Out of Our Rut Blog Welcome Page

Welcome to the Out of Our Rut blog landing page.

Who we are:

We are a couple of former engineers that lived and worked in the Rochester New York area for over 30 years. When we were laid off from two different companies, one day apart, we took that as a sign to change things up. We had built a beautiful home on 50 acres and loved the place, but with plenty of time on our hands, we began to travel more and realized that when we were on the road for weeks on end, we didn't really miss all the “stuff” we had back home. Plus the work involved with maintaining our home and property seemed to be the only reason we would head back home. That prompted us to get out of our rut and sell 95% of our possessions and our home and move into our 38 foot motorhome and travel the country full time starting in June of 2016.

Chris and Jack Hiking in Washington State

At Pullout Along Rugged Oregon Coast

Our mission:

To explore the country with a strong bias towards outdoor activities. Our passions are hiking and geocaching with some mountain biking on the side. I am an avid photographer. I guess working at Eastman Kodak for 32 years had an influence in that. And while we live in a motorhome and stay in many campgrounds, we really are not campers. We seldom have campfires and don't have a corn hole game. We rarely stay at a campground for its amenities. We pick a place that is near where we want to explore. We think of it more like our home happens to have wheels and can move around. Our desire in these travels is to slow the pace. We didn't want to see if we could get to all the National Parks as quickly as possible. We like to keep a travel day to less than 200 miles and if the place warrants, stay for a week or more.

At Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle for #10,000

The blog:

For friends and family (as well as us) to keep track of what we have been up to, we have created this blog. It chronicles where we've been and what we've done as we wander around the country. Each stop along the way will, at minimum, get mentioned in the blog. Some longer stops in areas we enjoyed may get multiple blog posts in order to give that stop it's due. Generally the blog has lots of photographs as I find it difficult to eliminate photos I like. The blog will talk about the campground to some extent, but it shouldn't be considered a campground review. We seldom seem to exhaust the things we want to explore before we exhaust ourselves and need to move on. That means we may completely skip some activities or places in an area that others may consider essential. We look at that as a reason to come back in the future.

Pretty Sunset in Quartzite Arizona

At the Window in Big Bend National Park

This landing page:

The problem with just about any blog is that fact it is chronological. This is fine since that is how the events occurred in real life. But since our blog is so much about a given location, it can be difficult for somebody to find a specific blog post for a given location. I even find it a challenge to remember when we happened to be at a given location if I wanted to look something up. For instance, if someone asked about Twin Falls Idaho. I know we stayed there but it might take me awhile to figure out that we were there in June of 2017 to get them to the right post. If I could only look at a map of all the places we have stayed and have an easy way to get to the relevant blog post.

Since I already use Google My Maps to keep track of our locations, I have created a special map that has all of our stops since going full time. None of the routes are included in the map since that just seems to clutter it up and don't really add value. By clicking the link below the map, an interactive map with all of our stops will open in another window. This map was improved in 2026 to better accommodate the number of years we have been travelling. The current year will shown at the bottom of the key but all prior years will be shown in a different layer with each year being a different color. If you click one of the years in the key to the left, all the stops from that year are highlighted on the map -  which is a convenient way to show the route that from that year. It is also possible to move around the map and zoom in an area of interest.  Clicking on any pin on the map will pop up the name of the location along with a link to the blog post(s) associated with that stop. Since I am nearly always 2 or more weeks behind in the blog, some of the most recent map points may not have a link to a blog, but they will in time. 

So if you want to see what we found to explore in a given area, this should provide a much easier way to find the blog post.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

Our Tenth Year of Fulltiming in Review

Wow, we’ve reached a milestone in our fulltime adventures - one decade on the road! I still remember sitting in our home of 16 years in western New York waiting to hear from our real estate attorney to confirm that the closing had gone well and the proceeds would be deposited into our account the following day. We were officially homeless except for the 38 foot motorhome with Jeep in tow. We had spent the previous 9 months or so selling, donating or trashing 95% of our worldly possessions. We had found room in the rig for everything we thought we should bring with us as we start our travels. We had a few boxes of keepsakes to store in family members’ basements in Ohio. The plan was to live in our ~450 square foot “home” and travel the country. There weren’t any real set goals except to experience what other parts of the USA had to offer. We also didn’t really have a timeline in our minds other to enjoy as many places as we can and try to set a pace that actually permits us to get a feel for a location.

In those past 10 years, we have camped 3652 nights at over 450 places. While writing this blog post, I got to thinking, how often do we spend just one night in a place as we passed through an area on our way to a distant destination? Or how often do we spend a couple weeks or months at a place? Well, I have a spreadsheet with all the underlying data and we used to be engineers with analytical skills so we should be able to answer that question.

