Spring Break-Day 2 and 3

I woke up Monday morning and looked out the window.

Yep, it was raining.

I turned on the weather report.

1000% chance of rain today.

Well, this would certainly make things more....interesting today......

I got loaded up and checked out of the hotel, and made my way to Palo Duro Canyon SP. I checked in and drove down to my camp site. Did I mention that it's still raining???? I knew there was no chance of the rain ever stopping before dark, so I donned my pancho and started setting up the tent. I managed to set up the tent and unload the necessities in the rain.

By this time, I was hungry and cranky, so I ate a bit of lunch in the car and attempted one letterbox in the rain, but I couldn't find that one. Grrrr...... I remembered seeing that the feed time for the State Longhorn Herd was around 1:00, so I headed back up to the feeding area to see what this was all about. When I got there, I saw only one longhorn eating his lunch. I decided to wait and see if the others would come along, but I never saw them. Maybe they were as irritated with the rain as I was. Anyhow, I took a few pictures of this guy, then visited the information center.







After visiting the information center, I just spent the rest of the day trying to stay warm and dry. :-)

Cold, windy, and rainy. This was in the parking lot of the visitor's center.

On Tuesday morning, I woke up to the sound of....NO RAIN! Yee haw! I loved seeing those blue skies. I decided to make my way to the famous Lighthouse Trail. I really wanted to get a few letterboxes that are placed on the trail as well as see the actual landmark itself.


When I got to the trail head, I was the only car in the lot. I headed out to find three boxes. The trail is 3 miles one way, and every tenth of a mile, there is a marker indicating how far along the trail you are. I found it interesting that given this information, people that I met on my way out would ask me, "how much farther?".



Anyhow, my first stop was for Chili Bowl-TX Symbols Series #2. This was an easy find and there is a nice covered bench to stamp in on. After I replaced that one, I discovered that Blue Bonnet Blues-TX Symbols Series #1 was very near here, also.







After finishing with these two letterboxes, I continued on to find Silver Eagle's Palo Duro Mouse 2. Due to the rain the previous night, I could not retrieve the logbook, but I did manage to get the stamp and record it in my own logbook. Thanks to Silver Eagle for planting this one!


As I continued along the way, the trail became more and more muddy. I did manage to fall one time and had to crawl up the hill! My poor camera had to be cleaned up later. There was a man who was going back toward the trail head and said it might be best to "stop at the picnic table. It's beyond dangerous right now". I thanked him and went on. When I got to the picnic table, with only 3/10 of a mile left to the light house, I realized how steep and muddy the remainder of the hike would be. Since I'd just spent three days in the hospital, I decided to turn around. I'll have to visit the light house rock formation another time.



After going back to the camp site and resting a bit, I decided to head into Amarillo. I visited the famous Ozymandias and found JBKokopelli's box there, as well as the Floating Mesa, where she has another box. This was the final box of the day, and time to head back to my camp site.