The drive to Caprock Canyons State Park is a quintessential West Texas experience. Traveling northeast from Lubbock, one is swiftly submerged in an immensity unique to the Great Plains. Rural isolation increases, and you surrender to the scale of the great plateau, the Llano Estacado.

You pass through tiny towns, farming communities, their lush fields and historic buildings suggesting strong foundations. Only giant new wind turbines remind you you're not in an earlier century.

A hundred miles, and you arrive at the Llano's edge – the caprock. The feeling of time travel deepens. On rich prairie, beneath dazzling red cliffs, bison roam – the Texas state herd. At Caprock Canyons, you ...