We started the day by doing a bit of exploring in Palo Duro Canyon SP. Not too far from where our trailer is set up there is a big cave in the side of the canyon and, mysteriously, it is shown in park literature as The Big Cave. We strolled over to give it a glance and noted that a ways back in the cave there is a hole through to daylight. The cave is pretty big. You could live in it if you wanted to be in a cave near Amarillo. The colors of the surrounding rock formations are pretty amazing.
From the cave we jumped back in Charlotte and drove to the trailhead for the Pioneer Nature Trail. We didn’t spot any pioneers but did spot a flock of grazing wild turkeys and a bunch of roadrunners. The trail loops from a big, snazzy building called the Mack Dick Group Pavilion which was not open. At the far end of the trail, there is a bench where we hung out for a while and listened to wind and birds. It was pretty sublime.
We had finished our cave visit and our nature walk and noted we still had plenty of time left in the day so we decided to leave the park and drive up by Amarillo to see the Cadillac Ranch. Cadillac Ranch is not a ranch. It is public art that consists of 9 old Cadillacs with their front ends buried in the earth in the middle of a flat field of dead grass. We didn’t pause here for long.
Our next destination was Jack Sizemore’s RV Museum in Amarillo. It is located in a metal building behind Jack Sizemore RV which is a big RV dealership and parts house. As soon as we went in the door we were in a room of vintage beautiful Harley Davidson motorcycles and some travel trailers built in the 1930’s and they were in great shape. In an adjacent room was a collection of a couple dozen other RV’s, the earliest a 1921 Ford Lamsteed Kampkar and the newest being a spiffy 1976 FMC owned by makeup magnate Max Factor. Every RV in the place is in either excellent original condition or has been accurately restored. The 1948 Flxible bus/RV in the museum is the one used in the comedy movie RV with the now-dead Robin Williams.
We had run out of daylight so we headed back to our Barbarian Invader in Palo Duro Canyon.
For some Amarillo and Palo Duro pix from today, click here