Palo Duro Canyon

On Saturday the 16^th, we unplugged everything, slid in the slide outs, buckled up dogs and headed to beautiful Palo Duro Canyon.  It was a glorious day and we were ready to see something other than the inside of an RV campground.  We drove the 40 minutes to the park, mostly in peaceful contemplative silence, until we had this brief exchange regarding Amarillo.

Dave:  It’s flat as shit.

Me: Shit isn’t always flat.

Dave: This shit is.  This shit’s flat.

See how we use our time together to exchange ideas and converse on a deeper level?

The dogs were very excited to get out and see something new but they aren’t used to hiking for long distances so we kept it pretty tame.  I thought we’d go out a half mile and come back but we ended up doing a bit less than that.  They were running out of steam and the water bowl was back at the rig.  Rookie mistake.  And I had this funny thought that the dogs were complaining with their eyes and movements just like little kids would on a trip.

“I don’t want to go with Mom!  I went with her last time!”

“He has the blue leash again?  The blue leash is my favorite!”

“I’m thirsty and all that’s here are rocks!”

“Is it lunchtime? When do we go back? My feet hurt!”

We opted to take a driving tour of the rest of the canyon and I let Brodie ride in his bed up front with us since we were going slowly and unfortunately, he loved it and now asks to be there every time we load up.  It’s not safe and he can’t stay there, but he sure does love being up with his peeps.  

There were even longhorns on our way out and nothing screams Texas more than longhorns surrounded by dry scrubby brush.

On the way back to the campground we stopped at the grocery store for beer (so nice to have a cold beer while sitting in the chairs outside) and Zquil (my solution for nights with extra snoring and/or insomnia).  Dave stayed with the dogs while I ran in and when I got to the register, two teenaged boys were chatting away and seemed slightly perturbed that I needed to check out.  One boy rang up the order and the other said, “You’re gonna have some kind of party tonight!”  I smirked at him.  Not satisfied that I didn’t laugh he said, “Looks like you got yourself two kinds of night night meds!”

Everybody’s a comedian.