Turns out, roughly a quarter of our stops are just for one night. That might sound like a lot but it only represents around 3% of our nights camped. This is a big country and when we are repositioning from one part to another, there are times where we are just trying to make distance so we might do a series of one night stops. We try to limit our travel days to 200 miles or less so it’s hard for us to cross the country quickly. About 40% of our stops, we have spent between 2 and 6 nights. This duration of stop might be to simply break up the tedium of driving long distances several days in a row. But it also might be some sort of stop for service on the motorhome that takes a few days before we can continue on. Frequently we will spend a few days to see some areas that have a handful of things we want to see or do but don’t require a longer stay. Our next stop duration is between 1 and 2 weeks which covers another quarter of our stops. These are places that we felt justified spending some time to explore. Often we wish we could have stayed even longer but maybe it was a state park that often has a 2 week maximum stay limit. There were a few times where we overestimated what there was to do from a stop and wish we had reduced the time spent there but those are fairly infrequent. We are pretty good at finding things to do.

I next broke the stop duration into longer stops with the following categories: 2 to 4 weeks, 1 to 2 months, and 2 or more months. These represent a smaller percentage of our stops but account for a just over half of our nights. For the longest duration stay of 2 or more months, we had 11 stops that equals roughly one third of our nights. Just over half of these were at a winter destination in either Florida or Arizona. But 5 of those longer stops occurred during the summer travel season. A couple of those were “forced” upon us when COVID messed up everyone’s travels but some were planned to take advantage of visiting friends and sights back in western New York or exploring the mountains of western North Carolina. We feel we have done a reasonable job of slowing the travel pace when it makes sense and moving somewhat faster when needed.

Below is the travel map from year 10. As you can see, we have pretty good range both north to south and east to west. I am including a link below the map that will actually open up the underlying Google Map I used to document our journey. This will permit you to zoom and scroll around. Plus clicking on a pin for any location will open a popup window with link to any blog post written for that stop.

Click Here to Bring Up Interactive Map of 10th Year Travels

It’s clear from the map that we have done a pretty good job of covering the country north to south and east to west. We started out year 10 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan having just completed a 2 week Habitat for Humanity build in Marquette. We had headed to the far western side of the UP and spent about 2 weeks exploring before heading south into Wisconsin. The two weeks we spent camped there was mostly spent in Oshkosh at the annual air show. That stop rates near the top of our list, not just in the past 12 months but in the past 10 years. It ranks right up there with the Albuquerque balloon fiesta or the Lake Havasu fireworks festival. From here we headed into the Minnesota for around 5 weeks exploring the Twin Cities and some of the beautiful state parks in the northern portion of the state. Then we headed into eastern North Dakota for a week or so to experience some of the best geocaching we have seen in Gilby.

We then headed back into Minnesota to visit the North Shore before entering Wisconsin to check out the Apostle Islands on the northern side of the state. In central Wisconsin we got to get up close and personal with a cranberry harvest. The next 4 weeks was spent with short stops in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana and longer stays in Tennessee and Georgia before making it back to The Great Outdoors in Titusville Florida. After nearly 6 months of sitting still, we were ready to start traveling again as spring approached. After completing a couple of motorhome repairs in western Florida and South Carolina, we were ready to start our travels west. Mainly following I-40 through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the northern panhandle of Texas taking 3 weeks to get to New Mexico. Here we plan to explore the mountains in the northern portion of the state with 2 weeks in Taos, 1 week in Los Alamos and as I write this post at the beginning of 2 weeks in Santa Fe.

Like in the past, I’m including the “heat maps” that help to show how long we have stayed in the various states. No real surprise that Florida is the “winner” again but we did camp in 16 different states the past 12 months. We finally added Oklahoma to our list as full time travelers. The second map shows a similar map but for the full 10 years. At this point we are up to 46 states. We have camped in 3 of the 4 remaining states but New Jersey and Delaware were from a little before going fulltime in 2015 and we have camped in a rental RV in Alaska way back in 1995! One last heat map is showing all 10 years but this time broken down into the county level to better see what parts of the states we have camped in.

