Palo Duro Canyon

We spent an extra day in Amarillo just so we could go and see this canyon. It is about 30 miles south of Amarillo and even though its the second largest canyon in the country it isn't well known. It was very beautiful with a lot of the same colors as the Grand Canyon -- it's just not as deep. You can drive to the bottom where there are a couple of campgrounds and picnic areas.

The drive down to the bottom is a little scary with a 10 percent grade -- not sure I would want to take a big RV down it but we saw a few large rigs -- even towing cars down at the bottom.

If you look closely at the picture that is a little washed out -- in the middle of the picture is the rock formation that is the most noteworthy in the park. It is called lighthouse rock.

We left Amarillo and headed over to Oklahoma City and just missed all the rain in Texas. The I-40 within the Oklahoma City area is a terrible road. They are replacing it but not fast enough -our truck rides pretty smoothly carrying a load but even loaded we were bouncing pretty good.

Hello from Amarillo

We left Del Rio on Sunday heading north toward San Angelo and then spending the night in Big Spring. The drive up to San Angelo was beautiful. All kinds of wildflowers were blooming including Texas Bluebonnets. The blue flowers in the picture are bluebonnets. The prickly pear cactus were also starting to bloom everywhere. They have yellow flowers but some can be a little pink. We were on the west edge of the Texas "Hill Country" and the hill country is known for the spring wildflower bloom. We only got a little taste of it so I can't imagine hillsides covered in blooms.

We are in Amarillo for a few days and of course had to eat at the Big Texan home of the 72oz steak -- if you can eat it all in an hour its free-- no thanks. Jim had a fabulous steak and I tried the chicken fried steak with fried okra. Good but too much fried food in one meal. So far its just trying to rain a little but its windy. We are in the panhandle of Texas and besides oil wells and cattle they plant a lot of cotton -- that was a surprise.

Last Fishing Day

One of our last days fishing I caught a beautiful crappie. He was almost 2 pounds. We ate him but unfortunately the meat was mushy. Another couple had caught some the day before and ate them and said the meat was also mushy. It was so disappointing after catching a fish we love to eat.

I had to take pictures of the goats grazing along the water. They come in so many different colors down here. The brown ones look like deer because the deer are about as small as goats. It's been hot down here - in the 80's to almost 90 everyday so the turtles have been enjoying sunning themselves.

We will definitely miss the wonderful warmth here although soon enough it will be in the 90's and 100's and thats too hot even for us. So starting next Sunday or Monday depending on weather we will start heading north. We are going up to Amarillo and then across Oklahoma and Arkansas. We want to check out Arkansas, the natural state, and see whats all there. It will depend on the weather though since it is tornado alley and it is April. Many of the campgrounds along the way advertise storm shelters. We plan to dodge the storms but its nice to know we have safe places to go if one catches us.

West Texas

We went for a drive up the road to see some of beautiful west Texas. We found a part of the Devil's River way up where it starts. This is the river we fish that runs into Lake Amistad. We also saw a lot of natural gas being pumped out of the ground and some oil out here. Otherwise the land is only good for hunting, raising goats and a few -- very few long horn cattle. The country is pretty in its own way. We found little groups of homes (some very rough looking and some very new) out in the middle of nothing. They did have some beautiful views.

Only a few more weeks and we will be making our way north. We are enjoying the 80 degree weather -- glad to see its also warming up --up north. There are only 3 of us winter Texans left in our park. Lots of folks traveling through and we have met quite a few that have spent the winter from Florida to Arizona. They all complained about the cold winter.

Big Waves & Big Rigs

Half of the people that have stayed here for the winter have boats. It's been interesting to see how they try to get it all home. Most people that are coming back next year either store their boat or store their rig down here for the summer. There are a number of folks that take everything home with them. Jim took a picture of the 35 foot -5th wheel trailer with the huge boat --- 22 feet long being towed behind it. You can't see the white 550 Ford truck that is towing it all because it is hidden behind the dark colored truck parked in a site. This is what the husband was driving. The wife was driving a smaller truck towing a cargo trailer with more of their "stuff" in it. These people were going back to Wyoming. We heard the next day they made it 20 miles up the road and had flat tires on their boat trailer. They made it to Lubbock, Tx in the panhandle where they blew the engine in the 550 truck. It's not surprising -- the boat trailer tires were ancient and the truck was older and was being taxed way beyond its towing capacity. We are happy that we have downsized enough not to over tax our equipment.

There was a big bass tournament this past Saturday sponsored by the "Bass Champs" -- not one we have heard of before. The wind was so bad there were 3 foot waves and boats were getting swamped trying to launch. It was still dark when they were launching so Jim couldn't get a picture with any boats. Jim called all of these guys wimps (well he used another word that I can't publish) because they were really unhappy about the weather. I took a picture of the waves coming in to the dock. It reminded us of "walleye chop" on Mille Lacs but for small bass boats it was ugly.

I had to take some pictures of the pretty yellow flowers blooming around our trailer. One batch looked like a desert form of Dandelion. I don't know what any of them are called but there are also a couple of purple and orange kinds of low growing flowers in the park.

Blooming Yucca

We've been busy fishing with Jim catching most of the fish lately. I only put a picture of one of the white bass he caught. They are fat -- full of spawn- and with the water temp hitting 60 degrees they should spawn when it goes up a few more degrees. He also caught some pretty large mouth bass and one small mouth bass. I went to the local hardware store here and bought a white lure like he has been using so I'm hoping my luck will change. It's a little strange that the hardware store would have the best selection of fishing gear but fishing is a big part of the economy for Del Rio.

The weather has warmed up to the 70's and even low 80's -- fabulous! The warm weather along with the rain we have had here is going to mean the desert will bloom big time. We are starting to see it with one type of Yucca starting to bloom. These Yucca are 6 feet tall and the blooms are on a stalk over a foot long. There are many individual flowers in these stalks and each flower is three inches long and almost as wide -- very pretty. Although, I went through the thorny brush and picked one of the individual flowers -- pretty but no nice smell -- they don't smell at all.

The campground is starting to empty out as some of the folks from Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming go back home for the summer. Some folks have to go back a little earlier than they would like because of health issues or needing to help out on the ranch or farm. We are happy to be staying and enjoying the heat down here for another month. We know when we head back to Door County, Wisconsin it is going to be awhile before its in the 80's again.

Caverns of sonora

Sorry for being late with an update on our blog. I downloaded a big file and used our allotment of free Wifi for 48 hours. We still have Wifi access during the 48 hours but its too slow to do much except check email.

We took a trip up to Sonora. It's a town about an hour north of us. There is a privately owned cavern there that is pretty well known -- at least in Texas. They warn you before you pay that there are over 300 steps, its very warm --it feels like 85 degrees with the humidity, it can get hard to breathe because its got high carbon dioxide levels and it can feel a little claustrophobic.

It was all of those things but it wasn't really too bad. The tour itself was very interesting and the formations were very beautiful. This cave is known for the "popcorn" formations on the walls just because most of the walls throughout the cave are covered in this form of crystal. The other thing that was very pretty were the many "fishtales"sticking out of the walls. We have been to Carlsbad Caverns and there were some of the same formations in this cave in Texas just on a smaller scale. I would say this cave is "prettier" than Carlsbad just because of the amount of crystalline formations. This cave also has the most crystals growing in all directions, seeming to defy gravity because they grow up or at crazy angles. You can see them in the ceiling of the fishtale picture.

The weather has turned warm overnight going from 50's and low 60's to 70's and low 80's. Hurray!