The Black Mesa

Have you ever heard of a cholla (pronounced CHOY-uh)? In case you haven’t, it is a large cactus that grows like a bush, its thick green branches covered in spines. And if you have ever been anywhere near New Mexico, you have seen them dotting the plains for miles.

Yet, if there's anywhere where chollas are simply countless, it’s Black Mesa State Park in Oklahoma.

Another characteristic of Black Mesa is the mesas. However, these flat-topped mountains are not black. They are brown up close and blue when in the distance. Well, I guess they are black if you close your eyes.

In any case, this landscape was once inhabited by dinosaurs. Our camper could have been in the exact place that a T-rex once stepped. At least, we got to walk in the footprints of a dinosaur!

It was one afternoon, sunny, hot, and dry, and we were walking down the dusty road to find the dinosaur tracks. One by one, some nearby cows stopped their grazing and looked up to see what we were doing. I wonder what they were thinking.

We did not have to look around for long. Across the streambed were large, three-toed tracks. We tried to imagine the size of the animals that made them. We imagined this dinosaur was still alive. It could come around the mesa any minute! But no, only the cows were with us at the dinosaur tracks.

While those fossils were amazing, it may surprise you that we drove out of our way to see a fake bone. As we drove down the winding road, we all wondered why we were driving to a replica of a Brontosaurus bone. But then, why not?

As we crested a small hill, there it was, a six-foot tall, cement bone! If nothing else, we all got a good laugh at the sheer randomness of a huge bone in the wilderness.

Why was it there? We learned later that it marked a fossil bed. While it was comical, it was so cool to imagine the size of the creature to which that bone once belonged!

 From chollas to bones, Black Mesa State Park, has turned out to be a spot worth remembering!

Photos by Jenny Venturo