The Palo Duro Canyon Experience

Where to begin? It's been so long since I last updated this blog that it seems like it's been an eternity. I guess the first's are not so frequent anymore. Or is it that they are not as important to talk about here when there are many other social media avenues now, like Facebook, Twitter, GroupMe, etc.?

Maybe I'll just resume this blog with a trip we had during the summer. Sounds like a good place to start as any. So here we go...

Sydney is now 11 years old. It is hard to believe that it was THAT long ago I started this blog.  She has so many interests now. There is so much she wants to do...and see.  She even has an idea of where she wants to go to college when she's done with high school.  COLLEGE!! At 11 years old, I was trying to figure out where to find the next cardboard box to slide down a nice grassy hill on the island of Guam. I was not even thinking about the next day, much less where I would go to college 7years down the road. But this kid.... She is smart, and focused.

One of her favorite things to do is to go hiking.  This interest started at some point after we moved to Texas.  Of course she couldn't love hiking when we were in Georgia, where there were amazing waterfalls and trails around the Piedmont and Smoky Mountains in the Carolinas and Tennessee to explore.  Noooooooo. She just had to go hiking when the summer temperature hovers in the upper 90s under the blazing sun of Texas.

At this point, my weight is a bit of a concern.  With my small frame, being at 152 - 154 lbs puts me at the cusp of being overweight.  I should be more around 135 lbs.  And my cholesterol level is on the "You need to seriously consider changing your diet" side, according to the physician at the last couple of annual checkups. So I decided to drop 10 lbs and take up more activities. Going hiking with Sydney is the perfect solution.  It provides her with a companion for hiking and, for me, it seems like a good way to gauge how old my body is versus what my brain is deceiving me to believe.  Sometimes, it tells me that I am in my early 30's.  One day, I decided that it was a good idea to jump off the swing at its highest forward motion while I was at the park with Sydney.  Naturally, my brain said I was fit to jump far forward. My body said "I don't think so" and decided to ease itself off the swing.  My ring and pinky fingers got caught in the links of the chain as I lept off the swing. To this day, one of them remains crooked  from the ligament damage. That will teach me to try to keep up with Sydney!

Back to hiking. We started in the Spring of 2017.  We found hiking trails around the DFW area. Our first real attempt at hiking was at the Ft. Worth Nature Center and Refuge.  We found some trails with interesting terrain changes as Sydney absolutely hated flat, paved trails.  She wanted dirt and rocks and ups and downs. Our favorite was the Caprock Trail, which took us around the Visitors Center. It was short enough to navigate and had everything she wanted. That was a good start.  We then moved on to longer trails around the area.  Our new favorite local trail was the Dorba Trail in Cedar Hill State Park near Dallas.  Dorba had three loops: Short (2.5 Miles), Middle (7 Miles) and Outer (10+ miles). Sydney and I did the short trail and found it not challenging enough.  We did the middle distance a couple of time and found it satisfying  but thought we could do better. By this time, Tracie had decided to join in on the fun. She joined us for another crack at the middle length and took up the challenge to trudge through the outer trail.  That proved to be too much for Tracie but nonetheless, we did it.

By the time summer break came around, we were ready.  Sydney had bought a pair of hiking shoes. I found a nice stick during one of the hikes for her to use as a makeshift walking stick.  Tracie was game for a real hike.  I Googled and found....wait for it....Palo Duro Canyon Park, just outside of Amarillo, TX.

Before venturing into the PDC State Park, we stopped at the zip line place just outside of the park.  Supposedly, they had a zip line that allowed us to soar over the canyon. I had read a little about it online, and it sounded amazing.  We booked the combo package that let us three do the tower zip line as well as the canyon zip line. Let me tell ya. It was LAAAAAAMMME!  The canyon zip line did not last that long. By the time I appreciated the view, it was time to brace for the stop on the other side.  We literally crossed over the shortest canyon walls for about 30 seconds. I was anticipating an amazing ride, soaring high above the canyon with the hawks and the wind rushing through my hair. But nonetheless, it was kinda fun.

Palo Duro Canyon was just amazing. We had never seen anything like it. They nicknamed it "Little Grand Canyon," and from I learned, it was the second largest canyon in North America.  We were giddy with anticipation as we inched our way towards to front gate to get our parking pass for the day.  I was crazy impatient from all of the cars ahead, each one stopping to ask questions of the park ranger issuing the passes.  They couldn't just pay the dang fee and move on to the Visitors' Center? Seriously? We finally got there, and I couldn't resist. "So....what trails do you recommend?" The little ol' lady at the date went into a 5-minute dissertation about which trails would be good for what. Oh...My....Gahhhh!!! I had to ask. Now I know why it was taking everyone so long to get through.

We settled on two trails for our first day.  The CCC Trail and the Lighthouse Trail were the winners.  The CCC Trail took us up and over the canyon at just about a 2-mile hike one-way.  We had the dirt and rocks and ups and downs, just like Sydney wanted.  We fell in love with the place right away.  The weather was a gorgeous 92-ish degrees with lots of sun and a little breeze.  We hiked and hiked our way to the end, which was at the Amphitheater.  By that time, it was pretty hot, and Tracie had decided that she had had enough fun for one day.  We made our way around the Amphitheater parking lot and found a shady place for her to rest why Sydney and I started back to the car.  We were going back to pick up Queen Tracie in our air-conditioned carriage. :-)

For Day 2, we went on the Lighthouse Trail.  Everyone that we crossed path with on our Day 1 hike told us it was worth a trip.

 

As it turned out, it really was worth the hike.  We had a blast, except for fighting off the multitude of biting horse flies along the way.  I was smart on this hike to bring along a golf umbrella to provide us with a little shade in this barren landscape.  But the flies!!!  There was no escaping the flies.  They were coming out in droves and attacking us from behind and all other directions. I had to walk behind the girls and did my best to swat tham away.  They were relentless.  They even bit me on the chest through my shirt and caused my man-boobs pain. Oh the agony!

Before the trip was over, Sydney and I made one last hike. We chose to seek out The Cave while Tracie went about her business in the car. We would rendezvous a couple of hours later at a designated spot.  We finally made it to The Cave, after some serious sweating and second-guessing if we had chosen the right trail to hike. And then there was finding the rendezvous point.  It looked easy enough on the map but we didn't see Tracie when we got there.  We were out of water; it was hot, and, frankly, I was nervous that we were seriously lost.  Sydney thought she had told Mom to meet us at Site Marker # 10 while I thought we agreed to Site Marker # 9. Site Marker # 10 was on the side of the canyon, by the river.  But as it turned out, Tracie finally found us wandering along the side of the road looking for shade.  All was well. Another adventure in the books.

We will definitely do PDC again. But next time, I think we will go during the months when it was not so darn hot and perhaps when the flies aren't as active. And...we have to find a place for Sydney to buy a collector's hat pin or we will never hear the end of it.