Today was another driving day going west across the amazing state of Texas. After a couple days at Copper Breaks State Park near Quanah, we took off up a back road about 15 miles from town and then turned west on US-287. It was pretty breezy when we left the park but by the time we hit 287 the wind had increased to about 20 knots out of the southwest or directly at the side of our massive fifth wheel trailer as we drove toward Amarillo. For the first couple hours, the wind was merely irritating as it caused me to steer a constantly-changing direction to counteract the wind.
By the time we pulled into Wichita Falls, the wind speed was increasing and the road got narrower. The area around Wichita Falls has almost made a complete transformation from the hardwood, cedar and juniper forests of east Texas into the almost exclusively flat grasslands with some cotton fields thrown in.
West of Wichita Falls, strange things started occurring due to the ever-increasing wind speed. When I looked in the side rearview mirror, I could see the trailer moving contrary to the direction I was leading it; it would almost go out of view of the left side mirror before swinging back into line. Also, since a good deal of the second half of today’s four hour drive was driving into a quartering headwind, our fuel economy was shit. We might have got 8 mpg. As we were bucking the winds, we passed an old guy from New Mexico in the westbound slow lane driving a early 1950’s Hudson at about 50. It looked very snazzy from the passing lane but, as we went by, I detected the worrisome sound of imminent lower end failure escaping from his ancient engine. He may be afoot by now.
About 50 miles short of Amarillo, we turned due west on a two-lane and drove about 30 miles to the town of Canyon. From there we drove back east for about 15 miles to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. We paid the fees and descended into the canyon, alleged to be the 2nd biggest canyon in the U.S., after Grand.
The road down into the canyon has a long 10% downgrade and those with crummy trailer brakes may want to look before they leap. Our Barbarian Invader was very courteous on the way down the steep, serpentine road to the Juniper camping loop. We set up and the view is great but the drive in the wind tunnel all day and the squirrelly road into our loop compelled us to climb into the trailer and drink some very nice tequila. We’ll explore tomorrow.
There’s a trio of pix of today’s travel that can be seen if you click here