Hey everyone! So, day three started out on a dreary morning in Amarillo, Texas. I had never been to Amarillo before, in fact, I hadn't even been that far north in Texas before. It doesn't matter if Amarillo isn't exactly a go to tourist spot, it's just the idea of being in a new place excites me. It's that seeing places I've never seen and driving on roads I've never driven on feeling that makes me so happy. I love being lost in new places (in a good way of course).

First thing's first, we picked up some breakfast and were en route to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. We stopped at the first scenic area to take in the awesome views and then started our drive to the bottom of the canyon. I think it's pretty neat that you're able to do that. It allows you to fully experience all perspectives of the canyon.

We went straight to the Lighthouse Trail because it's the number one hike to take. While hiking the trail we met a few groups of people who were already on their way out. They warned us that there was a rattlesnake a little over halfway to the lighthouse and to be careful, especially with our dog. Already I was panicked because Sadie isn't exactly an outdoors dog and she loves to stick her nose in places it doesn't belong. However, we kept on going and just figured we would deal with it when we came to it. Now, this is about a five and half mile roundtrip hike, which means it's about 2.7 miles one way. Keep in mind that I said Sadie wasn't an outdoor dog. Back home, she wouldn't stay outside longer than 20 minutes because after that, she's whining and barking to come in. I did make sure to have plenty of water for her but she still started getting very tired. The weather started off being overcast but it cleared up and started getting pretty hot. That's when things got worse for her. We were a little over a mile in at this point and she just kept stopping and wanting to lay down. I began to get super worried and decided that the hike wasn't worth something happening to her. We stopped for a few minutes in the shade to let her drink water and calm down. When we felt she was good to go, we decided it was best to turn back instead of trying to push her to keep going. My poor little pup isn't as adventurous as she likes to think she is!


After getting back to the car and making sure my pup had lots of water and took a treat, we decided to venture off to other areas of the canyon. We stopped at little areas to walk around and left her in the car with windows down so she could rest. All the other times we left her in the car she would start to whine and cry (#separationanxietyissues). After being exhausted from that hike, she didn't care if we left in there or for how long. After a bit of other adventures, we noticed the clouds started rolling back in. We decided it was time to head out before the rain caught us. We stopped one last time at the main scenic overlook because I clearly couldn't get enough. When the rain started coming down that's when it was time to head to Cadillac Ranch.


We arrived at Cadillac Ranch to find quite a few people stomping around in the middle of the street. Of course we thought that was odd but as we got closer we realized that they were actually trying to get the globs of mud off of their shoes. Texas had been quite overcast and rainy the past few days (probably sad to see me and Lyle leave to California- haha but really!), so it's no wonder that all of Cadillac Ranch was a giant mud pit. That didn't matter because we figured "Hey, we're already here. We have extra shoes. Whatever, let's just go!"


First step in and squish, freshly mudded shoes. It got stickier and worse the further we got. There were tons of spray paint cans scattered throughout the mud. I had read that you could bring your own or use whatever was left on the ground but I had decided it was probably best to just get our own colors. It was a good thing we did though because the cans left behind by others were too far gone in the mud. So, we walked around all the cars and checked out the art others had made and then went in on our own spray painting. After enough looking, painting and picture taking, we were left with a good 2-3 inches of mud on our shoes from walking around. Not even kidding. Now we were the ones stomping like crazy people in the middle of the street.


After a somewhat decent attempt at cleaning off our shoes, we finally got in the car and started our venture west for good. It's funny because after 3 days of driving around Texas, my family had been texting me saying "You're still in Texas? You're never going to make it to California!" Let me live, familia! I wanted to finish exploring my homeland before I couldn't anymore! Anyway, I hope you've been enjoying my ramblings about our adventures! Day 4 will be next so be ready for that.