Driving South – Palo Duro State Park and beyond

On Monday December 30^th we got on the road about 8, and drove southwest through Limon and Lamar. It was sunny but cold, with a strong breeze; the highway department had wind warnings for high profile vehicles, but for us it was mostly a tailwind. After crossing the panhandle of Oklahoma, we stopped for the night in Dalhart Texas. Our GPS sent us on the wrong side of the railroad tracks; after bouncing for a while on the dirt road in the dark, we were able to get turned around and head back to the main road.

On Tuesday, we got a slow start, including wandering through Dumas Texas, looking for cheap gas and a propane fill. We drove through Amarillo to Canyon, where we ate at Feldman's Wrong Way Diner, a local institution, where each table had a different theme. We sat at the UFO and Area 51 table, and watched the G-scale train go overhead around the restaurant. 

The Panhandle Plains museum was huge, with exhibits on oil, firearms, the settlement of the area, paleontology and more. Note the photo of the Allosaurus with the Santa hat.

We proceeded to the nearby Palo Duro State park, where we were fortunate to have a camping reservation, as all the campsites were booked for New Year's Eve. We will need to change campsites tomorrow, as someone else has this site tomorrow. Palo Duro Canyon is beautiful. We bought a couple of books about the area. We enjoyed looking at the stars and listening to the coyotes howl. 

On New Year's Day, hiked on the Paseo del Rio trail, following the Prarie Dog Fork of the Red River, a casual hike on a warm but windy day. 

On Thursday we headed for Dallas on US287. The drive was routine. We are staying in a campground on the edge of Dallas, apparently the only overnight guests in the place.  Everyone else was a longer term visitor.  Our truck has stalled twice today, not normal behavior. When the guy at O'Reilly hooked up his test equipment, about the only thing he saw on the error log was low voltage. But when he tested the battery and alternator, it checked out. We had a problem starting it a couple of weeks ago, after leaving it on for hours while I was working on the trailer wiring. The battery is almost four years old, so we will probably replace it, and hope that solves the issue.