Tag: canyon

Porsche – again…

In a previous post, I described a near-accident in a Porsche and how its extraordinary capabilities both got me into and out of trouble. It is the blessing and curse of driving a high-performance car and not paying attention to or respecting that fact. I also mentioned there was another incident in that car where I believe it saved my life or at least prevented serious injury.

I was headed from Amarillo to the city of Canyon, 19 miles away, for a fraternity gathering. It was 10:00 on a Friday night and I was running late…

I had made that trip many times and knew the roads very well. Just south of the city limits of Amarillo, I was on a familiar, but very lightly traveled country road. I was observing the 65 mph speed limit before rounding a curve onto a long, straight stretch with a slight drop before a small incline in the middle of that stretch. To make up some time, I increased my speed…to 110. With my halogen lights on, I could see fairly well, but quite honestly, not for that speed. Then, way off in the distance, I saw the taillights of a car ahead.

“Knowing my luck, that’s a cop…” I backed off of the accelerator some. I was now heading into that slight down slope so my headlights were shining onto the road, not parallel to it because of the beginning of the slight upslope. My distance vision was radically reduced.

“What was that?” I thought I saw a small flash in front of me. I moved my foot from the accelerator to the brake. I reached the bottom of the slope at about 95. When the headlights were shining parallel to the road again, I saw them! The flash had been the reflection of my headlights in a cow’s eyes!

Two black steers were walking head-to-tail across this narrow road. It was blocked! I hit the brakes hard but was so close I was upon the cows going somewhere between 70 and 80. I couldn’t go off road and around them at that speed, so I took my only option – go between them. Great idea, but the space was smaller than the width of the Porsche.

I hit the front leg of the second cow, then I felt it hit the side of the car and things got squirrely. The car headed left, so I cranked the steering wheel back to the right. The car got a little sideways pointed to the right and as I looked out across the grass on that side of the road, it looked flat, but there was a barbed wire fence probably 20 yards away. I remember thinking, “If I go off the road here, at least it’s flat. But I might hit that fence…” I twisted the steering wheel back to the left then adjusted to the right. The car fishtailed, straightened up and I pulled it off the road.

“There’s a dead cow in the road…I need to get it off the road before somebody else hits it!” I tried to open the driver’s door – no luck. I crawled over the shifter to the passenger seat, opened the door and stepped out. I walked around the front and looked at the u-shaped dent in the bumper. Then I looked at the completely collapsed left front fender that was shoved back against the door wedging it shut. As I walked to the back and saw the dent in the left rear fender, it was beginning to register that even if there is a cow on the road, I’m not going to be able to drag over a thousand pounds of literally dead weight off the pavement. But I did want to see if the cow survived. It was nowhere to be found! I knew he couldn’t have gone far because the dent in the bumper said his leg must be broken…

I walked to a nearby farmhouse and called the Department of Public Safety. When they arrived, they agreed that the cow couldn’t have gone far. Shining their spotlights at the fence, they noted that the fence was down. Texas is not an open-range state, so the cows were definitely guilty of jaywalking.

When they finally located the cow, it was dead. Its neck was broken. It was lying in a ditch hidden by tall grass on the left side of the road. When they were finished, they told me I could drive the car home. There was only one problem. By then, my father had come to pick me up and using a crowbar, we couldn’t bend the metal fender off of the left front wheel enough for me to turn the steering wheel more than an inch in either direction!

Saturday was very sobering intellectually and emotionally. I went back to the scene of the crime. On the left side of the road was the hidden ditch where we found the cow, but on the other side of the road, was another hidden ditch about 10 feet wide with a 6-foot drop-off. Based on the skid marks, it was where I thought the ground to the right was flat. It would have been much worse had I gone off the road there! At that point during the accident, I remember turning the steering wheel through more than 90-degrees in each direction from center. Afterward, I couldn’t move it more than about 10-degrees because of the fender collapsed around the wheel.

The car was back on the road in three weeks – a testament to Porsche’s engineering and construction quality. I have no good explanation why the steering wheel turned so easily during the accident and almost not at all afterward…other than to say that my faith that God has a plan for me was strengthened.

Texas Panhandle

A recent trip to Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, brought back memories of younger days. My wife and I met and married there – and one of our daughters was born there.  It is a great town…city…but often overlooked as people pass through on I-40 heading east or west, and to a lesser extent, I-27 as people go north or south.  It is usually seen as a good stopping point to spend the night because the next larger cities are 100 miles south, 280 miles west, 240 miles east, or 360 miles north.  Not enough people pause long enough to explore the area.

For those unfamiliar with the term or the geographical region, the Texas Panhandle is the northern rectangle of the state that consists of 26 counties bordered by the states of Oklahoma and New Mexico.  (Not to be confused with the country of Mexico that borders the southern edge of Texas.)

About twenty miles south of Amarillo is the Palo Duro Canyon.  Seventy miles long, averaging about six miles wide, and up to 1,000 feet deep, it is second only to the Grand Canyon!  In the canyon itself are a number of things to see and do – camping, hiking, horseback riding, and a musical drama called “Texas” which is performed in a beautiful amphitheater with a backdrop of a section of the canyon wall.  The entire cast are amateurs but they are very good!  It is an entertaining play – well worth the time, effort and cost to see.

But it is the canyon itself, combined with the indigenous fauna, that is the real draw.  The rocks vary from the normal sandy-colored dirt of the Panhandle at the very top and the off-white of the Ogallala aquifer just below, to the iron-oxide rich red claystone near the bottom.  In between, varying rock layers elicit streaks of white, gray, yellow and even lavender.  One of the prominent features in the canyon is the formation named the “Lighthouse”.  I have hiked up to the base of the Lighthouse…if you want to call it a hike.  It is actually a nice walk across fairly even terrain.  You can choose to observe it from your car and it is still impressive, but either way, never more impressive than with a typical Panhandle sunset.

Panhandle sunsets are often spectacular.  The sky, with no mountains and few other obstructions, stretches from horizon to horizon. Add a few clouds and as the sun retreats from view, the colors are amazing!  Bright gold in the west, with patches of orange shading gradually darker as your gaze traverses toward the east.  All on a background of blue darkening to indigo as time slips away…but in the canyon…

The last rays of the sun seem to ignite a beacon in the Lighthouse and along the rim of the canyon where the Ogallala lies.  The bright rust-red rock below the rim begins its daily journey to darker hues, passing through ruby to wine and ultimately to a dark, dark mahogany as another day draws to a close and it is time to rest and restore your soul for the morrow.