Immense, baffling in their extent, the Llano Estacado plains of West Texas are like a sea. Immersed in that oceanic quality, a traveler here encounters variations in the landscape with particular wonder.

Like Caprock and Palo Duro canyons, the Canadian River Valley is such a place. Here, north of Amarillo, the Llano Estacado breaks into mesas and canyons – deep red: the vitals of the Texas earth exposed.

In these breaks, the region's first people found a unique resource – one that would be quarried, and traded, for millennia. Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument tells that story.

Joe Mihm leads tours at Alibates. He's a Panhandle “lifer” – “with little chance of pa... Hosted by for KRTS