Our trip to Palo Duro State Park

Well I'm not sure where to start when it comes to describing our little weekend trip to Palo Duro State park up by Amarillo. We had heard from a lady in our last ward how amazing this place is so we have been planning on going for a couple of years now. We also heard about this great musical that they put on in an outdoor amphitheater with a great steak dinner served beforehand. We were very excited about this whole trip.

We headed out Friday morning and drove the six hours to Amarillo. We should have been suspicious about what we had in store for us by the way the wind was practically blowing the trucks off the road and how our temperature gauge in our car said it was in the mid to high 90s.

We met our friends, the Murrys, there (without their kids to entertain our kids, this whole trip would have been crazy).

Let me describe to you in a few words what it was like. HOT, WINDY, AND BUG INFESTED. Apparently, those of us from Utah (the Murrys are from Utah too) don't learn too quickly that you DON'T CAMP IN TENTS IN TEXAS DURING THE SUMMER. I'm pretty sure we were the only ones not in nice air conditioned campers in the whole park.

I don't want you to think we didn't have fun, we actually had a really nice time. But we just had to laugh (and we did laugh a lot) at our dust covered, sweaty, selves. Really that was the only thing we could do because it was just humorous that we even attempted this. And actually, the kids, who are much more resiliant than the adults, had a great time. They really couldn't care less if they were covered in dirt and hot.

Some of the funniest things were the turkeys that were everywhere. They were literally walking right though our campsite the whole time.

The deer were very friendly too. They were in our campsite most of the time too. In this picture it is hard to see the deer, but the girls were only a few feet from it.

We took a five mile hike to see the "lighthouse" and "castle" formations. I was so proud of the kids. They didn't complain at all. I was really impressed with Joshua. He was the only kid that really wanted to go the whole way (which we didn't because it was getting hot) which is really unlike him usually.

In the afternoon we took a trip to the little town of Canyon to see "Kung Foo Panda", just so we could cool off a bit. It was a cute movie and the kids loved it.

Later that night we went and had a nice steak dinner and watched the musical "Texas". While we ate the winds were blowing our dinner everywhere. (They forcasted wind gusts of 50 mph). If you didn't mind the grit that had blown in your food, it was actually quite tasty. The peach cobbler and cheesy potatoes were my favorite. Here is just a glimps of the winds.

After dinner we watched the musical and I'm not sure how to describe it. Breanna loved the dancing and singing, but honestly I didn't understand half of it. I guess the special effects, the outdoor backdrop, and dancing were the best part. I'm no judge of musicals so I will just leave it at that.

It was a fun trip, and I must say it was really pretty there but I was glad to be home and get away from those biting flies (I thought I would go insane from those flies). Good ol' Palo Duro Canyon.