Posts Tagged ‘cotton’

December In Oklahoma

Friday, December 10th, 2010





December

In Oklahoma



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I just thought that I would remind you of what Oklahoma looks like in the Spring before you see the following photos!



I have decided that every place on earth has its own beauty and every place on earth in any season of the year displays that beauty in many different ways.


Oklahoma is no different. From the “mountains” (hills to you Colorado folk) of the eastern and southwestern part of the state, the rivers and forests of the southeastern and southcentral part, to the wide open prairie and sand dunes of the western part of the state, nature shows herself in glorious splendor each and every season.

Yesterday, my dear husband and I made a day of it heading out to Altus, OK, home of Altus Air Force Base. From our starting point, the route winds through Chickasha, Lawton and Fort Sill, Cache and Snyder (home of General Tommy Franks) past ranches that spread as far as the eye can see.

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We started out in cold, brisk temperatures hanging around 32º with a dusting of snow on the ground. As we moved south, the cold air had hit warmer air and we were driving in the proverbial “pea soup”.


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I thought that you might like to see what our state looks like in the late Fall/early Winter before the heavy snows move in. I took these from the car as we were sailing along at a 70mph clip!


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These are the mountains that are evidently keeping Trader Joe’s from coming to Oklahoma. It seems their trucks can’t make it over our “mountains”? Yes, clerks at two different Trader Joe’s stores in two different states shared that secret with me. I’m wondering how they made it all the way to Tennessee from California!! Some of our “mountains” are leftovers from the Dust Bowl days. Large dunes of sand give testimony to those hare and terrible days. I think the view is spectacular.


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Every breed of cow you can imagine dots the countryside. I bet these Angus could make it over the “mountains”!!!



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Around Snyder, there are these strange outcroppings of rock that just rise right out of the ground.



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That isn’t snow! That’s cotton. I never saw so much cotton as I did on our drive.



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Those are bales of cotton and they were everywhere. With cotton prices soaring, that looked like gold bars in them thar fields!!



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The cotton bolls are sharp. It is hard to imagine how painful it must have been when hand-picking was the only way to pull the soft cotton off of the plants.



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We finally made it to Altus to sun and warmer temperatures. We went by the Air Force Base and it was humming with activity. The monstrous C5 Galaxy planes looked like battleships trying to stay in the air. They are so big that it is just hard to fathom how in the world they fly!!!


So there’s a little view into one part of our world on the southwest side of the state. Hope you didn’t get carsick!!



MB

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