
Here’s another view of this storm, taken just south of the Canadian River.
The geography here is known as the Breaks, rough and rugged terrain that’s very different from what you’d expect to see on the Plains. Barry Lopez’s excellent book Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape describes it this way:
Breaks, in the western United States, are tracts of rough, broken land, similar to badlands, that are of little commercial or utilitarian value – stretches of terrain, cracked and fissured by arroyos and ravines, nearly impossible to negotiate for any distance on foot or by horse. A dramatic example is found in the Texas Panhandle, where the course of the Canadian River abruptly fractures the smooth face of the Llano Estacado into a virtual bedlam of steep hills and tight passages.
There’s bedlam, too, in the sky above the breaks.
near the Canadian River
Roberts County, Texas
photographed 8.28.2014
Very ominous sky here – I’d be stocking up my storm shelter.
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That would have been the prudent thing to do. We drove right into it…it looked a lot worse than it really was!
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Very beautiful – and very dramatic! Thanks to Leanne, who led me here!
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Thanks for visiting the blog and for taking time to comment. (I appreciate Leanne’s project – not only have I found some other fantastic photographers, I’ve gotten some new visitors to my blog!)
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Wow. Brett would love this! That’s a great shot. I had no idea there was a Canadian River in Texas. I’m going to look up why it’s called that now, because Canada came from Kanata, which is nowhere near Texas.
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Thanks, George!
I must have been thinking about Brett when I took it – we were on our way to Nebraska, and saw him while we were there.
What did you find out about the origins of the river’s name? Wikipedia wasn’t especially helpful – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_River. My dad grew up very near where I made this image, so I’ll ask him if he has any idea.
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I found this as well. http://www.canadiantx.org/history.html
So it looks like Canadian is used like a pronoun, rather than something from Canada. The area itself is called “Canadian.” Interesting. That would throw into question some of the theories thrown about in the “Etymology” section of that wiki entry.
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