About 25 miles west of Enid, we crossed the Cimarron River and entered the "Red Mesa Region" of western Oklahoma. There, mesas of marine shale and selenite gypsum (sedimentary rocks from a Permian Sea), rise above the otherwise flat landscape. We stopped at Gloss Mountain State Park to make a short but steep climb onto one of those scenic ridges; though we enjoyed the vistas, we endured a powerful southwest wind.
Having survived that experience, we headed northwestward to Alabaster Caverns State Park where we signed up for a cave tour. Carved from the Permian gypsum during the cool, wet climate of the Pleistocene (and since), the cave is a year-round home for four species of bats and a summer nursery for female Mexican free-tailed bats. Trails in the Park also take visitors through and atop Cedar Canyon, thought to be the remnant of a massive, collapsed gypsum cave.
Continuing westward through the Panhandle, we traveled across a rolling, sun-baked landscape, beneath a clear sky and into a steady, desiccating wind; the temperature was 84 degrees F. Scattered junipers and yuccas offered the only natural greenery and every creek bed was dry; even the Cimarron and Beaver Rivers were nearly stagnant. We opted to quench our thirst in Guymon, where we will spend the night.
See also: The Permian Swath
