Ryan and I have been saving up his vacation days in hopes that we would be able to go to New Zealand and/or Australia after Christmas. We have saved up a lot of airline miles which is how we planned to get there. However, one of the difficult thigns about adoption is planning - you can't really. You won't necessarily get 9 months to prepare. You could be chosen any time between conception to after the baby has already been born, so it is tricky. We want to be able to do a lot of diving in the Great Barrier Reef when we go over there, something that you can't take a baby to do with you. So we waited until a few weeks ago to really start planning our trip since as the time gets clsoer it seems less and less likely that we will get our baby by the time we would go. Well, it turns out that to use miles to get there you have to plan about a year ahead since there are limited seats and they go quickly, so I am not sure when we will get there - bummer. I'm sure we will one day though.
So, we have 7 days beyond the days we had already set aside for Thanksgiving. Ryan can carry days over, but only 5. So that means we had 2 days to use before the end of the year. What a problem to have. But don't worry, we solved it. TCU had semester break so I didn't have to teach yesterday. We have been wanting to go to Palo Duro Canyon for several years but could never find a good time to go. This was a good time, so we went!
It is a 6-7 hour drive, so we stopped along the way to stretch our legs and use the restroom. The rest stop was huge with several different areas. In one of them we found this:
You know you are in Texas when...
Palo Duro is about 45-55 minutes from Amarillo, but we really didn't even go in to Amarillo. We had Penny, our adorable dog, with us and there wasn't much there that we wanted to do that would allow dogs. We went straight to the park and did a few hikes on our way to our campsite.
The weather forecast had been really bad with lots of rain warnings. We had considered foregoing the camping and just staying in a hotel, but we really like camping so we decided to try it. I'm so glad we did. I think it rained for a few minutes our first night, but no big deal.
Sunday morning we headed in to the closest City, Canyon, for church. We only got to stay long enough to take the sacrament since we had Penny in the car, but it is always good to get to do that. We did some leisurely hikes spaced throughout the day, which were fun. My favorite was this unmarked trail that led to these cool caves. The only reason we knew to do it was because one of my friends is from Canyon so she knows the park well. We were so glad for the tip! We also spent time listening to conference talks and playing games on Sunday.
Monday we went on the LIghthouse Trail. We did the main 6 mile hike. It is one of the most popular trails but we got a headstart and didn't pass anyone until our hike back. This trail along with the one to the caves we had done the day before were by far our 2 favorite - the hikes that really sold us on the park.
We had considered doing 11 miles but Penny seemed quite tired by the end (she does a lot of running back and forth so went farther than us) and we decided we had already had the best views so we decided to save Ryan's final vacation day to use later, went back to camp, packed up, and headed home.
Our thoughts on Palo Duro and our time there: We had a great time, and so did Penny. She really likes camping we think, (and, by the way, she is excellent in the car - she just lays so quietly in the back that you forget she is even there). The hikes were fun, it was nice to ahve some elevation change. It is beautiful there, definitely our favorite state park in Texas. I don't know that I would enjoy it in the summer, but in Fall or Spring I would recommend a trip there. If you have never been to Southern Utah or the Grand Canyon then you will especially be amazed. It is very unique for Texas. So the conclusion, we really liked it and recommend it.
