June 24, 2011 - Great Bend, KS
to Raton, NM |
| The next morning I
flew over Pawnee Rock. It looks much better from the air. |
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A nice set of ruts in the vicinity of
Fort Larned. |
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| Fort
Larned. With so many soldiers stationed at the Fort, there was no need for
walls. |
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This is an aerial shot of the site
owned by the National Park Service that I drove out to yesterday.
You can see the ruts running from left to right just to the top of the
little wooden observation tower. |
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| From another
angle. The arrow points to the wooden tower. Ruts are now
running bottom to top. |
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| Back on the trail,
the terrain is now predominently brown and yellow. |
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| The trail started
following the Arkansas River which isn't much of a
river in June. |
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The land is getting pretty
dry. |
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| Approaching Dodge
City, a wild frontier cattle town back in the day. 27,000 people
live here now. |
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Still seeing a lot of
agricultre. I wonder where they get their water? |
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| Now we're getting
into desert country. |
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| Two deer hanging
out by a dry river bed. |
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| There was still
some green along the dried Cimarron River bed but to each side, nothing. |
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Now I'm on the portion of the Trail
called the Cimarron Route. The easternmost 60 miles offered no
reliable water to the Traders. I can believe it. |
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| But desert
makes for good ruts. The trail starts in the lower left hand corner
and makes a shallow curve to the top center of the picture. |
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More good ruts. |
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What is left of Camp Nichols.
Camp Nichols is about
3.5 miles northwest of Wheeless, Oklahoma. Founded by Colonel Kit Carson,
it was occupied for only a few months in 1865. The troops stationed here
were charged with protecting travelers on the Cimarron and Aubry cutoffs.
The soldiers built a stone wall around the parade ground and erected some
officer's quarters and other structures. This is the only military site on
the trail in Oklahoma. Wagon ruts can still be seen about 0.5 mile south
of the fort. The site was also home to an army officer's wife, Marian
Sloan Russell, who wrote much about Camp Nichols in her book Land of
Enchantment. |
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| The "Rabbit Ears"
in the far distance. They made a good landmark for the
Teamsters. |
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| I believe this is
McNees Crossing. Ruts are running from right to left
center. |
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Approaching the Rabbit Ears, I
noticed that my oil temps were getting very high. It was hot and the
density altitude was high -- probably at least 8000 feet. Clayton
Municipal Airpark (KCAO) was close by so I decided to stop and let the
engine cool down some. |
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| Overhead Clayton
Airpark which was a good stop. The friendly
attendant gave me a cold bottle of water, the courtesy car keys and
recommended a place in town to eat. I had some great Huevos
Rancheros at the Rabbit Ear Cafe. Then I checked out the Herzstein
Memorial Museum downtown, which was very interesting. Clayton was hit
hard in the 1930's "Dust
Bowl". Clayton was also home to the famous outlaw Black Jack
Ketchum and the museum has some rather morbid photos of his
hanging. |
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I believe this is "Round Mound",
another trail landmark. It is a
volcanic cone rising out of the flat desert. |
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| Approaching "Point
of Rocks". |
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| You can just see
the ruts running from bottom to top, just to the left of Point of
Rocks. |
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It's hard to see in this photo, but I could see the trail fairly
well after Point of Rocks. I'm flying over some serious desert
now.
The trick to keeping my oil temps down was to throttlle back to 2100 RPM. The engine
liked it and I didn't sacrifice much airspeed, I guess because of
the high altitude.
From
Point of Rocks, I left the trail and angled almost north to
Raton, New Mexico. |
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My destination for today
was Raton, New Mexico (KRTN). I wanted to stop here because I heard they
had a great FBO, and also because it was central to
some sightseeing opportunities. I met Keith and Fern who run the FBO and
they were very friendly and helpful. The FBO has a small but
complete pilot's shop and they will cook up Burgers at lunchtime for you. I
had previously made arrangements for a rental car and was on the road very
quickly. |
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My first top was the National Rifle
Association Whittington Center. They have a huge complex where
you can rent cabins and shoot every gun there is, but I wasn't carrying so
all I did was visit their small museum. |
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The museum was pretty much a history
of firearms. I would have liked to seen something on the history of
the NRA. |
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| Driving south
about 50 miles to Cimarron, NM where the Philmont Boy Scout Ranch is
located. |
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| Philmont is
a huge complex. I just checked out the central base area. |
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They have a small museum which
brought back memories. I was in the Boy Scouts as
a kid and heard about Philmont but my Troop never went. I don't know
if it was as big than as it is now. |
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I have never seen a Yucca --
which is the New Mexico State Flower. I thought this had to be one,
but was informed it is not. Still, I'll leave it in
the web log since it's an interesting looking
flower. |
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| They found a rare
fossilsed footprint of a Tyrannosauros (T-Rex) on the Philmont Scout
Ranch grounds in 1983 and made this cast from it. |
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| Base camp on the
headquarters grounds. |
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After Philmont, I visited the Old
Mill Museum located in the town of Cimarron. It is housed in the Old Aztec Mill
building, built in 1864, and contains lots of artifacts from the last 150
years including the big CS Ranch, which is
still in operation today. |
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| Probably the
neatest place in Cimarron is the St. James
Hotel, built in 1872, and believed to be haunted. It has a big,
wood 19th-century Bar inside and 22 bullet holes in the bar
ceiling. All the big names stayed here: Wyatt Earp, Jesse
James, Buffalo Bill Cody, Bat Masterton, Black Jack Tom Ketchum -- from
Clayton, as you know -- General Phil Sheridan, Kit Carson, Doc Holliday,
Billy the Kid, and Zane Grey. This would be a fun place to
stay. |
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Driving back to Raton, I saw this
Buffalo taking it easy in the afternoon heat.
The town of Raton was about 10 miles
north of the airport. Raton is unusual in that it doesn't have any
of the usual motel chains. But it has twenty or more old fashioned
Mom & Pop run motels. I stayed at an inexpensive but nice and
clean motel recommended by the FBO. |
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| On the way to the airport the next
morning I took this picture of the Whittington Center entrance. |
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