Heat Map for Year #10

Heat Map from 10 Years of Fulltime

Same As Above but Broken Down to County Level

Of course I have the table that helps show what it costs to live this lifestyle. It doesn’t include costs that we would have if we lived a “normal” life in a sticks and bricks home. So healthcare, groceries, dining out and other entertainment isn’t part of the table. But it does show how many stops we had, the number of miles on both the motorhome and the Jeep as well as the fuel for each. It’s clear there has been an uptick in both the number of stops and the miles driven in the motorhome. This is simply a function of the route and pace we picked. Other than our extended stay at TGO, we have only had 10 stops where we spent more than 7 nights. To some extent our travel plans built in the pace that led to the faster pace and higher miles.

Condensed Stats for Last 6 Years

The other line item in the table is the amount we spent for camping. This year wasn’t our highest year but it does come in second place. Since we have 10 years of data, I was curious what a plot of average dollars per night looks like over the decade. The chart below shows that data with the blue line. It’s clear that there is a fair amount of year to year variability but I also noticed that there is a definite upward trend in the costs over time. The red line represents the trend of the raw data and it obviously is increasing. Since we haven’t changed our camping style to higher end RV resorts versus state parks or Elks Lodges like we typically like to stay at, I can only assume the slope is a function of inflation over time. The good news is the slope of the line represents 63 cents per day increase each year. That increase equates to $230 more spent camping each year so I’m not too concerned that it will have any bearing on how or where we camp.

Graph Showing Average Cost per Night to Camp for 10 Years
Blue Line Average Data, Red is Linear Trendline

Like years past, we like to use our anniversary blog posts to highlight our favorite hikes or bike rides of the past 12 months. I was initially concerned there really wouldn’t be many. It’s not like we had traveled to Glacier National Park, the Adirondacks, the Green Mountain of Vermont or other classic “hiking” destinations. But after going through the past blog posts as well as my notes from places we’ve more recently visited that don’t yet have a post written, I was pleasantly surprised and fondly remembered quite a few hikes and bike rides that made the cut. For each hike I will give a brief description of the hike, a favorite photo from it and a link to the blog post which will describe it in more detail. In chronological order here are the top 8 hikes and bike rides from year 10.

• Escarpment Trail - Ontonagon MI

Situated in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park of far western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, this park is beautiful and this trail was the best of several we tried in the area. AllTrails lists this as an 8.2 mile out and back hike with over 1600 feet of elevation gain. the trail follows a ridge that overlooks the wonderful Lake of the Clouds and the Carp River. There are several named peaks along the ridge with lots of rock outcroppings to take in the scenic valley below. The last section of the trail drops 400 feet through the woods and we suspected it wouldn't be nearly as scenic so by skipping this we keep it to 6.5 miles and 1360 feet elevation gain.

Blog post with Escarpment Trail Hike

View Along Escarpment Trail in Porcupine Mountains

• Bean and Bear Loop Trail - Silver Bay MN

The North Shore of Minnesota along Lake Superior has a lot to offer outdoor enthusiasts. Bean and Bear Loop Trail is a 7 mile long hike with just over 1000 feet of elevation gain. The trail goes 2 miles before hitting the loop portion of the hike. In another mile, you have reached the first of the two lakes. Since we took the loop clockwise, Bean Lake was first. There are beautiful views all along the ridge overlooking the lakes. We had the start of autumn colors but I suspect spring wildflowers would be nice too. 

Blog post with Bean and Bear Loop Trail Hike

 

Bear and Bean Lakes Lined Up

• Lakeshore Trail - Cornucopia WI

Part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, this trail follows the rugged shoreline of northern Wisconsin along Lake Superior but from 70 feet above the water. The constant churn of the lake has eroded many sea caves all along the cliff wall. With the curves in the shoreline, there are many opportunities to look below and see the caves. The trail is an out and back that starts at Meyers Beach (where parking is somewhat limited) and goes for 5.4 miles to a primitive campsite. The last sea cave viewpoint is about 2 miles out and is well worth hiking that far. We continued nearly 2 miles beyond that and found the trail to be okay, but nothing special. Other more unique options to see the caves is by kayak or even hiking on the frozen lake in the dead of winter.

Blog post with Lakeshore Trail Hike

Sea Caves Along Lakeshore Trail

• Beach Bike Ride - New Smyrna Beach FL

The town of New Smyrna Beach is right along the Atlantic Ocean in central Florida. While not technically a trail per se, there is a 5 mile stretch of beach where cars are permitted to drive the sand. It would be possible to bike on the car "lanes" but the sand is much firmer for bikes on the ocean side of the vehicles. You must pay attention to the tide to successfully bike here but the morning we went, we had low tide, light winds and cool but sunny conditions. To the south we found the beach was bikeable even beyond the car permissible area - but e-bikes are not permitted beyond there. We went until the sand became too soft to easily ride. Back to the north and beyond our starting point is Smyrna Dunes Park. Bikes are not permitted on the long boardwalk in the park but worth a look. In total, we managed a 16 mile bike ride that was quite unique.

