Thoughts on the High Plains

US 64 Going West

 

I have done a lot of blogs about the road to Raton. It is a lonely stretch of straight road shadows parts of the Santa Fe Trail. Wagon trains passed this way using the volcanic peaks as landmarks. I find it haunted not necessarily by ghosts of those who must have died between St. Joseph, Missouri and Santa Fe but haunted by the spirit of determination it took to load all their worldly goods and head into the unknown where few had passed, and even less had sent post cards to say they made it.

There is no rush hour on this highway across the short grass prairie. But traffic on this particular day in the midst of the pandemic felt less than normal. Colfax county residents are finding other ways to deal with official business than go to the county seat in Raton. Raton is not in the center of the county by a long shot. But because it was at one time when such decisions were made the biggest population center. That is rapidly being challenged with the demise of mining. In the last couple of months calls for jury duty are up. And NM Health Department is holding more vaccine events there. Which is odd. It is probably the center of the anti-vaxxer population. 

In the Santa Fe Trail days the travelers grouped together and headed west in a train of wagons. With a guide or guides to lead them to the waterholes along the way. Today we have paved roads but seek to travel it solo. We bring our water with us. Where the port-a-potty is or lacking that a convenient clump of concealing bushes. But even that seems to unnecessary given the total lack of traffic. So empty the road was that even pulling off to take a photo seemed unnecessary.

The Pass With Care Sign at One of the Few Turns

Even the buffalo were not roaming. The Antelope seemed to be taking advantage of the open plains in search of the shrunken waterholes.

Antelope grazing on the exposed Shackleford lake bottom

Drought is a more eminent danger out here in the open air. No surfaces to sanitize. Currently the CDC does not believe that is needed anywhere but nice for those pit stops with surfaces. I had to wonder what those pioneers on the Santa Fe trail would have found before the era of stock ponds and earthen dams erected for preservation of the water in the playa ponds. On our photographic trip it was the towns we skirted. The few open restaurants were seen as the most dangerous. We pulled over at what used to be a way station for the ore trains to and from the Dawson mines and ate the food we had brought with us.

We were able to talk as we ate, and watched the hopeful clouds in the distance. Rain may have not touched the ground but obviously some moisture was being added to the atmosphere. Upping the chance of spring rains to recharge the playa ponds after a dry winter on the high plains.