The Canyon

Last weekend we had some visitors!  Ryan and Lindsay came to visit and it was a lot of fun!

On Saturday we decided to take a little trip to the canyon...and I don't mean the Grand Canyon...that would have been quite the drive!  About 20 miles to the south of where we are is Palo Duro Canyon.  It's the 2nd largest canyon in the U.S. (next to the Grand Canyon, obviously).  The Canyon is about 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide, and a max depth of more than 800 feet.   Compared to the Grand Canyon at 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and 6000 feet deep.  It was pretty impressive.

Driving out there all you see is ranch land.  Flat as flat can be and then...boom!  All of the sudden, there's the canyon!  We didn't drive too far into the park.  There are numerous hiking trails, picnic areas, and camping spots.  We chose to take a 1.5 mile trail (one way) since we were hiking with a 3 year old! 

Our view from where we started hiking.

Riley and Lindsay checking out the cactus.

We didn't quite make it all the way to the end of the trail.  We decided what was at the end of trail wasn't that interesting to see, which is kind of unfortunate because we were less than a 1/2 mile from the end.  Oh well!  It was a good thing we turned around because Riley was pretty tuckered out by the time we got back to the trail head.  He had to be carried some of the way back.  But, other than that, he was a trooper!  Carter had a nice little seat in the carrier and snoozed a good portion of the hike.  We didn't really hear a peep from him almost the whole time!

It was stinkin' windy though!  I'm talking the kind of wind that feels like it will knock you over and the kind of wind that pelts your legs and face with dust!  It doesn't feel too good!  Needless to say we all felt quite grimy when we got back to the house!  And on the way back home there was so much dust in the air it just looked like we were in a huge smog. Crazy. 

Lindsay took this picture on a walk later in the day. That's dust in the air!

It was a fun, but tiring day.  Riley crashed even before we were out of the park and the rest of the day was pretty laid back!