Sunday November 13

It was awesome. Peculiar - when you drive over land that is mostly flat you have no idea that somewhere nearby all of a sudden the ground falls away and you see a stunning canyon. We were feeling sympathetic with the explorers and settlers who met this kind of challenge and had to either go many, many, many miles around or find a way down and up... This is the second largest canyon in the U.S., and Palo Duro State Park, only at the north end of it, is already pretty large. The nice thing is you can get to the bottom by car and RV, which is where the campsites are, as well as a loop road and lots of trails. The road crosses over the little river in six places - and I mean "crosses over" literally, you drive through the riverbed over a concrete pad with a few thin culverts in it. Definitely not enough culvert for when it rains. There's a flood gauge next to each crossing, so you can see how deep the water is before you plunge in with your pick-up... no water to speak of in the river at the moment though.
We arrived at our pull-thru site at about 4, put the RV down and took the Prius right away for a drive on the loop road. Lovely views of the red, green, red, grey, white cliffs, with dark green junipers, wispy, I think mesquite? and  light yellow poplar-type trees along the riverbed. After the loop we drove back up to the rim to check out the visitor center. You could spend a few hours there if you were so inclined, so much information and samples of every kind of rock and artifact... plus the gift shop. We got two very special cards for Eva, one is for us to mail her for her birthday (little dark haired girl leading a full-size white horse through the grass) and one to frame and give for Christmas (little blond girl with face up to horse with head down to little girl, over the stable door). I hope she doesn't stop loving horses before Christmas.
This morning we drove to the rim again to see the sun come up on the opposite side. Then breakfast followed by a two-hour hike. It was windy, but it got pretty warm pretty fast. We almost made it to the park's signature rock formation, the Lighthouse, but we both had shoe&blister issues, so  we headed back down before lunch. With some very cool pics. Packed up and left for Albuquerque at about 1:30 P.M.

From 1:30 Central Time to about 7 Mountain Time we drove through the most uninteresting landscape you can imagine. Two hundred and fifty miles of dry flatness with dry grass tufts and dry scraggly bushes. Oh wait, yes, the road curved two or three times. And there were some cows here and there. An occasional ranch with its own highway exit. A few billboards about fireworks. Once in a very great while a piece of - mesa? butte? 
(They tell me you should pronounce that "byoot". As in, the kid has been in a fight and has a black eye. It's a byoot. Personally I prefer to call the stone ridges "butts", or even "butties"). (Of course they can be beauts too, they are pretty).
But spread out over 5 1/2 hours, even the byootiful butties didn't help much against the boredom. And then clouds closed in and it was dark in a few minutes. So we were happy to see the lights of Albuquerque!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TUwHTfOOU

We turned left, of course, off the highway, and pulled up at a WalMart.

And I went shopping.