view this morning, but a series of storm clouds rolling east. As the clouds won out, the Earth’s shadow still claimed a chunk of the visible moon. That will have to suffice till June 2029, when the next lunar eclipse arrives. 

About to slip into the cloud (far left)

A band called Coroner

Separated by three decades

 Sometimes a band feels like your own special thing. I ran into Coroner in the pages of Guitar World. One of their albums, Grin, landed on the Best Albums of 1993 list. 

At that time, you got no samples – you took the reviewer at their word. If you dropped $15 on a CD, you went in blind and hope you actually liked the music. We all found flops in those days. 

Fortunately n the case of Coroner, Grin swept me up. It was technically impressive and lacked the the Cookie Monster-style death metal that were always a dealbreaker for me. The singer, Ron Broder, growled, but at least he enunciated. He sounds like he could use a glass of water, but that’s it. The Lethargic Age chugs right out of the instrumental opening. Paralyzed, Mesmerized leans on some subtle grooves in its eight minutes. Internal Conflicts runs full throttle from its first note. Even the closer, Host, moves with menace over its spoken-word verses as a dark bass riff picks up steam and crescendos on the chorus. The music diverged heavily from thrash, death, groove and other metal subgenres of the time that I didn’t really fit anywhere. I liked that. 

Not long after, I grabbed Mental Vortex, their previous album, which stayed in steady rotation as well. The tempos were slower on tracks like Son of Lilith but still full of intricate passages that left me wondering how a trio could pull them off. 

When it came to Coroner, I had no one to commiserate with. We had Swiss exchange students in high school – male students with long hair and metal fan looks. I asked them about the band. Crickets. No one heard of them. Any effort to introduce them to my guitar-playing friends went nowhere. I played their cover of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) for my friend, a Beatles purist. He was horrified. 

The Beatles are often hard to cover, but this cover fits the band well. I felt it better that they tackled the heaviest Beatles song instead of something lighter. 

Grin and Mental Vortex stayed around for a while. Coroner dropped a compilation two years later, by which time I phased out of metal thanks to growth of more extreme and unappetizing subgenres. The compilation was essentially a new album, with new tracks and covers spread among fan favorites. Seeing the resale prices I wish I grabbed it, since almost all of those songs were exclusive to that album. 

I had no clue Coroner had broken up and would not resurface for more than 15 years.

In my late thirties, I found I had not lost the touch for those albums. I rediscovered their earlier albums, although only No More Color stuck to any degree. At one point I owned Punishment for Decadence on vinyl, but it ended up going after it proved a little too unrefined for me. 

Rumors of new music had come and gone for a decade. The band conducted short tours, sometimes brushing the U.S. They never came close enough for me to rationalize the distance.  

In late December 2025, I happened to catch a year-end metal roundup, including the album Dissonance Theory ... by Coroner. I completely missed the news after years of rumors and had no idea they ended the 30-year drought.   

I scrambled to download it. Ten songs and 40-something minutes later, they easily bridge the 30 years since their last release. Dissonance Theory followed the band’s past template – a short non-metal instrumental, then the pulverizing but intricate songs followed. There’s advancement but the band does not stray too far from its strengths. 

The song Prolonging even complements the big thrash riffs with an organ solo that never feels out of place. Coroner has never been afraid to throw in a non-metal flourish or two – a didgeridoo is central to the instrumental that opens Grin. 

When they finally played a show in easy driving distance (Denver in February), I flaked for an old reason – I had no one to go with, because no one knew the band. 

But missing the show wasn’t a big deal. After three decades, Coroner finally delivered some new music. As in my teen years, that requires many immersive listens.

Denver Days: Enter the Mint

Few people crossed the Denver Capitol District grounds at 6:30 a.m. Thursday in late January. I had a little time to wander the grounds, with massive parks (and one busy road) separating the Colorado state capitol and Denver City Hall. An innocuous building just south of City Hall plays a bigger role in the West. 

