Our West Texas road trip was more adventurous than we had planned! Palo Duro Canyon is amazing. It is described as the second largest canyon after the Grand Canyon. The wonderful thing about Palo Duro is the accessibility of it. You can go all over and marvel at the beauty of it all. This fact seems to be known by more people outside of Texas than in it. Hardly anyone we spoke to about our trip had ever heard of it. And we were the only Texans at the camp! There were two groups from Germany, two from Canada, West Virginians, Washingtonians (is that right???), and so on.
This little stream was right behind our campground. The kids found it immediately and kept drawing us back to it. We found evidence of a beaver that had done some major work.
But sadly, there was no beaver spotting.
We found the canyon to be highly unpredictable. What we had planned for weather wise, turned out not to be the case. At all.
It became very clear as to why we were the only ones there in a tent. Everyone else was in the comfort of a camper, and if I could give one piece of advice it would be this: Palo Duro is extremely unpredictable and can be best experienced in a RV! When we arrived the day was sunny and hot. By 7pm it was still in the 90's! But that night, a cold front blew through and it about took us out! I had never experienced the fierceness of that kind of wind. And it lasted. All. Night. Long. Can I say it? We were miserable. I have never been so happy to the sun! The temperature had dropped to the low 30's. I was so thankful for the kid's mummy bags!
Once the temps hit about 40, we bundled up and ventured out of the tent. Our hope was to complete a six mile hike that day. The sky was beautiful. So, so blue up against all of that red. We were truly in awe. And when sun would hit the ground, it seemed like the canyon was paved in diamonds.
But the wind. Oh, the wind! We made it about one mile in before we admitted that we were once again, miserable. I looked at John and asked "what's the point if we aren't having any fun?". We made it back to the car and made a new game plan. We were all disappointed to pack up camp, but we knew that a camping trip spent inside of a tent is no fun at all.
This decision led to a new adventure of a completely different kind!
3 comments:
Oh, how beautiful! Reminds me of when we went to the beach and had record low temps -- 20 degrees, Littlest was only 2, and our sleeping bags were NOT made for that! We ended up in a motel. I'm sorry the weather was so miserable, but I can't wait to hear what you did instead. :)
Thanks for the well wishes -- I'm much better. And very relieved to realize it wasn't my own cooking! My sister and I both ate fish tacos out... :P
Maybe you should have taken the bread truck. I saw it the other day and it's rockin'. Sorry the weather was hard on you guys.
cliffhanger?!
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