World United States Texas Canyon

OziTerra

The Canyons Apr 6, 2012

I previously mentioned that Texas has some fantastic state parks. We went to another two. Caprock Canyons and Palo Duro Canyon.

Palo Duro is the largest canyon system in Texas and the experts say it is second to the Grand Canyon. Palo Duro extends about 120 miles and up to 800 feet deep in place. The Grand Canyon is deeper of course.

Caprock Canyons State Park

Caprock Canyons is about 50 miles south east of Palo Duro so we visited that first. In the early days, it was Indian territory and of course the white people came along wanting to settle the land. The rest is history. The park rangers give talks about the history of the area which is very interesting. Experts estimate that in 1740 there were around 30 million plains bison (commonly called buffalo). Everyone knows about the slaughter of the 'buffalo' for food but mostly hides. Also shot in many areas to stop the enemy from having access to food. In the early 1900's the plains bison was just about shot into extinction. Luckily a young lady named Mrs Mary Ann (Molly) Goodnight was pretty pushy and got her husband, Charles to bring home some bison calves so she could look after them. This was fairly lucky as there are now five herds of the original plains bison. There is one in Caprock Canyons consisting of 78 bison. Much of the history shows how good Charles Goodnight was because he was responsible for saving the bison, it was in fact his wife and only because she pushed it.

Lily and I walked a couple of the trails and the canyon scenery is absolutely fantastic.

The fish chair on the lake was something else, he used his toes as burly.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Palo Duro RV park was down in the floor of the canyon and it is very advisable to keep a good eye on the rainfall in the area as it has been known to flood.

The drive down was about a 10% grade with some fairly tight turns which you can see in one of the photos. Again the scenery is fantastic and each time you turn around or the sun changes position the colours of the rocks change.

There are wild turkeys, deer, coyotes and lots of other bird life.

You may remember me previously mentioning Yanks and their dogs in their RV's , well I got a photo of one that was being taken for a walk. He did need his exercise.