The Denver U.S. Mint only produces coins, no paper money, but any U.S. coin with a tiny “D” on its front face originated here. Denver landed a branch mint because of the Colorado gold and silver rush. In 1858, Denver businessmen created their own mint/assay office in Colorado Territory, and the U.S. government bought the building and assets in 1863, a year after Congress authorized a Denver-area mint. There were Civil War concerns about Confederates targeting Colorado Territory for its natural resources. 

You won’t see any pictures from inside the Denver Mint, as no photos are allowed inside due to the printing of circulated money. But they offer free tours Monday through Thursday just for registering, and the tour guides are well-informed and talkative. Winter is the slow season at the Mint, with summer tours filling fast. I took the 7:30 a.m. tour, and it included just two other people. 

With an operating mint, Denver is in rare company. The U.S. Treasury Department operates mints in Philadelphia (the original capitol), Denver, and San Francisco (another gold rush location), and West Point, which produces American Eagle coins from precious metals, as well as commemorative coins. In the mint atrium, Wells Fargo has curated in-depth displays about money and the western U.S. 

Beginning with some historic displays to show how money manufacturing has changed, the tour quickly came to an overlook of the production floor, where blank metal disks are struck with dies to product nickels, dimes, quarters, and more. 

This morning, the Denver Mint was producing new coin designs for the U.S. 250th anniversary. But not everything it produces is meant for the bank - The mint also stamped coins of Batman and Superman for commemorative sets based on D.C. superheroes. Workers tended to the massive machines to ensure the coins were stamped accurately. Occasionally we caught eyes with Mint workers and they waved. 

Not everything involves printing coins. The Denver Mint holds 16 percent of the Treasury’s gold deposit, with the vast majority at Fort Knox in Kentucky and the remainder at West Point. Behind a Plexiglass window into a bank vault, the Denver Mint displayed three solid gold bars worth millions. 

The tour concludes in the former mint lobby, which dates to the early 1900s and has large murals from Italian-American artist Vincent Aderente that salute commerce, mining, and manufacturing. We only had so long to admire them, since our tour guide had to head back to lead a 9 a.m. tour. With that, our small tour group was out on the street in the Capital District, the mint once again off-limits. 

Mint exit. 

 

A random memory: Doughnuts in Dublin (1984-85)

If Mr. Kellam stopped by, he brought doughnuts. 

While the second grade was not a brutal experience, few things delighted quite as much as his surprise visits. 

My family moved to Dublin in May 1984. I did 10 days of first grade at Moore Street Elementary, then summer break hit. I barely knew anyone before we left for summer. 

I came back in August in a different group of kids, a more diverse bunch in Mrs. Kellam's classroom (her name was June, but there was no way I could have ever called her that). 

In the days before school shootings and single entries with security, all our classrooms had an outdoor exit. Anyone could walk into Moore Street school. We could not use the outer door regularly. 

But with a knock on the door, Mr. Kellam could deliver the goods and head off to work without alerting the entire school. He made the entire morning better for every student in that class. 

He might have done it once a month, he might have done it less. Forty-plus years of not thinking about it left me a little hazy. But he came by multiple times, sometimes without doughnuts, but usually with two dozen to cover the class. Unsurprisingly his visits always delighted the class. 

These days I don’t often think about the Dublin years (May 1984-November 1987). They were strangely formative due to the small-town Georgia that stayed segregated. We had a handful of Black children in our classes, a smattering of rich kids (I was briefly friends with one whose last name adorned the park across the street from the elementary school, but it couldn't last, because money matters), and plenty of northerners whose parents came south for the manufacturing jobs That's what brought us. 

Moore Street houses a Grade 6-12 magnet school these days but otherwise looks pretty similar. As for the Kellams, I knew what to expect in 2026. Several neighborhood kids from Dublin had passed away in recent years, so I couldn't expect much from a couple who were gray-haired in 1984. 

Still, I looked them up. Mrs. Kellam's obituary came up in my first search. Mr. Kellam died in November 2000, Mrs. Kellam died in 2026 at age 82. They spent most of their lives in Dublin aside from Mr. Kellam’s time in the Air Force. Her grandson is a doctor in Dublin. 

The obituary didn’t mention Mr. Kellam’s doughnut stops at Mrs. Kellam's classroom. But I still remember.

