The Short And The Short Of It

Short stuff was the plan for the day today.  We packed our hiking gear and hopped the bike for a short 8 mile ride to Palo Duro Canyon.

Palo Duro is Spanish for hard wood in reference to the Rocky Mountain Juniper trees seen throughout the canyon.  The Canyon is approximately 120 miles long and 600-800 feet deep.  It is the second largest canyon in the US.  It was formed less than 1 million years ago by an ancient river which revealed a panoramic view of magnificent color.

Our tour  was limited to the part of the canyon encompassed by the Palo Duro Canyon State Park.  After a short ride to the canyon bottom,

we were ready for our first hike with Duane's new knees.  (Here he asked me for my view point.)

We took the short 5 1/2 mile round trip hike to view this rock formation dubbed "The Lighthouse".

At the trail's end we enjoyed our lunch while we rested and cooled off.  The two posts in the distance announce the end of the trail, but

a bunch of college students said that the trail continued up the hill.  I said that wasn't a trail--only a water run-off.  The trail was rated "moderate" and that looked "difficult".  Duane wanted to test his knees further, so we gave it a try.

After a short bit he decided to head back down, which proved to be easier said than done.  It was a good test, though.  He said he was able to bend his knees further than before.  By then we were ready to retrace our steps back to the bike.  Back on the bike we took a short ride around the rest of the park (about 10-15 minutes), before we headed back home.

Palo Duro Canyon has a wide variety of wildlife, but all we saw was a Scrub Jay,

a Collard Lizard,

and some wild turkeys.

The only thing long about our trip was how long we made our hike.  The average time for this hike is listed as 2 hours.  Our walk took 3 1/2.  We took our time, enjoying  the scenery and looking for wildlife.

More sight-seeing tomorrow.

Louise and Duane