Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Today is the first day of a 15 day road trip across 5 states in the American Southwest.  This trip has been in the works for over a year, ever since we found out about the Every Kid in a Park pass offered by the National Parks Service.  All American 4th graders are eligible to receive this special pass for free admission to all national parks for their entire family during their 4th grade year and the following summer.  Thanks to our fabulous fourth grader Morgan we will be getting in free to 8 different national parks during our trip.  We like to take advantage of a good deal!  In order to fit in all of this fun, we will be on the move almost every day.  There are only 2 locations where we will be staying for more than one night.  I'm not sure "ambitious" is a good word to describe a vacation, but it does seem to fit.  We are up for the adventure and I'm happy to put an end to the eternal "boredom" that seems to have set in with our 8 and 10 year olds, even if it is for only 2 weeks.  We'd love for you to follow along with us on our trip!

Our destination for day 1 is Palo Duro Canyon State Park in west Texas.  We planned to leave around 5:00AM and pulled out of the driveway at 5:25.  We have somehow created a tradition of leaving super early on our first day of any vacation and having chocolate milk waiting in the car for the kids.  Morgan has an amazing memory and a fondness for tradition, so she tends to declare single happy events as traditions so that we have to repeat them over and over.

The drive to Palo Duro was pretty uneventful.  We have driven this road before and we always enjoy seeing the windmills and the plateaus.  We arrived at the canyon around lunch time and there was a line to get into the park.  This is a popular place!  Our first stop was at the Visitor Center for some trail advice and to get started on the Junior Ranger program for the kids. 

We also got our first good view of the canyon from the scenic overlooks outside the Visitor Center.  It is beautiful!  Palo Duro Canyon is the 2nd largest canyon in the U.S., after the Grand Canyon.  It is often referred to as the Grand Canyon of Texas.

Then the kids got to work on the their Junior Ranger booklets as we checked out the visitor center.

Next up was to find a picnic table to eat our lunch.  There is no shortage of picnic tables in this park.  They are everywhere.  They are not all in very good condition, but they are certainly plentiful.  We found one nestled in the trees and had a great picnic.  We even saw some wild turkeys!

After lunch, we drove further into the canyon to hike the Sunflower Trail.  This trail was appealing because it offered some shade and a rock wall containing veins of white satin-spar gypsum.

Wall with white satin-spar gypsum

The weather today was beautiful and unseasonably cool.  It was in the 80's when we entered the park midday.  The temps were hotter in the bottom of the canyon, but still pretty comfortable.  We have some serious hiking (at least as serious as we can be with 2 young kids) planned on this trip so we came prepared.  We each have a camelback backpack for water and special cooling rags to wear around our necks or on our heads.  We tested out all our gear on this hike and it was great!  We hiked 2 miles on this trail and everyone did great.  It was the perfect warm-up for the hikes ahead.

The kids showing off their hiking gear

We saw some interesting tracks in the mud

By the time we finished the hike, it was 3:00 and we could now return to the park headquarters to check in to the rim cabin that we had reserved for the night.  There are only 3 of these "full service" cabins built into the side of the canyon walls and they book up far in advance.  I reserved ours in July of 2017.  The cabins are pretty basic, but they do have bathrooms, bed linens, and an amazing view.  We are glad that we were able to stay in one, but we all agreed that this is about as far as we would like to go as far as "roughing it".

We discovered that you can follow a short trail around the cabin to go on top of the roof.  It seemed like the perfect spot for a snack.

We snacked and rested and then ventured out to do some more hiking before dinner.  We stopped back at the visitor center so the kids could turn in their Junior Ranger booklets and get their patches.

The lady at the visitor center recommended we explore a small cave so we drove back down to the canyon bottom to find it.  It was pretty cool.  It is not an official trail, but there were a lot of people enjoying it.  The kids were sure to climb and jump in terrifying ways.  We encouraged them not to break any legs (or worse) on the first day of our very active vacation.

By this time, the sky was getting darker and we had seen a few raindrops but we forged ahead toward the Paseo del Rio trail.  There is a replica on this trail of the dugout that Charles Goodnight built for shelter in Palo Duro Canyon in the 1800's.  We are staying in the Goodnight Cabin so we were particularly interested in all things Charles Goodnight.  I really need to watch Lonesome Dove now.

Soon it started to rain on us so we decided to turn back and head back to the cabin.  By the time we got there, it was a downpour.  We were thankful for our walls and roof.  Every cabin and campsite is reserved tonight, which means there were a lot of people enduring this stormy night inside a tent.

Our original dinner plan for tonight was to grill chicken on the charcoal grill outside the cabin.  However, I realized yesterday that a burn ban is in effect and no grilling is allowed.  Rodney ended up grilling the chicken at home and we brought it to reheat in the microwave.  Sometimes things have a way of working out, because grilling was not an option tonight.  It would have been nice to eat it outside on the picnic table overlooking the canyon, though.

The last time we were in Palo Duro Canyon was on our vacation 2 years ago.  We saw the musical Texas in the canyon that night and it was raining all evening.  We were glad we hadn't bought tickets for the show again this time!  The rain finally let up for a minute so we headed to the roof.  It only stayed dry for about as long as it took to take this picture so we headed inside to get some showers and some sleep.  We were tired after a great first day!