The Burgundy Beast earns its break

Resting while a curious turkey walks by. 

Shortly after returning from the 2,800-mile roundtrip through the Southeast, the moment I feared since I bought my Scion XB in 2014 arrived. 

Heading home from the office in Centennial, the Burgundy Beast’s oil light blinked on. The little lamp icon only flashed for a second, but I knew what was happening under the hood. 

The engine finally began to burn oil. It was not bone dry or at risk of an engine lockup, but I bought a quart of synthetic, dumped it in, and watched the light disappear. Full oil change came 24 hours later. 

Now I check the dipstick regularly – what an appropriate name for a tool that measures oil levels with two dots, one for full and one for low. My 2002 Corolla started burning oil somewhere around 100,000. I came very close to engine lock before the light came on. The blue Corolla lasted another three years before Monteagle killed it, the transmission grinding when a truck cut out and forced me to break too fast for the transmission. I’m almost over that. Before the oil burning started, the XB reached an impressive 223,000, which include four long trips east – three to Georgia, one to Ohio – since December 2023. Each trip exceeded 2,500 miles roundtrip. 

Was I pushing my luck? I never felt that. I didn’t push the car and took frequent breaks via National Park Service sites and more. In fairness,this last time marked the first time I did the drive to Atlanta and back to Colorado two days each way. 

The Burgundy Beast has travelled to 33 states, Idaho the most recent. We only missed regions - the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and the West Coast. I could probably still get Nevada, but I can’t foresee heading that far again. 

My car is not in imminent danger of burning up. But the car must retire from long trips. Rental cars are the near-future for my western swings. 

I don’t like it, but the Scion is still good for Colorado driving – well, maybe Albuquerque to the South, Wichita to the east, and Rapid City to the north. But it won’t cross multiple time zones in a day again. 

Harder still - Saving for a new car must begin. The calculus has changed – someone of my income does not simply walk into a showroom and get a new car in the 2020s. Stagnant incomes and soaring car costs mean I might buy used for the first time. 

The Burgundy Beast will still get its highway and mountain exercise. But its hardest-driven days have passed. Its successor might already sit on a local car lot. 

Sprint across the staked plains

Oklahoma City skyline from Scissortail Park

 

The Leaning Tower of Britten, Texas

Terry Funk mural, Amarillo

Fishers Peak descending from Raton Pass, Colorado

The back half broke up nicely. All but 30 miles of I-40 through Oklahoma. Six hours to Amarillo, slightly less from Amarillo to Colorado Springs. 

Starting in the dark at Sallisaw, I crossed the Arkansas one last time where it widens into reservoir, then the Canadian River, which I would see again north of Amarillo. I briefly contemplated a drive northwest to Tulsa, but the urge to get home that day would not break. 

Scissortail Park, OKC

A clear morning brought an epic sunrise across eastern Oklahoma. I barely encountered any traffic clear to Oklahoma City, with nothing more notable than a Braum’s truck headed to the home farm just south of the state capital. 

As for OKC, I already knew where to stop to stretch my legs. 

Scissortail Park anchors the south end of downtown Oklahoma City. Named for Oklahoma’s state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, the 70-acre park has few trees but hosts its shared of wildlife on a series of lakes and wetland marshes. It's a reclaimed park, but a vibrant one. Plus, it has unbeatable views of the skyline, which admittedly is one gleaming skyscraper and a series of older mid-rise buildings. 

I didn’t go to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial this time. Such a solemn and heartbreaking place requires a certain mood I did not have that morning. I bought a coffee from Park Grounds, then set out walking. 

It was a mix of Saturday morning running groups, meanderers, homeless, and more. With the temperatures balmy for December, I expected bigger crowds would arrive later in the morning. 

As Oklahoma City dwindled down to green country and constant wind gusts, I just plowed ahead. I hoped for a view of the Wichita Mountains, but I never got far enough south. The land gradually dried out as I moved west, the Gulf of Mexico’s influence declining, and ranch country gaining. 

Had I been less focused on getting home that night, I might have stopped at the U.S. Route 66 sites; Interstate 40 follows its right-of-way west of Oklahoma City. 