Blog post with bike ride along beach

Ponce Inlet Lighthouse

• Rock Garden Trail - Palo Duro Canyon SP Canyon TX

About a hour hour southeast of Amarillo, Palo Duro Canyon is an incredible place in the otherwise barren landscape that makes up this area of north Texas. There are other more popular and strenuous trails here that likely would have been even better than Rock Garden, but we were there during an early heat wave and this trail seemed to be a safer choice for the one day we had available. We only went as far as needed to get to some excellent overlooks on the Rock Garden Trail - which is about 1.5 miles up the trail. We modified the return hike to come across the Lower Comanche Trail to the Mesquite Campground and then back along the Cottonwood Trail to the parking area making a 5.3 mile loop with just over 1000 feet elevation. By getting a very early start we finished around noon with a temperature of 88 degrees. Whether it is this trail or the more popular Lighthouse Trail, Palo Duro Canyon is well worth a visit.

No Blog post written yet

View of Palo Duro Canyon from Rock Garden Trail

• Cebello Mesa Trail - Taos NM

Taos has a wide variety of hiking trails. Two of them made our list of favorites but they couldn't be more different. Cebello Mesa Trail is north of town along the Rio Grande River. It drops 700 feet in the first mile as it works down toward the bottom of the canyon and near water level. Once past all the switchbacks, the trail is relatively flat as it continues upstream for another 3 miles or so. There are several back country primitive camping sites along the way. It definitely has a desert like feel with all the prickly pear cactus in bloom. We made it out 2.7 miles to the second camping area. While eating lunch at the shelter we realized a storm was rolling in from the north. We decide to error on the side of caution and head back since the climb back up the side of the canyon would be a tough one. We made it back to the car just as it started to sprinkle. Beautiful area and trail, just be careful of the unpredictable New Mexico weather.

Blog post not written yet

Heading Down to Rio Grande River

• Williams Lake Trail - Taos NM

This trail starts at Taos Ski Valley in the mountains northeast of town. One of the more popular trails in the area, this 4 mile out and back trail gains 1000 feet in elevation which wouldn't be too bad but it starts at just over 10,200 feet. Roughly 4500 feet higher in elevation than Cebello Mesa makes a huge difference in the landscape and vegetation - not to mention the impact on our breathing. Maybe it's just the views are breathtaking? The grade of the trail is fairly consistent the whole way up to the pretty alpine lake. There was still some snow on the surrounding peaks and if you venture beyond the lake, you will treat yourself to a nice waterfall. Better yet, there is a German restaurant near the trailhead and ski lift to treat ourselves to lunch and a beer after a 4.9 mile, 1300 foot elevation gain hike. 

Blog post not written yet

 

Williams Lake

• Bayo Canyon Trail - Los Alamos NM

Los Alamos is quite the unusual town. Sitting up on a high mesa, there are multiple canyons carved in the area all around town. Bayo Canyon Trail is a loop that follows one of these canyons on the north side of town. The 4 mile loop has about 500 feet of elevation gain and being in the vicinity of 7000 feet, it isn't too strenuous. It was unreal how you start near a busy roundabout in town and after a half mile you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere except for the expensive homes perched on the top of the canyon walls. We follow the loop in a counterclockwise direction which starts with a gradual decline into the canyon. As we get further into the canyon, it is a bit confusing because the other side (the return trail) is only about 1000 feet away but across a 250 foot canyon. For a while it isn't at all clear how we will get over there. The solution was clear once we made it to the canyon floor at a point where it has widened up a bit. We cross the valley and find the one challenging part of the trail - coming back up over 300 feet in just over a third of a mile. We have to take the spur trail out to the viewpoint of the canyon. It only adds a quarter mile or so to the total hike and is worth the view. The return trail is a much wider path and from this vantage point we can easily see the trail we came out on. Incredible to such a remote feeling hike in a town.

