RJ Rambles about her mini-vacation

Hey everybody! So, last week, I didn't do a Ramblings, because my wife and I took a little mini-vacation to Palo Duro Canyon State Park here in Texas. It's one of the better State Parks in Texas and I've been wanting to go there for a while. With Update 17 finished and the weather looking pretty nice and our calendars otherwise empty, we went ahead and booked it for a couple of nights and decided to go.

So on Sunday, we dropped the dogs off at my Mom's and drove about 5.5 hours to Amarillo, TX. It was a pretty uneventful drive. The Texas panhandle doesn't really have much to look at. It's all very flat, all small towns. Just cows and windmill farms.

Amarillo has some cool stuff though. We didn't get to see much of it, because we got there around 6pm, checked into our hotel, then walked over to a restaurant. Then it was pretty much time for shower and bed.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, then drove the thirty minutes out to Palo Duro Canyon. At first, I was looking at the flat empty plains around Amarillo and was like, "This is going to be disappointing, isn't it?" It wouldn't be the first time that a State Park has disappointed me.

But when we finally got to Palo Duro and started driving down into the canyon, it was NOT disappointing. IT was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me so much of being in New Mexico around Carlsbad and the Guadalupe mountains. Except in New Mexico it was like, you're on flat land and the mountains rise up above. But in Palo Duro it's more like you go down into a hole, then everything around you looks like mountains. People say it's like the Grand Canyon of Texas. I haven't been to the Grand Canyon yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing them so I can compare. I know the Grand Canyon is far bigger of course, but there was something about the red rock and the bright green vegetation that was growing that made Palo Duro gorgeous to me.

Okay, so we went into the canyon and we drove past our tent site that we'd be staying at for the next couple days. We didn't see anybody there, but we were still a little early to start setting up. So we went hiking. I had planned three hikes for this trip. Two of them would be pretty big. Today we were going to do our first big one, which starts off with the "Rock Garden" trail, climbing up to the rim of the canyon, then we'd walk along the rim, then back the same way.

The hike went very well at first. It was super windy, but we were having fun. We were both alert for rattlesnakes, as they had been seen on the trail recently. We made our way up to the top of the rim along a 4 mile trail that rose about 900ft. It was tiring, but fun. And the views were amazing. When we got to the top, we started walking along the rim. The wind was very strong, and up top the trail wasn't as interesting, so we were getting a little bored and ready to go back. But there was a lot of animal droppings, like deer or goat or antelope (they're supposed to be out there too), so we were hoping to see something. But all we saw were a bunch of longhorns in the private property across the fenceline (my pics of those all turned out really blurry for some reason).

 There were actually like 20 or so of them. So that was fun to see. After that, we walked another mile or so out to where the canyon rim came to a point and we were surrounded by cliffs on all side. It was SO windy out there that we couldn't stay long. We had planned to stop and eat lunch there, but between the wind and the animal poop all over the place, neither of us wanted to sit there. I don't have a great picture of that point area, unfortunately, but this is what I have below. It was just this clearing and there were cliffs all the way around.

Anyways, we headed back after that. Both of us were kinda regretting walking all the way out to the point. Both of us were tired by now and ready to be back. We'd been out for over 3 hours at this point. So, we started hiking back towards the "Rock Garden" trail so we could make our way back down to the car. We stopped along the way and just sat on a clean(ish) spot in the trail and ate our sandwiches that we'd brought. It wasn't exactly scenic, but we were hungry. Then we got back to the "Rock Garden" trail and started climbing our way back down.

By the time we got back to the car, we had spent 5.5 hours out on the trail and had hiked about 9 miles. Mango was exhausted and grumpy. I was tired too, but not as bad, and not grumpy. We sat in the car for a while, drank a cold beverage, and rested before heading back to our tent site. I really enjoyed the trail, overall, though I wouldn't do the top part along the rim again. The best parts was the climb up and down, because the views were pretty the entire time. All the crazy rock formations are really cool to see.

We got back to the tent site, set up the tent, and just relaxed the rest of the day. It was really hot, but the wind felt good. As long as we stayed out of the sun, it wasn't too bad. So Mango set up under the awning and painted, while I sat in the car, leaned the seat back, and read a book on my phone. You could park the car right next to the tent, which was nice. We waved at a couple other people at the tent site, but they didn't seem too interested in talking.

For dinner, we brought chili dogs. The park was under a burn ban (which most parks in Texas are almost all the time), so we weren't able to make a campfire. But we had our propane grill and we cooked chili dogs and ate them with chips and that was our dinner for the night. It wasn't bad. The sunset was really pretty and it started cooling down a lot, though the wind never really let up. After dinner, and making a run to the bathrooms (there was pretty nice bathrooms in the RV area that we drove to frequently). I'm an expert at peeing outside now, but I fortunately have not been forced to do a twosie in the wild yet. Plus the bathrooms had showers, so we were able to wash up a bit before bed too.

