In honor of spring and the upcoming trip to Southeast Asia, Andrew, Shawna and I decided we should practice the habit of finding adventure wherever we happen to be.  Our typical routine in the area we live in (Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex area) consists of walking around at nature parks, visiting various local restaurants and sitting outside the Starbucks where our friends work.  We all really enjoy being outdoors and going camping  so we decided to break out of the metroplex and explore a lesser-known (to us) area of Texas.  We’ve all had multiple camping trips in eastern Texas and recently had each spent some time near Austin, so we decided to go northwest to Palo Duro Canyon State Park because of the varied terrain and according to Shawna, a reasonable driving time of about three hours or so.

While planning this little excursion we discovered that Palo Duro Canyon is about seven hours from where we live.  When I found this out I laughed…but not because it was funny.  Regardless, Palo Duro Canyon looked awesome and Shawna had already booked a campsite so we decided to get up and meet at 06:00 on Saturday to head out toward Palo Duro.

Meeting at 06:00 proved to have been too ambitious of a goal, because at 06:30 Andrew and I were sitting in a Starbucks practicing being patient while we waited for Shawna.  She arrived shortly after with donuts and as we consolidated all of things in my dad’s car.  One more minor setback involving someone forgetting their backpack put us behind another 30 or so minutes.  No big deal that we only traveled 5.4 miles in the first hour, because I’ve become a very patient guy over the years.

The trip to Palo Duro was mostly uneventful; Andrew fell asleep right away and we didn’t encounter any of the snags we hit on the way back.  We stopped a few times, once in a really small town to eat at an impressively bland restaurant.  There was a sign on the wall that said, “Please do NOT put ashes or spit cups in trash can.”  Spit cups being for tobacco I presume…welcome to the time-warp, middle of fucking nowhere, Texas.  We ate our plastic-flavored food, paid and high-tailed it to Palo Duro.

This part of the story is probably best told in pictures.

Other highlights included hiking to our site in darkness after we had come back from a nice dinner in Canyon, the nearest city, which is about 20 miles straight west of the park.  We had flashlights but had trouble finding the best spot to cross the creek to get to our campsite.  The temperature dropped drastically after the sun went down but we managed to make it through the night.  The next morning we hiked around, climbed up some rocky hills and then slid down them on our shoes/pants/asses.  It wasn’t until later when I sat down in the car that I realized I had rocks in my underwear.

Before noon we decided we’d make seven-hour journey back toward DFW so we wouldn’t make it in too late.  All of our typical roadtrip problems occurred on the way back; first we got a flat tire.  More than just going flat though, the tire blew out and partially disintegrated, leaving a trail of dust-like ashes on the road behind us.  Changing the tire was no problem; I actually kind of enjoy it because for about 10 brief minutes I feel like I am experiencing what it is like to be an adult.

We rode on the donut until the next town where we stopped to get gas and inquire about getting a new tire.  The woman chuckled when we asked if we could get a tire anywhere in town, telling us the gas station was the only place open in the whole town; the nearest potential tire shop would be in Childress, about an hour away.  I drove the whole way with my fingers crossed, hoping it wouldn’t be too much for our cute little donut to handle.  Thankfully we reached a Walmart in Childress and my wandering thoughts of being stuck on a two-lane highway with three functioning tires and no idea what to do quickly faded.

A “twenty minute” tire change took 45 and afterward we hear one of the guys in the garage congratulate the other on his “first tire.”  I don’t want to sound like I doubted the skills of the recent mustache graduate who changed our tire, but I just decided to cross my fingers again and hope we made it home without this tire rolling off.

We got back on the road and eventually did make it home, but not before we saw flashing lights behind us.  At this point I wasn’t too worried because honestly, I wasn’t the one who was driving.  I felt frustrated for Andrew, but he was very calm and respectful and the friendly police officer just issued a warning, which inferred that good citizens sometimes need reminders to follow the law.

Nothing else happened on the way back except for me making a joke to a lady at a gas station.  I asked for a knife to cut a Snickers ice cream bar so Andrew and I could share it.  Nobody really thought it was funny except me.

The end.