Blog post not written yet

View Over Bayo Canyon

Below is the map that shows all 450+ stops in the past 10 years. Clicking on the link provided below the map will bring up the Google Map that permits you to zoom and pan around to get a closer view of a location you might be interested in. I had recently run into a limitation with how Google Maps functions and needed to completely rework how the map data is presented. As it turns out, the new format is actually much more user friendly. Each calendar year has its own color. If you hover the cursor over any of the years, those stops for the year will be highlighted showing what our general route was. For stops in the current year, the stops are still shown as individual blue dots. Clicking on any of the pins will open a popup window with the name of the stop, what year and a link to the blog post(s) written for that location. If you aren’t familiar with our blog posts, think of them as more of a what there is to see and do in an area but not as a campground review. A post may mention the campground but generally my writing is geared toward hiking, biking and general sightseeing in an area. If you enjoy hiking, biking or geocaching, these blog posts might be worth a look. I also generally tend to take lots of photos (working 32 years at Eastman Kodak has something to do with that!) and often will have plenty of pictures to help you experience an area like we did and maybe will even convince you that place is worth a visit.

Click Here to Open Interactive Google Map of All Stops

The Texas Panhandle

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

Coming out of Oklahoma, we headed into Texas. We are planning on 4 nights in Amarillo area before moving on to New Mexico. Other times we have passed through Texas, it takes at least four long travel days just to get across the state. It’s about 800 miles across I-10 to cover the state through its middle, but up here in the panhandle, the drive across Texas is only 180 miles on I-40. This part of the state is new to us so we had spent some time over the winter to investigate what there is to do in the area. There is a fair amount of Route 66 things in Amarillo but that wouldn’t consume much time. The thing that caught our eye was a state park about 30 miles southeast of town. As we learned about Palo Duro Canyon State Park, we were amazed to discover that it is the second largest canyon in the US after the Grand Canyon. It seems like a pretty well kept secret if you ask us. We learned about how many excellent hikes they have in the park and they have campgrounds large enough to accommodate our motorhome. We decided that would be the place to spend our time in the area since it would be an easy day trip into Amarillo to check out the few things we wanted to do in town.

Of course when we went to book the 4 nights we were planning on being in the area, we found the campground was full. If we shifted a week earlier or a week later, we would have had no trouble getting a site. It took a bit more internet searching to discover that they have a bike race each year in the park and the participants camp in the park for the race. To accommodate the potential racers, the park simply blocks off all the campsites for the few days needed. Our timing was simply bad for this year’s race. Even if we camp elsewhere, some of the trails would be closed for the race so we wouldn’t even be able to come in for a hike for a few of the days we are in town. There is an Elks Lodge in Amarillo with electric and water hookups so we just plan to stay there for the full four nights and try to work a day trip into Palo Duro later in our stay after the racers are gone.

It’s just over 150 miles from the Elks Lodge in Elk City Oklahoma to the one in Amarillo Texas. We are able to break the drive up with stops to pick up geocaches in 3 more counties along the route. Fortunately the first two stops are at rest stops with plenty of parking for us. One was a simple rest stop but the second one was a fairly fancy one with an interesting visitor center to check out.

Welcome to Texas

Fancy Visitor Center

Picnic Shelter Out Back

The third stop was near the small of Groom Texas - population 552. On the east side of town is the Leaning Tower of Texas. This water tower was constructed with a 10 degree tilt to act as a roadside attraction along Route 66. There really wasn’t parking for us there but we did see it as we drive by. On the west side of town is one of those huge white crosses that we see from time to time as we travel the country. They all seem to have a similar construction design but we have never taken the opportunity to stop at one. The one in Groom is at The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ visitor center. We had seen there was a geocache here but also a very large gravel parking lot that should work for us to stop for a lunch break. There were quite a few other visitors but we had no trouble finding a spot to park. It was surprising just how tall a 190 foot cross looks when you’re standing next to it.

190 Foot Cross

While Chris made lunch, I headed out to find the geocache and also check out the other things located on the property. They have a beautiful building that appears to be some sort of religious training center. Inside the courtyard is standing in the middle of an elaborate fountain with some exceptionally blue water.

Training Center

Fountain in Courtyard

On a walkway around the huge cross are the Stations of the Cross, as well as a table depicting the Last Supper and on a small hill is the place where Jesus was crucified.

The Last Supper

We pull into the Elks Lodge and find a few other rigs already camping there but there are 8 spots so we picked one and get setup. We head into the bar to check in and pay for our site. The forecast for the days we will be here sounds like it will be a hot few days with temperatures in the mid 90’s. The one thing we were concerned about as we mapped out our route for this season was excessive heat. This stop will be our first test. Our third day here looked to be the coolest if upper 80’s can be considered cool so we plan to head to Palo Duro that day for an extended hike. But there is Wildcat Bluff Nature Center on the northwest side of town that looked to have some decent trail so the next morning we set off early to try to get in a hike and find a couple of geocaches before it truly gets hot.

