A few weeks ago Paul and I started talking about where and when we would take Manny (our pop up trailer, Manny for TrailManor) for the inaugural trip of the new year. We decided, I'm not sure how, on Palo Duro Canyon in the Panhandle of Texas, about a 6 hour drive from home. It happens to be, we discovered in our research, the second largest canyon in the U.S. In fact, we had never heard of the place until it was included in an article in the most recent issue of Texas Monthly. So I call state park reservations and secure 2 nights inside the park, March 19 & 20 (first day of Spring).
As the date approached, the weather forecast started looking bad. Cold front. Maybe even snow. A couple of days before launch, we discussed changing locations, looking at state parks south of us. We decided to stay the course. It turned out to be the right decision.
The state park campsites at Palo Duro Canyon are the nicest we've stayed at in any state park. The advantage of Palo Duro compared to the Grand Canyon is access to the canyon. The park itself is at the bottom of the canyon really. A steep and winding drive down (and up). Once there, it is divided into various campsites, day sites, picnic areas, a store and restaurant, amphitheater, information center, and horse rental site. The real entertainment inside the park is the more than a dozen hiking/biking/running trails.
We arrived about 3 p.m. and waited another 40 minutes in a vehicle line to get inside the park. Once inside we found our site, opened up the Manny, and set out to discover Palo Duro and even get in a brief hike before sunset. What we saw was tons of families and young adults enjoying a perfect day. Shorts and short sleeves. Lots of bikes on the trails. Lots of dogs (Oh, yeah, and we brought Mika with us for the first time. She was a superstar). Little kids, big kids. Gorgeous views. We felt very lucky to be there. This wonderland full of activity we didn't even know existed a short few weeks ago.
Back to the Manny after a 2 mile hike, we made tuna sandwiches and talked about where we would hike the next day. Paul of course had set up the TV, which worked! We got only a couple of channels, but one had the basketball tournament. It also had the local news, including the impending cold front which now was certainly packed with snow. It was expected to hit about noon the next day and drop most of the snow overnight. Temps were to drop about 40 degrees. Wind gusts up to 50 mph also were predicted. We discussed all options, but put off a decision. Too tired to think straight. It had been a long day.
Early the next morning, Paul made pancakes and turkey sausage. Yum. We already could feel the drop in temperature from the day before. We knew it was going to continue to drop. No short sleeves and shorts today. We decided we would hike the Lighthouse Trail, named for the stone formation found at the trails end. It is classified a moderate hike with an extremely difficult 1/4 mile at the end. 6 miles round trip. We put off making a decision about staying or leaving until AFTER the hike.
The hike, we agreed, was the best part of the trip. Better than the pancakes. That's saying a lot. It was mostly easy, we started at around 8:30 a.m. We weren't the first on the trial, but just about. The hike had enough up and down variations to make it challenging, but still easy enough for a mostly out of shape fatty (me). Felt like we had accomplished something afterward. It took us 3 hours. A lot of that time was taking pictures. Mika was our leader, stopping occasionally to wait for me to catch up. Love that dog.
So we get back and see that many of our neighbors were either gone or packing up to leave. What should we do? It just seemed too soon to leave this wonderland that we just discovered. We decided to stay. It was kind of eery. By the end of the day, only 5 campsites were filled, including ours. That's out of 30 plus sites in our camp. We have no idea how many other crazies were sitting out the storm in other campsites throughout the park. Two of the 5 remaining sites at our camp only had tents! That takes guts. We learned that you can have heat inside a tent too. Even wood burning. Imagine that.
By early evening, the wind really picked up. A couple of times, we weren't so sure about our decision, especially when the bigger gusts caused the trailer to move slightly. Then Paul says, "I hope we have enough propane to keep the heat going overnight."
What? It's dipping into the 20s, wind chill single digits and we could lose our heat? Huh? Oh well. Thank goodness we were tired enough to fall asleep. During the night, we could hear precipitation hitting the trailer, winds gusting, etc. I don't mind saying it was a little scary. At about 5 a.m. ish, after waking and realizing I was shivering, I say, "Paul?" Quietly in case he's sleeping.
"Yeah?" He's not sleeping.
"I think we lost our heat."
"Me too."
So Paul gets up, puts on his shoes, opens the door to a winter wonderland, everything white, steps into the bitter cold and wind and switches on the extra propane tank. Heat returns. My hero.
We drink coffee, eat the last of the pancakes and sausage while we ponder our fate. Manny had withstood the storm, so had we. By noon, a parks woman came by to say the road out had been plowed and is passable. A little icy and still gusty. They were letting people out, but no one could come in. That was our green light to go.
We arrived home around 9 p.m. Tired? Yes. But already planning our next camping adventure.
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