A Spring Break Trip

Week of March 12-18, 2016

My friend and former colleague Wes was on spring break from his work, so we decided to take a driving trip with stops for hiking and sightseeing along the way.  We encountered poor wi-fi along the way, plus we stayed busy.  Therefore, I am now posting just an after-the-fact synopsis of the trip.


Saturday, Mar. 12, 2016--San Antonio to Lubbock to Plainview

It was a long drive (about 6 hours) from San Antonio to Lubbock.  We headed immediately to the Texas Tech University campus where we toured the Texas Tech University Museum.  It covers a wide range of exhibits--paintings, photography, quilts, history, etc.  Probably the best exhibits were the ones related to the archeological diggings by professors and students at the university.  They had examples of a number of types of prehistoric dinosaurs and fossils that had been discovered.  One of my disappointments was that we never knew if we were looking at a real skeleton or a replica of one; the exhibits never stated.  From there, we headed to the exhibits at Lake Lubbock where some of the digs done by the university have occurred.

Before checking into our hotel for the night, we explored downtown Lubbock.  I know it was hit by a tornado at one time, but that cannot be the excuse for how bad the downtown is.  First, it is spread out too much.  Second, unlike most downtowns today, there are no signs of trying to revive it by building apartments to encourage people to live in the area.   Third, there is a small area of maybe one square block on the far south end of downtown that is active at night with bars, restaurants, and other forms of entertainment.

We drove to Plainview where we spent the night, because Lubbock was hosting the NCAA Division I indoor track championships resulting in all the hotels having prices over about $125 a night--even the normally cheaper hotels.  Plus Plainview got us closer to our destination for the next day.


Sunday, Mar. 12, and Monday, Mar. 13, 2016--Caprock Canyon and Palo Duro Canyon with Caprock Being the Winner!

A great surprise is that Caprock Canyon is nicer than Palo Duro which is the better-known of the two.  We explored the campus of Wayland Baptist University in Plainview before leaving town.  Our former dean at A&M-Corpus Christi went there as their President after leaving our campus.  There isn't much to it.  I commented to Wes that the Wayland extension campus in San Antonio is nicer than the main campus!

Our main destination, however, was Caprock Canyon State Park.  It has lots of trails through the canyon, and we took the one described as the best for scenery and for keeping us protected from the wind that was blowing.  We hiked maybe 5 miles out and back though a narrow part of the canyon which was lined with massive hulking bulkhead-type walls in dark orange, yellow and white.  Laid down in layers over the years, the white streaks were made up of fibrous material which had the bluish color of glaciers when seen up close.  Pieces of this material were broken off along the edges of the trail.

Few people were at the canyon.  It is mostly unknown, I think.  As we left, we were halted by a herd of buffalo who were crossing the road in front of us.

We drove to Canyon and explored the campus of West Texas A&M University before continuing to Amarillo for the night.  We had hoped to tour the Panhandle Plains Museum on campus, but it was closed due to spring break.  Still, we walked all over the campus which was nicer in many ways than the Texas Tech campus.  Texas Tech has bigger and nicer buildings, but like downtown Lubbock is too spread out in general.  It had one nice area that might be called the entrance quadrangle, but the rest of campus was here, there, and everywhere!

Before nightfall, we explored downtown Amarillo and found it to be a much nicer central city than Lubbock.  It seems more modern with more of the buildings in use.  There are some wonderful old structures such as the Santa Fe Railroad building (now owned by the city and housing city offices).  And there are new, modern structures.  Their downtown entertainment area is right in the center of town and covers a couple of blocks.

On Monday, we headed back toward Canyon so we could go to Palo Duro Canyon.  It gets far more publicity than Caprock.  But we found it to be less interesting.  We took the famous trail to The Lighthouse formation.  The canyon is much wider than Caprock, and the red and yellow colors of the walls of the canyon are less intense than those at Caprock.  Many more people were hiking the trail there due to it being the famous canyon in that area.

After several hours on the trail there, we drove across the Texas Panhandle into northwestern Oklahoma to spend the night in Woodward.

Tuesday, Mar. 14, 2016--Woodward area to Watonga area to Clinton

After spending Monday night in Woodward, we visited Boiling Springs State Park just north of the town.  "Boiling" would more appropriately be called "Bubbling."  The water is not hot.  It comes bubbling up through the mud in a number of places.  Better than the springs was the nice trail we found to hike through the woods.  After being in the Texas Panhandle where there are no trees in nature for the most part, it was nice to be hiking through a REAL forest!!

From there we headed to Alabaster Caverns State Park further northward.  We got tickets for the 11:00 a.m. tour which took us on a 50-minute guided tour of the caverns.  Unlike the sandstone caverns in the San Antonio area, these had smooth ceilings and floors--no stalagmites or stalactites.  What they did have was beautiful alabaster walls that were very colorful when a light was shined on them.  Anyone in the area should make an effort to take a tour.  And don't be put off by the warnings they make you read before selling you a ticket; the trip is not strenuous, not so tight it causes claustrophobia, etc.

