Palo Duro Canyon SP, Texas

November 10, 2025

After awaking to a beautiful sunrise, we set ourselves eastward, saying good-bye to New Mexico and hello to the sights (and smells) of Texas cattle country.

Such a pretty sunrise to wake up to!

Soon after entering Texas, we came to the town of Bovina--a subtle hint that we were in cattle country.

While pulling into a Walmart parking lot, we heard a loud clunk. Upon inspection, we discovered that the bolt of the hitch clamp broke. This is actually the second time this has happened, and we now consider the bolt a "wear item". Fortunately, the hitch clamp's sole purpose it to prevent the hitch from clanging about in the receiver, and it is not required for safe towing. Fortuitously, there was a Tractor Supply right across the street, so we bought a replacement (and a few spares).

Broken hitch clamp bolt

Julie didn't take pictures of the many industrial-scale cattle facilities we passed, as they weren't the most attractive of sights. We found ourselves having to roll up the windows every now and then, due to the clouds of dust mingled with cow detritus that we passed through. We decided that the Texas panhandle wouldn't be our first choice in places to live.

When there weren't cows or towns, there was...pretty much nothing.

This was what the landscape looked like about 10 minutes away from our destination.

Ten minutes later!

We were surprised how hot it was--94 degrees! It cooled down quite a bit over the course of our stay.

Our home for the week--not too shabby!

The scenery was quite nice in our campsite loop, and we were treated to coyotes howling at night and roadrunner sightings during the day.

The Greater Roadrunner Fun fact: these guys can run up to 26 miles per hour!

Moonrise at sunset on our first evening

The most popular hike at Palo Duro Canyon is the Lighthouse Trail, and that's what we did our first full day. Being a weekday in November, we didn't encounter many people.

Shade was scarce on this trail, and it must be super hot in the summer months!

Our first sighting of Lighthouse Rock

Of course, we have to see how far up we can climb!

Where does this go?

...Just to a sketchy drop-off!

The Lighthouse didn't look climbable (at least for us), so we headed up the neighboring rock.

We almost got to the top, but the actual top was a bridge too far for us.

If we looked the opposite direction, it felt like we were on the top, so that was good enough for Julie at least. 😉

Looking back one last time. We made it almost to the top of the shorter rock formation.

Back the way we came

We marveled at the knife-edge at the top of the rocks

The next day, we toured around the park on our bikes.

We made a stop at "Big Cave". It looked a bit ominous from a distance, like something out of Lord of the Rings.

The opening of the "cave" was quite tall, but the cave itself was very shallow. Once you made it there, there was nothing much left to do but turn around and go back.

We found a loop of very cozy looking cabins with fantastic views.

Not a whole lot of fall color in the canyon, but we found this little patch

Another friendly roadrunner. 🙂 They don't seem as skittish here as other places we have been.

Every year in the summer months, the musical "Texas" is performed at this outdoor amphitheater six nights a week.

Another day, we walked some of the shorter trails off of our campground loop.

What a difference in temperature between this day (55 degrees) and the day we arrived (94 degrees)!

Enticing!

Palo Duro Canyon ranks up there as some of the best scenery we've seen in Texas, and we enjoyed our stay here. We have a two-day drive to our next destination in Texas (Texas is a big state), where the landscape will be dramatically different!

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