Welcome to Palo Duro Canyon

We have arrived at our next destination, Palo Duro Canyon in Texas. I am so excited that I can’t sleep. The few little critters scurring around the bucket light have got my attention as well. I want to go explore, but it’s too dark right now (Tuesday 5/27 @ 5am). So I’m making my first attempt at the blog. Yes, can you believe it?! I just hope I do as good a job of relaying the sights and feelings as Elton has.

Palo Duro Canyon, we didn’t really know what to expect of this “canyon”. There were some nice pictures on the state’s website and a neat description in the Texas magazine that stated “baby grand canyon”. I was looking at it as our chance to “commune” with nature as we are staying in a state park albeit in an rv. The first glimpse into the canyon is from the road leading into the park. You can’t see the ground so I’m thinking it will be the size of a very large sink hole with some great rock formations. How big can it be since you can drive to the bottom of the canyon?
WOW! This canyon encompasses 26,000 acres is 120 miles long and is 600 to 800 feet deep and is incredible. This is the second largest canyon in the US! You get a glimpse of portions of the canyon as you drive down the park road that has been cut into the side of one of the canyon walls. For those of you familiar with Maryland, a little like the drive down Sugarloaf Mountain except without the trees. If you stray too far from the road, you go over the embankment. They say it’s a 10% grade but it felt more like 20 or 30% in the rv. And the switchbacks! Thank you Elton for scouting out oncoming traffic so I could take extra room to make the turns as the turning radius is not that tight.

There are 3 things that really get me excited: Elton (what can I say); scuba or free diving and even snorkeling in an ocean or fresh water river; and exploring the natural wonders of the land. Elton was able to convey our experiences scuba diving in the Bahamas and diving/snorkeling Florida‘s fresh water rivers. So let me see if I can do this description in the same way . . .

When we set up camp here at the bottom of this canyon, we couldn’t help but notice the quiet! Meaning, you can’t hear any city, highway noise. You hear nature. Ok, ok, we may hear our few neighbors occassionally, but when they’re quiet, nothing but birds and animals, wind through the canyon and rock slides. You feel a gentle breeze kissing your cheeks when you are at the top of the canyon, but at the bottom, the wind sometimes seems to swirl and wrap around you as if giving you a welcoming hug or a gentle nudge to look here and there. Now standing here in the bottom of this canyon, the views of the different layers of rock formed from so long ago when the mountains caved in on themselves and rivers then ran through the crevasses are incredible. The formations of some of the rocks looks as if someone had stacked them on top of each other. Some rocks look as if they could fall/slide down at any minute. And the caves! Your imagination just runs rampant with thoughts of what animals live in those caves. We’ve only seen rabbits, turkeys, vultures and other small birds so far, but look forward to glimpsing the other inhabitants: mule deer, roadrunners, hawks, coyotes, barbary sheep, and bobcats. If we’re lucky we’ll see some diamond back rattlesnakes and endangered Texas horned lizard.

I hope you can get a sense of the excitement and wonder we are feeling with the pictures and commentary we'll post later. As Elton put it so eloquently before, this is why we took this trip, to see and explore the unusual and unexpected of this great land and it’s waters.