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Moving West and first camping experiences

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As we were having technical issues to access the internet for the first couple of days, we simply used a good old map (thanks Janis!) and still got along fine. Even though the scale is not enormous, it shows enough for us to find the interesting places. And as not all campgrounds are shown in the map, but all state and national parks are, this is where we went. Already our very first experience in Sangchris Lake State Park had been excellent. And while at Meramac Caves we accidentally ended up in a private campground vs. the State Park a couple of miles further on, we also liked that location in a small valley directly next to a river very much.
So no wonder that Sam picked another State Park for our first night in Oklahoma. The Map read ‘Honey C. S.P.’ next to Grove, OK and that’s where we wanted to go. As we had left fairly late from our previous campsite, it was already quite late, everyone was hungry (and who knows me, knows that I’m then usually not in my best mood). So after a couple of unsuccessful tries in locating the state park, we eventually decided to go back to one of the two RV parks we had seen along the way.
Eagles’ Landing RV Park was located next to a large lake and seemed very nice at first sight. Unfortunately, the nice location had a hefty price tag of 45$ (vs. 20$ which we’d most likely have paid at the state park). In addition, the pool turned out to be a pool table only and the playground was located far away from the water in the section of the 40’ RVs. What turned out to be strangest of all were the bathrooms though: They featured a sign ‘bathrooms open now – new and remodeled’ and in fact they tiles used were quite classy. But as it seems in the refurbishment it was forgotten put in bathroom doors – very strange!
The extremely windy and cloudy weather did not help either to make up for the other topics, so despite the nice location more than 300’ away from all other campers directly at the water we were happy to leave the next morning.
Sam got to drive the part when it was pouring rain to Tulsa and I got the sunshiny bit to Oklahoma City. That’s where we took a lunch break at a park with a huge playground. Max loved it – especially the climbing wall and the slides. He easily made friends with a younger boy and it would have been very hard to eventually get him to leave if he wouldn’t have been stung by a bee into the foot. Some cooling and five gummi-bears later he was happy again. But he was afraid his foot would hurt too much and therefore did not want to go back to the playground.
So we headed off to our next destination, the Red Rock Canyon State Park a bit west of Oklahoma City. It had sounded nice on the map and in fact it turned out to be very nice. The canyon was maybe a mile long, the weather was bright sunny, there were hardly any other campers and we found a spot directly nest to a playground. Perfect!

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So after four days of driving it was time to make a break and stay for longer than just one night.
We enjoyed a full day taking it easy and exploring the canyon. And in the evening we finally cracked the internet issues and stayed up late to upload another blog entry. The pictures were not ready yet, but never mind, at least one entry was live again…
Our next destination was Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Even though most people never heard of that canyon, it is in fact the second largest canyon in the US after Grand Canyon. We had heard about it once before in a picture documentary of the Rotenburg songwriter Shiregreen at the Hünfeld Stadtcafe. So we knew that we definitively wanted to go there. And it was definitively worth the detour from Amarillo.
The first night we already realized that all around our campsites were holes in the earth – the home of some hamster like creatures (we’re not really sure what animal it was). On the next morning we were welcomed by a group of turkeys – one male with four hens following him.

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From our campsite we took a great outing along the river ‘Paseo der Rio’ and then went part of the way to the Palo Duro landmark rock formation ‘Lighthouse’. Max was doing the full way with his little bike. Soon after starting the Lighthouse trail, he attempted a detour and fell into a cactus – but after removing all of the spikes, was ready to start over right away. It was a very fun outing with great sights along the way – the red colors of the rock contrasted really nicely with the blue sky.

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The next morning, we were greeted at our campsite by some deer. Not shy at all, they were grazing directly next to the tents and RVs. Really nice!

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We then headed off towards New Mexico and were amazed by the wealth of information that we were given at the welcome information center directly at the border. Based on that information we defined our plan for today and the next days. We wanted to head into Santa Fe and then head north west from there.
So that’s what we did: after a long day of driving with more than 320 miles, we arrived at our campground in the Santa Fe National Forest. We were lucky to still get a site, as it was already quite late on a Friday afternoon.
And contrary to Palo Duro, we were allowed to make a campfire. Max enjoyed sausages, we enjoyed some steak – excellent!
That evening we also met a couple of German travelers – easily recognizable by the German license plate on their van. They had started their journey in Buenos Aires in November, were going down to Patagonia and all the way up along the Panamericana. They will be travelling until July when they’ll head back to Germany. They gave us a couple of tips on where to go and we returned them the favor by telling about the places we stayed in lately. It’s always great to meet others who are sharing the same passion in regards to travelling.
Saturday morning, we headed into Santa Fe and were surprised by free parking due to the Community Day which took place at the central plaza. What an excellent coincidence. This was the perfect opportunity to see lots of locals and children in action, to see what the local clubs and community programs are like and to admire the fire engine No 1 and the Mustang police car.

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But independently from that special event, we had an excellent impression of Santa Fe. It looks like a really sympathetic place to be. The local style of architecture and the good food certainly help…

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Posted by dreiumdiewelt 22:17 Archived in USA Tagged wildlife canyon camping texas newmexico oklahoma

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