At Wildcat Bluff

Big Arrow

The visitor center wasn’t open on Sunday morning so we head straight for the trails. There are 4 different trails that radiate out from the center. These can be combined in various ways to produce hikes from a half mile to 3 or more miles. We had picked trails based on where the caches were as well as the descriptions we had read in advance. We head out the trail towards the windmill first since there one geocache in that general direction. The large cattle watering tub is still in place and holding water. The windmill is also still upright but it appears the pump has been changed from wind powered to solar.

Starting Out Trail

Old Windmill

We made the find at that first cache and then headed over to the bluff. The viewpoint at the bluff is almost 100 feet over the land below so it is a bit of a climb but nothing too serious. There are definitely some good distance views from up here. We searched for the cache and found the likely spot it previously was hidden since there was a small cavity under a large rock with a few smaller rocks that would have covered the hiding spot. We logged a DNF (did not find) to let the cache owner there is a problem with it and is likely missing. This person must live close by because later in the evening I got a message from them stating the cache was indeed missing and was now replaced but told us to go ahead and log it as a find. Now that is some impressive cache maintenance! We wander back some other trails as we head towards the visitor center and our car. It was a nice simple hike of 2.6 miles and we more or less beat the heat being done by 10:30 AM.

Atop Wildcat Bluff

A Different View

We had a few sightseeing stops we wanted to attend to for the remainder of the day. Next we head to the northern end of side of town to a small park next to the Amarillo College Medi Park Campus. Here was a large sculpture of a helium atom nearly 50 feet tall. It turns out that this part of Texas contains the majority of the world’s known helium supply. Who knew? The park has a science museum but it too was closed so we could only look into the outside displays. There was a small lake in the park and quite a few people out fishing.

Helium Atom Sculpture

Don Harrington Discovery Center

T-Rex Wanders the Grounds

Nearby Lake

Next stop was on the west side of town to likely the most popular tourist attraction in Amarillo - Cadillac Ranch. Like many others, I’ve heard of the famous Cadillac Ranch but it wasn’t until we were planning our travels that I realized it is located on a frontage road just off of I-40. Created in 1974, 10 old Cadillacs were buried nose first in a line along Historic Route 66. As Amarillo grew, development was close to surrounding the cars. In 1997 the cars were moved into a field 2 miles west of their original location. As we pulled up to the spot, many dozens of cars and likely close to 100 visitors were wandering the grounds around the cars. The thing that surprised us more than the cars was the fact that visitors are encouraged to bring spray paint to decorate the cars while you check them out. Don’t have spray paint? No worries, there is a trailer on the walk in where people can buy it on the spot!

Get Your Spray Paint Here!

10 Cadillacs Lined Up

The paint fumes are almost overwhelming with so many people being artistic at the same time. A word of warning, there are no “wet paint” signs posted but if you feel obligated to touch one of the cars, you have a pretty good chance of touching wet paint.

So Many Artists

With so many people spraying paint on these cars, day after day, for years on end, these cars almost don’t resemble cars anymore. There is easily an inch or two of paint all over the place. And since most people feel the need to empty their paint can before leaving, the paint tends to drip from the surface like miniature stalactites. It was an interesting stop but be careful to not be downwind of one of the artists!

Underside of Car is Unrecognizable

Miniature Paint Stalactites

We had planned our day to have the next stop be midafternoon with the hopes of beating the crowds. On the drive from Oklahoma to Amarillo we had seen countless signs about a steakhouse called the Big Texan. Just about every one of these signs was advertising their “free” 72 oz steak dinner. Of course there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The trick with this meal is that people willing to take the challenge are put at a table for about 6 people up on a stage in the center of the restaurant and overhead are 6 digital timers that will start at 60 minutes and count down to zero. The wait staff will introduce you to the rest of the restaurant patrons who will cheer for the new contestant and will serve your meal which includes: shrimp cocktail, baked potato, salad, roll and butter and of course the steak - 4.5 pounds of meat! We arrived to find the place quite busy but not so much that we had to wait long to be seated.

Sign Greets Hungry Travelers

Big Beef

Our seats were right below the stage where the contestants were chowing down. At first I wasn’t pleased with the seating since it was just several long tables with multiple couples or groups all seated side by side. But as we ordered, watched the contestants and chat with our neighbors, it turned out to be an excellent location. I wouldn’t consider it a romantic dinner place, but I might argue this is less of a restaurant and more of an event that happens to serve food. When we first sat down, there were 4 people taking the challenge. None of them seemed to be the type of person I might expect.

