Access inside of the canyon’s numerous trails allowed us to wander dreamily like being in a painting and wishing I was here long enough to portray it on canvas (and had quality artistic ability). With a 360 spin I questioned  “why haven’t we romped here before”.

The Lighthouse Photo by Andrew Leggett

The Panhandle is a cool name, it is tinted with the famous hues of New Mexico.

Many of the glorious colors of the southwest were prominent.  The ones in the famous paintings of New Mexico and Arizona.

As I imagined what it would be like to picnic the whole day from each location and rotate 5 degrees every few minutes, we took pictures instead, trying to capture as much as possible.

December was a lovely time of year to be there. Summer in Texas is basically April until November (from my perspective). Blazing heat scorching the ground and us, would have taken some of the joy out of it for me. Sun on our skin and the movement kept us warm enough to poke around without heavy gear.

As far as we could see all around the circumference of the horizon there was no one else in view. An occasional encounter with other visitors near lavatories was the only clue that we did not have the place to ourselves. Entranced by the southwestern Zen space miles away from crowds, again I wondered what has taking me so long to experience the Texas Grand Canyon.

Our hybrid bicycles did okay on the central trails.

Only a couple other vehicles were on the 16 mile scenic drive.

The road loops around the floor of the canyon.

With plenty of places to pull over.

Palo Duro is a considerable distance from Austin even for the crows (#asthecrowflies the measurement for travel time).

Childress was our first stop for BBQ and sleep before visiting the Bison and Caprock Canyon.

I was proudly grinning with a full belly as we rolled into the Hampton Inn for a snooze because I knew that I had chosen a good location, that even touted a Walmart across the car park handy for supplies and fuel.

Gasping about how clever I was for deciding on Childress as we passed through Turkey, the ghost town with tumble weeds and literally not a soul to be seen or any evidence that people do more than just pass through the place – that google maps list as accommodations en route…..However, that may have been a thing of the past.

Dear me, I’m glad I suppressed my adventurous self from trying to book . Even if we managed to drag whomever reigns over the place out, we’d feel mighty self-conscious literally being the only humans around for miles. Driving out of the way of the crow’s route was wise of this old bird.  Childress was not a straight drive from home to Caprock or Palo Duro. Our energy would have been low to say the least traveling directly from Austin to Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway and then have a look around. Bison are not known for coming out when you call and without the energy to search for them, we may have missed the glimpse we had.