Turning southward, we made a stop at Little Sahara State Park.  It has huge sand dunes which have built up along the banks of the Cimarron River.  We hiked up a trail to the top of a dune and then upon a lookout platform there.  The wind was blowing hard.  In the distance, we could see the sand blowing in the air from one dune toward another.  Closer, we watched three dune buggies being driven fast through the valleys and up and down the sides of the dunes.

The next stop was Roman Nose State Park.  It is named after a Native American who was given the name Roman Nose.  It's a park with lots of picnic areas, a lodge, and a golf course.  We didn't find any good hiking trails there, so we just looked around the park and left.

We ended the day by driving into Clinton where we had hotel reservations.  Clinton is a small town, so we explored it and then drove to the west a few miles to explore Elk City before returning for the night.  Both are on the old US 66 route known as Route 66.

Wednesday, Mar. 15, 2016--Clinton to Weatherford to Oklahoma City

Before leaving Clinton, we stopped at the Oklahoma State Museum of Route 66.  It was really quite interesting with lots of photos and exhibits that brought back memories of what it was like to travel on highways in the 1950s for me but also other decades for those who are older.

The next town down the road was Weatherford where we stopped to see the campus of Southwestern Oklahoma State University.  We just drove around it rather than stopping and walking.  Instead, we headed off again for Oklahoma City.

We spent maybe 2 1/2 to 3 hours seeing the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in OKC.  It is very large and very nice to see.   Most of it was quite interesting.

From there, we headed downtown to see the Oklahoma State Capitol,  the National Memorial related to the bombing of the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.  There are always groups of people coming and going there--even at 17:45 when we were there.  Then we headed to Bricktown, the entertainment district for downtown Oklahoma City, to see it including the Oklahoma City Riverwalk and the Land Run Monument.  They did a good job of trying to duplicate the San Antonio River Walk by keeping it narrow and having boat tours.  Unfortunately, however, it is level with its surroundings rather than below street level which means there is less intimacy and compactness.  Also, the part that has restaurants overlooking (never right beside) the river is quite short, then the river runs through open linear parkland parking lots for hotels and a Bass Pro Shop.

Thursday, Mar. 15, 2016--OKC to Sulphur, OK, to Denton, TX

We were running out of sights, plus a cold front had arrived with blowing wind that made it uncomfortable to explore parks much.  We drove through Norman and the University of Oklahoma campus as we headed out of the city.  The only stop we made was in Sulphur Oklahoma where we hiked in the Chickasaw National Recreation Area.  The last time I had been there was when I was in college and a friend and I went camping there for a weekend when it was called Platt National Park.  A very nice lady at the visitor center recommended I hike to two of the springs in the park which we found.  After the hike, we ate some leftover pizza from dinner the night before at a picnic table.  Then we headed down the road to the Chickasaw Cultural Center.  We arrived just as they were having a "stomp dance" demonstration which we watched.  We also watched two men making arrowheads and spear heads out of flint and toured buildings representative of houses and meeting rooms used by the Chickasaw in the 1800s.

The weather was getting colder, and it was a long drive to Denton, so we didn't make any more stops until we got there.  Denton has become known for its active downtown with bars, restaurants, galleries, clubs, etc.  Before heading there, however, we visited the two university campuses--Texas Woman's University and the University of North Texas.  By far, the campus at TWU is the nicest mainly because of its large areas of landscaping.  Unfortunately, UNT has kept parking lots near all its buildings which means there is little landscaping and that buildings which are quite nice lose their appeal due to all the pavement around them.  The highlight of exploring downtown was hearing some nice jazz music at a UNT adjunct art gallery located in the area.

Friday, Mar. 16, 2016--Denton to San Antonio

It was a LONG drive from Denton to San Antonio.  We went through Ft. Worth (the shortest route) rather than Dallas because of construction we knew was happening in Dallas.  But they are also doing lots of construction to widen IH 35W in Ft. Worth and to link it with ramps to IH 830, the loop around the city.  We had a long, slow-moving stretch of highway there.

Traffic in general was very bad on IH 35.  Part of it was related to Spring Break ending.  But another reason was the rerouting of traffic between Texas and Louisiana due to the flooding that had caused the closer of IH 10.  Traffic going from east of Texas was routed on IH 20 to Dallas and then down IH 35.  Traffic going from South Texas and going east was routed up IH 35 to Dallas and then east on IH 20.  So both directions of travel on IH 35 were highly congested with various stretches of stop-and-go traffic.  At one point south of Waco, we cut off and headed through the countryside on county roads until we came to a north/south state highway that would take us back to IH 35 at Belton.

One of the disappointments of the day was that all this traffic meant that every kolache bakery in West was overrun with tourists wanting to enjoy their treats.  Lines could be 25-50 people long trying to check out.  We just gave up and skipped having our anticipated kolache treat.