Into the Desert

My second day in Texas involved an early start and lots of coffee. We then drove through 345 miles of plains and bible-belt towns to get to the stovetop hat/ panhandle, where we were to hike Palo Duro Canyon. we were most excited for the 80 foot ravine and 800 foot deep cliffside.

But before we departed, we stopped at a mall and saw this wierd thing.

Palo Duro, Spanish for hard wood, is 120 miles long and between 8 and 30 feet wide. There is also 30 miles of hiking trails and over a thousand acres of horseback trails, and it is the second largest canyon in the country. this is where we spent several stifling hours in the sun, which shall be detailed out in another post.

Driving to the canyon, we saw many windmills, oil rigs, and small towns, as they were placed for energy efficiency. after all, with all of that open land, something had to be done with it. aside from the slight road contour and occasional things to see, Texas was mostly hot, flat, and arid in the part i was at.

First Glimpse of the Desert in my life!

About halfway there, after passing through a small town, whilst phoning a friend, we were pulled over whilst going the speed of traffic around us to get handed a speeding ticket. It was likely because we had a temporary license plate. In small towns, the sherriffs have nothing better to do. Ironically enough, cars were going well over 90 miles per hour around us, yet we were the ones to be pulled.

We settled into Amarillo late at night, at a Marriott courtyard, where we got a great view of the city late at night. although 200,000 people or so live here, it was a ghost town at 10pm, a glowing gem visible for several miles in the desert. it was also on this trip that I experienced my first Waffle House adventure, with very interesting assortment of Staff members, Smoke Filled Room, Bacon fat was given to a customer with way too much grease, and bugs on the countertop that crawled on my friends food that was cold. However, in spite of all of this, I would still end up eating every last delicious bit of food after a long day of hiking. And so was the end of another day.