4 Visitors Take the 72 Oz Challenge

There was a mother, father and son sitting on one side of us and I was noticing that they were commenting about one of the participants. We got to talking and it turned out the young woman sitting at the far end was their 14 year old daughter. They apparently were traveling through the area and had seen the signs. She said she wanted to try it and the parents said sure. We got a little more of a scoop from them. The meal costs $72 and if you don’t finish everything on your plate you can still get a doggy bag for the leftovers.  When a new couple was introduced, I went up before they had really started to eat to get an idea of just how big a 72 oz steak is - it’s huge!

Those are HUGE Steaks

Two Levels of Dining

We had more sane size steaks - a 12 oz ribeye and 10 oz prime rib. Even those proved to be more than we could eat in one sitting. After dinner, we checked out some of the other places inside the building. The desert bar looked really good but we weren’t even tempted to pick up a cake or pie.

Chris Does Her Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann

One last stop after dinner was to the Slug Bug Ranch about a mile west of the Big Texan. This place seems to be a blatant attempt to copy Cadillac Ranch but using Volkswagen Beetles. This “art” installation was originally built in Conway Texas about 25 miles east of Amarillo in 2002. But in 2023, the Bugs were moved to the current location and a few of the retired Big Texan limousines are also buried with them.

VW Bugs Burrow in to Ground

Old Limos

Just like its predecessor, this place encourages spray painting of the cars however there is no trailer selling paint so you must come prepared. This was not nearly as crowded but this meant there was less chance of getting an inadvertent coat of paint as we walk around. The other notable thing is these cars are still recognizable as VW Bugs. Who knows if that will be the case in a decade or two.

A Fitting Hood Ornament for Texas

These days of well over 90 degrees were limiting how much we were willing to do outside. The following day we decided to head north with the main intention of finding geocaches in a couple of counties about 40 miles in that direction. While searching for anything else to see or do up there, we stumbled upon Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument. There doesn’t appear to be much to this National Monument but it will just be a few mile detour from our intended route. Some of the more interesting things to see are near the old quarries but these locations are off limits it’s to visitors except for times when a ranger does a guided tour. According to the website, there was to be a tour that Monday morning. So we get up early to drive there in time to get in on the tour.

Entrance Sign at Alibates Flint Quarries NM

Painted Rock at Entrance Sign

Visitor Center

This is a desolate portion of Texas and with the high speed limits on most roads in the state, we arrived well before the tour was to start. Unfortunately the ranger told us he had two employees call out sick so he was there himself and there wasn’t going to be a tour today, but did expect to have one tomorrow. Oh well, at least we were able to stamp our NP Passport book with another national monument. There is a short walk around the visitor center with a few things to see.

Flint Samples

Short Trail at Visitor Center

Teepee

The ranger had said we could drive out to the place where a gate blocks the road. There were a few viewpoints along the 2 miles or so but it was hardly worth the effort.

Lake Meredith in Distance

Since we hadn’t spent much time at Alibates, we headed to Lake Meredith to try out a short hike that will hopefully allow us to get a geocache in one of the two counties. The South Turkey Creek Trail goes along the southern shore of the lake for quite some distance. We will only need to go out 2/3 mile to reach the cache. There are several federal primitive campsites in this part of the park and there were several people out enjoying the lake.

Shore of Lake Meredith

The trail was in fairly good shape with a few rocky stretches. There were some trees blooming that we weren’t familiar with. But we had good enough cell coverage to use the app to find out these are salt cedar trees.

Salt Cedar Blooms

Rocky Hills Along Trail

We made it to the cache location and found it after a short search. It was about lunchtime and starting to get pretty hot. So instead of continuing on a pretty hike, we headed back to the car and find a shaded picnic table to eat the lunch we had brought along.

Lake View

Vibrant Cactus Bloom

We only needed to drive a few miles to cross the county line and get to a small park in the town of Fritch. For all we know there might be more to see around here but we weren’t in the mood to explore much because of the heat. It’s about an hour drive back to the Elks Lodge where we try to chill in the motorhome with the AC running full blast.

For our last full day in Amarillo, we head south to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. The temperature was only forecast to be in the upper 80’s by mid afternoon but the morning low was about 65. We generally don’t like to set an alarm, but this seemed like an appropriate day to get up early and drive down to the state park with the hope of getting an early start to a hike and possibly beat the worst part of the heat. We succeeded in getting into the park early. We stopped at the overlook by the visitor center before 8 AM and took in the great views of the canyon below. We definitely didn’t realize there was such a beautiful place in northern Texas.

