Well, a little over a week ago we returned to Colorado by way of HWY 11 – 64 – 287 – 94 – 21- 84 – etc.… yep the slow route home but we had some business to take care of in out of the way places so it caused the travel by “The old standard Route”. When we lived out here a long time ago we traveled that route about as much as we traveled any. We split it up some by going east to Dodge then south to Buffalo and east (if going to Blackwell) We usually took the south route to Boise City and east to almost Enid if going to Drummond first. We almost always split our time back in the old days between both places. Anyway this time back we did the full west trip to Boise City. Along the way we had stopped in Cherokee and then in Alva to grab a quick bit to eat. In Alva there were several building murals and I only grabbed this one.
Back in the day nearly every mid sized town must have had a dirt track…
On the way out of Alva we passed “The Petting Zoo”… yep way out in the wild west they have such things..
I think we would have totally missed it but for the “fake” zebra. But not all the stuff here is fake… although the sign said closed so we didn’t venture in to check out what other strange stuff (for Oklahoma) was in there we did spot a few in the pasture..
Hard to tell about this one as I couldn’t get it to turn the right way but there appears to be the lost brother or sister on the neck of the middle black cow… at least the last half of it?
I think it might be a YAK but not real sure, might just be funny horns but beyond the ?YAK? are …. Camels… oh boy now we’re talking…
There also were a big herd of donkeys, miniature horses and other smaller versions…
I didn’t stick around to get better pictures as they truckers seem to use this route a lot and they don’t care if your in the way or not… so we moved on… next stop Guymon..
Since we lived in Perryton a while this was not abnormal but all the same when you pass so many old farms that were really built up and now deserted you wonder what happened? Most of it I think is the farmers across our country have done too good a job of working themselves out of a job. Production rates have increased to a point that it takes very few to produce what is needed at a price that they can make a living so they either had to get bigger to maintain a level of income or sell out to those that did get bigger…
Back in the day I would guess that to be a fair sized farm, all appears empty or rusting away and the house is already gone.. Of course in the panhandle this farmer of history built his storage line to be his windbreak for winter. not nearly enough water to plant big tree windbreaks, and beyond that it would take too much of his time to maintain trees so… line up the barns, and grain bins to form that windbreak …
We trekked on west then meandered up north and had dinner in Lamar at the old favorite spot… When we lived there we were always short on money… just paying the house took about 2/3 of my monthly pay check so we conserved and our big night out might be Friday and a trip to Taco Johns!… ha! back then it had no seating, was about the size of a good truck trailer… maybe 8 or 10 ft. wide and about 30 ft. long. Wish I had pictures of that old place, but now they are only in my mind but I see it clear as day… even see the steamed front window where 5 or 6 of us were waiting to pick up our order.
We took our food this time and went off to the park just east of there… even though it said it was 95 out we found it pretty nice under the trees in that park with a welcome small breeze… We commented that we wouldn’t be setting out in that temp back in Stillwater. because along with the 95 temp you would get 75 to 95 humidity and miserable conditions… It was a pleasant stop but we needed to move on as it was near dark and I hate driving in the dark anymore… so off we flew up to catch the back run into Colorado Springs.
At the big junction of Punkin Center I grabbed these pictures…
Gee, I didn’t know that was a going concern but guess so..
A few of the less needed units out for sale?
We got home after dark and crashed in… long day
WD0AJG