At the far western edge of Oklahoma, the landscape begins to feel like another state entirely. In this episode of Red Dirt and Round Bales, Dave Deken travels toward Black Mesa and the country around Kenton, where shortgrass prairie meets higher, drier country and Oklahoma reaches its highest elevation. The story moves beyond Black Mesa’s 4,973-foot summit to explore the people and forces that shaped the Panhandle. Indigenous people knew the country long before modern boundaries, the Panhandle later became the region called No Man’s Land, and ranchers and dryland farmers learned to contend with distance, drought and uncertainty. Black Mesa’s dark basalt cap, unusual wildlife and exceptionally dark night skies now attract visitors to a place whose defining characteristic may be endurance.