I crossed into Texas without much thought. When a seemingly crumbling water tower came onto the horizon, it took me a second to realize I had reached The Leaning Tower of Britten. Trucked 40 miles and leaned at a 10-degree angle as an attraction for a truck stop that closed in the 1980s, the tower remains a Route 66 landmark. 

Not the Terry Funk mural, Amarillo

Soon enough Amarillo arrived. Capital of the Texas Panhandle, the air runs thick with stockyard or crude oil depending on which way the wind blew. Downtown is built on a series of wide one-way streets but has some pockets of life. 

I stopped for lunch at Six Car Pub & Brewery, but I had a single goal while in Amarillo – find the Terry Funk mural. 

The mural emerged just two months after Funk died in August 2023, created by artist Jeks during the Hoodoo Mural Festival. The late professional wrestler and sometimes actor hailed from Amarillo, where numerous wrestlers trained under his father Dory Funk Sr. 

Dumas mural 

Here I found the limits of Google Maps, as it sent me across downtown to a mural celebrating books about the Texas Panhandle. A few quick searches landed me in a narrow alley one block away from Six Car. 

There I found the stern gaze of the Funkster glaring down from a brick wall. A more visible site would have bee nice, but that Amarillo gave Funk any memorial was refreshing. Wrestling often gets the short shrift in pop culture, and one of its longtime icons deserved the honor. 

Fifty miles up the road lies Dumas, where I head northwest for the sprint across Texas’ last counties and 80 miles of New Mexico volcano fields before Raton and its pass on the Colorado border. 

After many misses, the time to visit the Trampled Turtle Brewery arrived. I either passed through Dumas too early, too late, or on days when Trampled Turtle stayed closed. 

When I ordered my beer, I found no turtles but a friendly tuxedo cat ready to make my acquaintance. The bar was empty and he sat next to me for a few long minutes. The strong wheat ale I picked was not the flavor I needed. But the company helped me drop any complaints, even with four hours till home. As I walked out, he loafed on an ottoman in a sunbeam, and I scratched him a few more times for the road. 

After all, it was time to start thinking of my own kitties as I skirted the New Mexico volcanoes, crossed Raton Pass as the golden hour sun hit flat-topped Fishers Peak. 

Good company at Trampled Turtle, Dumas

Apparently he disagreed. 

Ouachita anxiety relief

The last time I visited Hot Springs over a rainy New Year’s weekend, people were at a premium. The bathhouses of the national park were mostly empty, as were the restaurants and bars. 

The weekend after Christmas 2025 was far different environment. 

Thanks to balmy winter days, one could have mistaken it for a summer day along Central Avenue. The summer-like temperatures probably helped, just as Christmas on Thursday probably encouraged a day or weekend trip to Hot Springs. 

But there was no warning. The hills around Hot Springs hid the crowds. Central is just a narrow street between hills. Were I headed somewhere other than the national park, I would have stood a chance, but I quickly realized it wasn’t going to happen. 

After accidentally turning onto the route for the hilltop observation tower – a good spot to visit when the crowds are not oppressive - I made a U-turn and began searching for an exit. The bathhouses looked great. But I couldn’t contend with this crowd. Hot Springs has a bicentennial looming in 2032, marking its preservation as a federal reserve under President Andrew Jackson, the first land protected in such fashion and a precursor to the national parks, which Hot Springs became in 1921. 

History and hot water would wait for another trip. I sped west through many layers of Hot Springs, through historic housing blocks to strip malls until I eventually reached town’s end and rolled into the Ouachita National Forest. 

Then came many miles of nothing, a relief at the rush of humanity that descended upon the Hot Springs historic district. I often went many miles without another car or town. 

Ouachita is the French version of Washita or Wichita, the Indian term for good hunting grounds repeated across Arkansas, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. 

These mountains are rich with old-growth forest thanks to the presence of tree species not usually logged. More than 800,000 acres could be old-growth, making it one of the largest reserves in the lower 48. Only a veto by Calvin Coolidge prevented this forest from becoming a national park – as an national forest, there’s a still a serenity to these mountains, Towns like Mount Ida and Y City had a few stores and a gas station. 

