Destination Guides - Southpoint.com Blog

The wonders of Palo Duro Canyon up close

After a 10+ hour drive from Austin, we finally made it to the Canyon. Before we got started good we had deer running along side our RV before we ventured out onto the main road near our house. The drive took us through many rustic towns, with views of lots of cattle, sheep, goats, mesas, windmills (old and new) along the way. We were impressed with the large number of windmills providing electricity here in North Texas thanks to T. Boone Pickens who has led the way (see his website at www.pickensplan.com) with energy solutions to reduce our dependance on foreign oil.

Palo Duro Canyon is 2nd only to the Grand Canyon in size and beauty. One of the early white settlers who owned most of the area was Col. Charles Goodnight, famous for his ranching empire among other pursuits. Just across the street from our RV park, West Rim RV Park, is a ranch that still remains in the Goodnight family. Upon our arrival, we saw 3 mule deer (one with horns in our RV park).

Our RV site is just 500 yards from the edge of Palo Duro Canyon! I captured a video late today viewable here that shows the canyon from our RV park just after 7 p.m. --


We will be exploring the great hikes in the canyon. The winds the second day we were there caused the cancellation of the balloon liftoff this year for the Pirates of the Canyon Balloon Liftoff from the canyon floor. Look for details and video from our trip coming soon.