Palo Duro Canyon State Park, TX
Our original plan, albeit made while indulging in adult libations, was to be soaking in the hot springs by 8 am. We woke closer to 8:30. Plan B entailed being in the pool by 9:30. That worked too. The skies were bright blue and much warmer. So warm in fact that we took in the mud baths today. It felt so good to smear wet mud all over our bodies, head to toe, and then bask in the sun until we cake dried. After soaking in the mud pool we further rinsed off under the hot water shower made of buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. I definitely want one of these for our house! Swimming laps in the kiva pool and then hopping from one hot spring to another felt too damn good. I was really reluctant to leave, but I knew we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us and I wanted to take in this RV Museum in Amarillo, TX that I read about.
One of our "rules of the road" is not to take the interstate. We live for the backroads and two lane highways. However, there really aren't many choices between Sante Fe and Amarillo so Interstate 40 it was! At one point we got off to ride the historic Route 66, but in reality it was just a frontage road paralleling the interstate. Considering there was nothing but wide open plains and sage brush all around, it felt kinda stupid to just be paralleling the interstate with about 20 feet between the two roads. We bailed and got back on the interstate.
So, you know how you're not supposed to believe everything you read on the internet? Yeah, that happened. I was so excited to see a 1936 Alma, 1937 Elkhart Traveler, a 1948 Flixible Clipper, etc. and the museum was free! When we finally found this "museum" it turns out it was an RV Trailer Sales Center. Sigh. We also didn't take into consideration the hour time change so to add insult to injury, it was closed. Just as well, Ned wasn't particularly looking forward to a Texas RV Salesman giving him the hard sell just to his wife could look at some old campers!
We finally pulled into Palo Duro Canyon State Park around 6ish. We camped here several years ago and really loved it. This is the second largest canyon in the United States. It's 120 miles long and 600 to 800 feet deep. It's awesome cause you can camp at the bottom of the canyon near all these great red cliffs. It sure felt good to be back in the saddle again, both at this state park and in a "real" campground.