I might live at an altitude more than twice the height of these mountains, but that did not take away from their majesty. Mount Magazine, a flat-topped mountain that at 2,753 marks Arkansas’ highest point, has been carved out of the national forest as a state park. They stand tall enough to possess ecosystems usually found further north, and numerous species not found anywhere else. 

Some scenic routes don’t deliver on the scenery or deliver too much, but the Ouachita National Forest provided the right amount. These environs made me want to return when not on a spring back to Colorado. 

By sunset I had descended into the Arkansas River Valley, the first feeling of home, despite all of Oklahoma lying ahead of me. The Arkansas runs dry at points in Kansas and gets replenished from reservoirs and tributaries, but it emerges from the Rocky Mountains 40 miles from home. 

At Fort Smith the Arkansas runs wide, its surface broken by forested islands before cutting through its namesake state and meeting the Mississippi on the eastern border. 

Nearby rise the last peaks of the Ouachita heading into southeastern Oklahoma, the state line not change their stature. 

Nearing Fort Smith

Natchez Trace reunion

Tupelo, Mississippi leans heavily upon its most famous native. An exit sign touts “Elvis Presley Site” as the singer was born there in a two-room shotgun house. 

Nothing against the King, but after two days on the road, I craved something else. A quieter exit nearby was more my speed. No commercial vehicles, lower speed limits, a feel of farther back in time. For the first time in a decade, I was on the Natchez Trace, if only for a few miles. 

The national scenic parkway follows the route travelled for millennia. Originally a bison run, then a path followed by the Southeast’s Native tribes, it became the way back north for flatboat pilots and crews. 

Before steamboats, the boatmen (called Kaintucks because they often started on the Ohio River in Kentucky) selling goods would also sell off their flatboats, which could not return upstream on the Mississippi or its eastern tributaries. They would return by walking, horseback, or other means, stopping at stands (hotels) along the way. Many stretches of the original Trace still exist, as well as landmarks that go back thousands of years, including waterfalls, Indian mounds, and more. 

While the Tennessee sections are hilly, the Trace flattens out once it crosses the Tennessee River and enters Mississippi after a short span in Alabama. The park visitor center was open, so I spent a little time with the displays and the new park movie. National Park units usually put together good documentaries demonstrating their importance, and this one was no exception. Spending a few minutes watching the movie reminded me of the days spent upon the Chase in a previous lifetime. 

A two-day drive covered the whole 445 miles in 2012. The low speed meant not needing gas once between Nashville and Jackson, Mississippi. 

Mostly I travelled the stretch between Nashville’s west suburbs and the Merriweather Lewis site, where the 19th century explorer died at a Trace stand in 1809. The site included a rustic hiking trail and the best free campsite near Nashville. 

Most Nashville people visit the double arch bridge near the Trace’s northern end and go no further. In the next 70 miles, the Trace has numerous scenic stops – the Gordon House (an 118 home that served as a trading post and operated a ferry on the Duck River), the Baker Bluff overlook ( a glance back in time a rural Tennessee farm). Jackson Falls, Devil’s Backbone trail, Fall Hollow and then the Lewis gravesite. Immediately south is Metal Ford, a shallow crossing of the Buffalo River that is quite serene. 

I wandered a quick trail across the Trace from the visitor center before resuming my crazy pace to Atlanta. But I needed a little encore. 

I returned the day after Christmas for a brief respite at the small park units near Tupelo. No one bothered with the Old Town Creek overlook. There has been a Chickasaw settlement here. There had been towns and villages across the south until the Trail of Tears pushed them all to Oklahoma and white settlers surged in. 

 I just stopped at a pond, created by a little earthen dam. Even in December, three turtles sat on a half-sunken log. They were far enough out on the pond that they did not flee into the water the second they spotted me. 

I sat there for a little while, a luxury the boatmen heading north on the Trace never had. The Trace’s peak era also included thieves and highwaymen ready to rob and assault them, making it a necessity to reach the Trace inns every night. 

Eighty miles from Memphis - 1,100 from home - I could sit there undisturbed and gather myself in the quiet morning. With years of memories, a little Trace went a long way.