The Texas Panhandle

Apr 4-8...Our first day in Canyon, TX was beautiful - it was around 85 degrees with a slight wind. We went to Palo Duro Canyon State Park which was just 10 miles from our RV Park. Palo Duro Canyon is approx. 120 miles longs and 600-800 ft deep & is the second largest canyon in the US (can you guess the first?) The canyon was formed less than 1 million years ago when the Praire Dog Town Fork of the Red River first carved its way through the Southern High Plains. It was a pretty unbelievable site as the area around Canyon is perfectly flat and then all of a sudden you get to the 'canyon'. We drove the loop in the canyon and then made a 5.5 mile roundtrip hike to the 'Lighthouse', a rock formation (the last part getting to the base of the formation was 86 steps straight up). It was a pretty long hike considering the hot temp. It took us just over 3 hours as we stopped in the middle & ate our packed lunch! The weather quickly changed on Thursday -winds of 35-45 mph with gusts of 60-70 mph! --and I thought the wind blew in north central Montana!!! We had to bring our slides in and stay inside pretty much all day. By mid afternoon we were getting cabin fever so we had to go to 'Walmart' & kill a little time! A semi-truck even overturned on the highway right by the RV park. The winds Friday weren't much better, but we did venture into Amarillo to browse around. It was our 16th anniversary so we had a nice dinner while there. Today the weather is beautiful - NO wind and about 55-60 degrees. We decided not to stay here the full week so we will be heading out tomorrow (Sunday). We plan to get somewhere past Oklahoma City just to spend the night and then on to Little Rock for 2 nights. This coming week will be short stops - 2 nights in Memphis, 2 in Nashville and then 5 nights in Pigion Forge, TN.