Incredible View at Palo Duro Canyon

Selfie Time

There are well over a dozen trails within the park ranging in length from a half mile to ten miles and I suppose you could combine some of them for even a longer hike. By far, it seems like the most popular hike is the Lighthouse Trail. It’s an out and back hike just over 6 miles with a little more than 500 feet of elevation gain. We almost went for this one but it sounds like there is practically no shade so it might be a poor choice on a hot day. It sounds like the park actually closes some trails when the temperature gets above some threshold. After a bit of research, we settled on combining a couple of different trails into a loop starting out on the Rock Garden Trail.

Almost all of the hiking trails are down inside the canyon. It’s about an 8 mile drive down into the canyon to the far end of the park. There is a mile long stretch where the road drops 500 feet so it is a steep road with lots of switchbacks. But the road is paved and two lanes so it isn’t all that bad. We stop at one of the picnic areas for a bathroom break before our hike. As we pulled into a parking space, there was a wild turkey right along the edge of the lot. I assumed that when we got out of the car, it would be scared off but it didn’t seem to be bothered by us being 15 feet away.

Fearless Turkey

We continue to the trailhead and find lots of low places along the road that include the measuring sign that shows how high the water is above the pavement. There were plenty of puddles along the side of the road and it appeared that a skid steer had recently scraped back mud that had covered the road. Fortunately, it had dried out enough to safely park without sinking into the mud and there was no forecast for rain today so the car isn’t likely to be swept away. We gear up and hit the trail at 8:30 with a temperature of 72 degrees based on the thermometer at the trailhead.

Rock Garden Trailhead

The trail was in great shape although bit rocky in spots. We have several geocaches to look for on our way up the trail. In fact, there are likely 100 or more caches along numerous trails all throughout the park. Boy, if we had been able to camp here, we could have hit the trails even earlier and found a few dozen caches. We will have to settle for our single day trip into the park.  As the trail heads up in elevation, the views of the surrounding canyon start to show up. I still find it hard to believe this place is in Texas.

Along Rock Garden Trail

View Across Valley

View Up the Valley

Just before we get to the 1 mile point having climbed over 300 feet, we cross the Lower Comanche Trail. We intend to take this trail as part of our loop, but we continue up Rock Garden for another third of a mile. We knew there were a few more geocaches up there plus we understood there were some great lookout points a bit further up.

Rocky Ascent

View from Overlook

We found a nice spot to sit down and have a snack while enjoying the views made possible by the 450 foot climb. This trail continues on and there are even more geocaches to be found along it, but we have our plan and adding more mileage this early on might be a problem. We head back down to the Lower Comanche Trail and head east.

If we follow this for about 2 miles, we should end up over by one of the campgrounds and back near the main park road. There were some cool rock formations along the way and since this part of the hike was generally downhill, we really enjoyed it.

Campground in the Distance

Colorful Rock Layers

Precarious Looking Caprock

We take advantage of the restroom facilities at the campground before crossing the road to look for the Cottonwood Trail. There were a couple of old stone buildings that almost looked like they might be rentals for staying in the park? We follow the trail which mainly follows the river running through the park. It’s about 1.25 miles before we are near where we parked and we can cut over to the road to make it back to the starting of our loop. It came in at 5.3 miles and just over 1000 feet of elevation gain and was just before noon, now with a temperature of 86 degrees.

Rental Cabin?

We hopped in the car and found a shady spot in a picnic area to park. While they had tables, we opted to sit in the running car trying to cool back off after our hike while we had lunch. After we finished, we felt we might have just a bit more energy left so we drive to the parking area by the Rojo Grande Trail. There are numerous trails that start out of here. We cobble together portions of the Juniper Cliffside Trail and Rojo Grande Trail to make a 1.75 mile loop and 3 more geocaches.

More Rock Layers

Closeup Look of Layers

The first portion was nothing special but it turned out that the Rojo Grande Trail was quite interesting with neat rock formations along the way. When we made it back to the parking lot, I noticed that this trailhead thermometer read 91 degrees.

Red's Rock

Pretty Hike on Rojo Grande Trail

Opossum Tracks and Dog or Coyote?

We were pretty well wiped out and only had the energy to checkout the visitor center since it should be open by now. This is a really neat old stone building from the CCC days. There are numerous displays inside as well as a large gift shop with a fair amount of Native American crafts for sale. We head out of the parking area feeling accomplished and wishing we could come back for more - but maybe in a cooler part of the year. We stopped in the nearby town of Canyon for some well deserved ice cream at a place called Braums which we found to have great sundaes.

Visitor Center

Nice View of Canyon Below

Back at the Elks Lodge, we will chill out some more, get a good nights sleep before we head into New Mexico for nearly 6 weeks.