Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas, April 2024

For at least 10 years, we have talked about visiting Palo Duro Canyon State Park just south of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle either on our way out west in the fall, or on our way home in the spring. This year, we finally made it happen.

Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge
	For $2/night, we camped at Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge. There is barely much water left in the "lake", but the grasslands are full of wildlife, including a small family of deer who came one morning to entertain our cat. The only caveat of this campground is that the gate to get in is automatically locked at night (time dependent on the season), so you have to be sure to arrive before this happens. There are no services other than pit toilets.
	Sitting outside after a day exploring at the state park, we were serenaded by this Western Meadowlark for quite a long time. We truly loved the peace, solitude and natural surroundings of this campground. There are about 15 sites, most suitable for large RVs, although branches across the access into the sites from the (dirt) road may be a problem for high profile vehicles (ours is almost 13 feet high and we managed to easily find a site). There were only one or two other campers here during the 2 nights we stayed.
Palo Duro Canyon State Park
	They call this the Grand Canyon of Texas because at 120 miles (190 km) long, it is the second largest canyon in the country. Here is a view from the Visitor Center. There are several campgrounds in the park for RVs of all sizes. We really loved this park, and would definitely return one day.
	Along the shady Sunflower Trail, Brad stands beside the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River that flows through the park. There are also layers of white gypsum in the red rock wall beside this trail for the rockhound.
	Near the start of the Lighthouse Trail, this pedestal stands atop the multicolored sandstone cliffs showing the different rates of erosion at work in this canyon.
	It was a very hot day, and the Lighthouse Trail is very exposed to the sun, so we only walked about half way to the iconic Lighthouse formation. This photo was taken with extreme telephoto, making it a bit blurry. Many people have hiked out to it, and they stand between the two pillars.