The night went pretty well. I felt pretty safe, because there were people all around. We heard owls, coyotes, and a bunch of turkeys too, which was kinda surprising. But apparently there's wild turkeys all over the place there. I didn't sleep too great, because I didn't bring my pillow with me like I should have. And I got a little more cold than I expected too. I had my sleeping bag, but I didn't bring my heavy one, and the lighter one I brought, the zipper was messed up on it. But I made do and I was able to get some sleep at least.

The next day, we got up, had breakfast, had some instant coffee (blech!) and headed out on our second hike. This was the big one. We planned on doing this big loop that goes out to Lighthouse Rock, which is the most prominent monument in Palo Duro. It's on all the postcards and in all the promo pictures and stuff. From far away, it doesn't look like much. This picture is where we were about 30 minutes after we started hiking and it's the first time I saw LIghthouse Rock from a distance. So we would be hiking all the way over to it.

This hike was incredible. The views were amazing. Everything was just gorgeous. It was not near as windy today, which was nice, but the sun was beating down on us pretty hard. There's basically no shade out here, but fortunately we brought umbrellas. And we popped those out to keep the sun off us as best we could. We also wore hats and used sunscreen, of course, but the umbrellas helped a TON.

Anyway, here's some more pictures that we took as we traveled along this trail:

Eventually, we reached the final stretch before Lighthouse Rock. The main trail out to Lighthouse Rock is fairly easy. Wide paths and not too much climbing. Until you get to the last 1/4th mile or so. Then it's around 700ft straight up. This last bit was tough. Mango is especially scared of heights and it was hard on her, but we did it.

When you get to the top, you can walk all the way up to Lighthouse Rock. You can't climb to the TOP of it, but you can go up that slope in front and there's a sort of table of rock between the two pillars.

This was as far as we went though. Mango took this pick. I'm behind the big heart there lol. To get any higher, you have to lift yourself up onto a rock ledge. The wind was blowing pretty hard up here and I didn't feel safe enough to do that. I saw other people do it though, and looking back, I kinda wish I would have. But at the time, it seemed smarter to just call it done here and head back down. We had our lunch at the top though, and then climbed back down and started walking back towards the car.

Since it was a loop, we got to see some things that we hadn't seen on the way out, which was cool. But by the time we got back towards the end of the trail, we were both exhausted. The constant sun is so draining and both of our feet were hurting, and I'd started to chafe between my legs, which is never fun. The last two miles or so was pretty miserable.

But, eventually, we did make it back to the car. Total, we hiked about 5.5 hours once again. We went about 9 miles with about 1000ft of elevation. Not too much difference from the day before, but this one felt so much more difficult because of the sun. By the end of this hike, we were both pretty much done with hiking for a few days. All we wanted was to get back to camp and rest.

So that's what we did. For the rest of the day, we kinda just laid around camp. I reclined the car seat and propped my feet up on the dash. She sat under the awning and painted. It was so relaxing and felt so good.

For dinner that night, we had a freeze-dried backpacking meal. Chicken and rice something. It wasn't very good. I ended up eating a protein bar instead.

The moon was full this night. It was a "pink moon". And it was absolutely beautiful. Pictures can't even come close to capturing it. It looked huge in the sky and pink and made the canyon glow. I loved it so much.

While we were hanging around camp, a coyote peeked out at us too, but ran off pretty quickly. Mango didn't even get to see it, but I spotted it when it was pretty close. That was neat. We also saw some raccoons and two road runners this evening as well. That was the extent of our wildlife sightings, aside from some pretty sparrows and martins and a couple of hawks that were always around.

The second night went a little better than the first. I slept pretty good. Then, in the morning, we packed up and headed home.

It's always mixed emotions when I come back from a vacation like this.

One one hand, it's nice to be back home, in the air conditioning, taking a good shower, eating home-cooked meals, sleeping in my comfortable bed.

On the other hand, waking up with the sun rising over those mountains is unbeatable. Being surrounded by beauty constantly. Seeing new things every day. Here in my town, there's just nothing that can compare to that. I missed it as soon as I left.

But that's it for my little vacation. We had an amazing time. I can't wait to go somewhere else in the future. I'm not sure where we're going to go, but I want to take another little vacation in June around my birthday. Maybe to the ocean this time though.

Thanks for reading my ramblings, if you stuck with it. Thanks for supporting me so that I can do fun stuff like this. I hope you all are able to get out and go somewhere new as well. Have a great week! Love ya!