This was our first real stop on our trip to the Panhandle. We left San Antonio Friday (the 13th), stayed in Abilene ( got a room, I changed my mind about making camp for a one-nighter), and moved on to Quitaque (Kit-a-kway).
Saturday/Sunday/Monday-Caprock Canyon
Quitaque is a small town. So small, there is no Dairy Queen, and the light is a yellow blinker. The visitor center is new and some educational additions are still not yet complete. It will be a nice one when it's done. We drove through the camp loop to see what remaining spots had any sort of shade. We got one with a tall tree which wasn't bad at all. If I remember correctly, it was #13. We prepared supper and watched the weather begin to change. It was blowing hot and heavy all day but now it was clouding over. That would be how it went for most of the trip. I prepared the truck to sleep inside. I pulled an air mattress out of the tent, a dry change of clothes for each of us, a sleeping bag, flashlight, and dominoes. It began to rain pretty hard with lightening. Instead of getting bummed out, we drove around the park to see just how big it was. As you leave the first camp loop, you come over a crest in the road, and then drop into a canyon with vast views of terra cotta rock. I sure was glad we didn't just sit in the truck bored and mad. We drove to the North Prong trailhead area. Over there, it was barley raining, it wasn't even drizzle, so we got out and hiked in our flipflops. We could see the storm passing the camp loop and the sun was breaking through, so we made our way back to the truck, only to be surprised by a double rainbow. I got my son to climb up a hoodoo/mesa, and hold his arms up to the sky for a great picture. He was pretending to be a magician, "Ta da!" The rest of the night was uneventful, which was nice.
We had gotten the name of the local horse wrangler and arranged a ride in the morning. He brought us 2 fine horses, dropped by the campsite to make sure we were up and ready, and met us over at the equestrian campsites. My horse was a Sorrel paint gelding, about 15.3, named Geronimo, but I was calling him Snacks a lot. My sons horse was the sweetest little thing. A palomino paint gelding named Chico. If I had the $, I'd buy that little babysitter for him. I know it's not easy to find a babysitter horse like that. The ride was really nice. We rode down the mountain into the canyon, and looped into and out of the dry creek bed, and along the cliff side in the shade. My son was somewhat stunned/overwhelmed at the ride, and the view. He had to think about what was "cooler", the view, or the ride.
After the ride, we changed clothes and went swimming in Lake Theo. It's a great little lake. The water temp was perfect. It reminded me of the watering hole in "Dances with Wolves", with the tall grasses on the edges, only much larger.
Sunday night we got cleaned up and went into town. They were showing Indiana Jones III at the drive in. The following day, Monday, we spend the day swimming. We were pretty burned up by supper time. A ranger came by to warn us about some bad weather. I asked if it would be worse than the Sat night rain? He said, oh yes, high winds, and large hail have been reported and the storm is growing. I decided to break camp and go on to Canyon
TX. Dinner was cooked, and waiting to be eaten. We broke camp and it started to hail, marble size for 5-10 minutes. We finished dinner watching the hail, and hit the road for Canyon. Between Quitaque and Silverton, we saw a small tornado. It was probably more like a mega-dust devil, but to us, it was a tornado. Even the sheriff pulled off the road. We just watched as it crossed over the road we were traveling on, taking pictures as it went by. We made it to Canyon, safe and sound, still wearing swim clothes, and cover ups, that Best Western was a real nice place to stop for the night.