The winds died down overnight and it was calm by the time we woke. Today we will stop at the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. We had originally wanted to camp there but they had no sites and thus we will become day visitors instead.
We’re leaving the winery at about 9:30am and the state park is only a 20 minute drive. There’s a small line up of cars entering the park so it only takes a few minutes and we’re in.
Our first stop is an overlook that provides a picturesque vista of the canyon. We also visit the gift shop and interpretive center to learn a little of how the canyons in this part of Texas were formed.
Access into the canyon is down a steep 10% grade with several switchbacks. At the bottom the main park road encircles the canyon bottom and is several miles in length.
It is hot. 31C hot. I’ve heard people say “Yeah, but it’s a dry heat”. OK, but hot is still hot so sunscreen, hats and bottles of water are a must as we set out to do a little walking on some of the trails.
We choose an easy trail that is near the river and only about 1 mile in length. We took off down another trail by accident and when done had walked over 2 miles with little to no shade. Oops.
For lunch we parked the van in one of the many picnic spots that have shelters over the tables to provide shade. Lunch was yummy and a nice reward for completing the hike.
Leaving the canyon we head southeast towards our next camping spot at Caprock Canyon State Park in Quitaque (pronounced Kitty-quay). On the way from Canyon to Quitaque the landscape changed from flat (really flat) agricultural grasslands to less flat central Texas plains where there are trees and things seem to be much greener than up on the grasslands above the canyons.
We are staying at Caprock for 3 nights and plan on hiking some of the trails and relaxing. This is our last ‘destination’ for this trip. On Monday we begin our eastward drive toward Ontario. I will blog along the way, but before then come back and see what we get up to here at Caprock.
