Back in Texas

Along the interstate from Chinle, Arizona to Albequerque, New Mexico we kept seeing signs for the Flying Eagle Casino.  They advertised great deals so we thought we would be "campinoing" it for the evening.  The Flying Eagle offered camping with full hookups (water and electricity) for $10, plus, if we signed up for the gambling club (no cost to us) we got a gift voucher for $10 worth of gas each.  We signed up.  What a deal.  Plus, they had a laundromat.  We spent the night and the next morning we hauled our laundry to the laundromat.  We loaded up two washing machines.  Hmm.  One of them worked.  The other-nope.  It got our clothes wet but didn't spin.  By the time we noticed, one load was already washed.
We were itching to get on the road since we didn't get a very early start (not an unusual situation for us) so we loaded the soaking wet load into a dryer and hoped they got somewhat dry.  Once the dryer was done we packed the wet stuff into our laundry sack and hit the road.  We reasoned that we could hang them once we got to our campsite destination that evening.

We headed for Palo Duro State Park, south east of Amarillo, Texas.  It was about 4.5 hours away.  An easy drive, for sure.  When we got there, they were full!  This is the first time we have not been able to get a campsite.  We bristle at making reservations because it means we have to be somewhere at a certain time and we prefer to be able to set our own pace.  We've stumbled upon numerous chance finds because we didn't have a plan.  Bit us in the behind this time.

We found a place to pull over in the state park and we had dinner there, and planned what to do next.

Our decision was to Wal-Mart it for the night.  This is also the first night we've spent in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Fortunately for us, there was a Wal-Mart about 10 miles away.  (Wal-Marts and McDonalds are everywhere.)  Spending the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot took care of one of our problems.  The other-our wet laundry-remained. 

Al got creative with bungee cords and here is the result:

Laundry hanging from the ceiling in the van.

Fortunately, all the laundry dried overnight.

The next morning we were laughing at our misfortunes of the day before (big bag of wet laundry due to a defective washing machine and no place to camp).  We thought it would be prudent to go into Wal-Mart and stock up on beer and food before heading off to a remote state park further into the state.  Guess what?  We were in a DRY county.  No beer.  Well.  We weren't taking any chances on finding beer once we got to the next park.  We turned around and drove north up to Amarillo.  We knew that wasn't a dry county.  Stocked up on the essentials (Budweiser) and headed south.  Ended up at Caprock Canyon State Park in the middle of the Texas panhandle. 

Texas-sized campsite

Great park-we stayed three nights.  It has 64 miles of trails plus a lake for swimming.



Area before a burn



Throughout Texas there is a fire ban.  No open fires of any kind.  There is a huge wildfire burning not too far from where we are.  This inferno was caused when a car had a flat tire and the tire rim sparked on the pavement.  The wind blew the spark into the dry weeds along the roadside and the brush immediately caught fire. 

Area after a burn.

It seems to always be windy here-which drives the raging fires even further.  It would be a rare day that you could not fly a kite here. 

The state park practices prevention with respect to wild fires by doing controlled burns.  This particular part of the park was burned in February and already the new growth is very apparent.







New life growing after a burn.  Look for the bright green on the
Prickly Pear Cactus-right in the centre of the picture.



Well, we've hit a new milestone.  Our area of Texas was the hottest spot in North America for two days.  Oh yeah!!  Lovin' it! Please note the temperature-98.8 F.

Caprock Canyon is home to the largest herd of Bison in Texas. They've become very adept at hiding. 

Throughout the park there are bison silhouettes.

In 1880 there were 30 millions bison (don't call them buffalo) roaming the Texas plains.  Within two years they were almost wiped out by overhunting.  Bison exist today because of one family's attempts to preserve them.  The Goodnight family created a safe haven for the bison on their ranch in this area of Texas.

We took advantage of the miles of trails and saddled up for a bike tour.  The route we chose was called The Canyon Rim Trail.  3 miles out, 3 miles back.  You would think that a trail called a "rim" would merely follow the edge of a canyon and not go down to the bottom of the canyon.  Think again.  3 miles out-downhill.  3 miles back-uphill. 
The trail recommendation is one gallon of water per person.  We strapped on the 3 gallon water jug and started out. 


Notice Al's not pedalling.



16% grade on this hill.  Kim is pedalling!



Ah, we made it back up.



Sid, waiting for his share of the water.

He's not sharing.

He's not coming up for air.

We're on the road now, heading home.  We've passed through Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  We're blogging from a McDonalds about 2 hours west of St. Louis, Missouri.  We expect to be back in Stratford by Saturday, April 23.

Kim picking cotton

Our Asian adventure starts on May 3 when we fly from Toronto to Hong Kong.  We'll keep you posted.