Third Day--Trip to Palo Duro Canyon

Up early to drive to Palo Duro canyon for our jeep ride.  Lot of rain clouds looming and even a few sprinkles--I was afraid the ride might be canceled, but then I'd gotten an email telling us to wait at the gate and they'd come get us. Although the roads down in the canyon tolerate rain pretty well, the road to their headquarters was a mire of mud. My dogs came along for the drive (1-1/2 hours each way) but stayed in the car for the jeep ride--it was heavily overcast and only 45 degrees outside, so they'd be fine.

The jeep turned out to be a humvee. Our fellow travelers were two ladies, about my age. The one who walked with a cane got the front seat. Under a roof.  Ed and I and the other lady had to climb into the bed and occupy benches against a low rail on the back. We had no roof.

It was cold but not unbearable with a tee shirt, hoodie, and my anorak-style rain jacket zipped up over it all.  Before the ride even started I was pushing off my hood so I could see better. What a canyon!  I've been to the grand canyon and maybe this was no grand canyon but it was no slouch of a canyon.


And what a ride! They call that a road?  It was a washed out wreck! First half of the trip was down, down down. The middle involved two scary interludes crossing running water that looked bigger than the Trinity River behind my house. And the end was climbing up, up and up. Usually I hate the descents, but for those I just clenched my teeth, closed my eyes and tried to keep my leg from bashing into the iron bar in front of me. Only once did I dive for the floor and crouch in a huddle.

We'd gone only a little way before we came across a small herd of the Aoudad sheep that occupy the canyon. They're native to Northern Africa, but were released into the canyon in 1957, where they seem to have found a happy home. Not so happy for their competition, the native mule deer, but mankind never thinks of that.

I got this picture but Ed's was much better.




The "waterfall" was very dry.



















The picture of me holding up the rock was disappointing, because you can't see what I was holding. So I snapped another.





The old geezer who was driving told us stories of the ranch and its operation and history...very interesting but I won't repeat it all here. There were tons of these cool little rock formations down at the bottom, mushroom-like.  The hard white calcium carbonate at the top stays intact while the deep red shales, sandstones, siltstones and mudstones erode away.

No birds at all!  Wait--no--
Cardinals. How exciting.
Were these bobcat tracks?

Our road back up was a true butt-thumper.


After the ride we went into the state park to check out all the campsites we want to occupy some day. There was a very scary downhill slope on a two-lane road with only the smallest of guardrails protecting us from a plummet straight down...I was scared just driving a car down there--in the Mammoth RV I'd have had to stand by the exit door with my hand on the latch.  if we ever go back, I'll try to convince Ed to unhitch the car at the park entrance and let me drive down by myself.

I was hoping the campsites down at the bottom would be horrible, but they were actually very nice. We made a long list of the ones we'd prefer. There were a lot of people attending a bike race, but the campgrounds were pretty empty. We were hoping to come  back in June so that we could attend the outdoor musical TEXAS and visit the farmer's market in Canyon. In June, of course, I imagine it will be crammed full of people and hotter than heck. But so be it.

All of this fun took so long that I decided to skip the Panhandle Plains Museum in Canyon. If we'd spent an hour there (for $24) and then started the 1-1/2 hour drive back, it would have been seven o'clock before we would even have a chance to start supper.