Tag Archives: National Wildlife Refuge

Museums/Events, Parks, Wildlife Preserve/Reserve

Museums, a storm, and Palo Duro take 2!

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Being in an rv during storms is all at once beautiful(I love the sound on the roof) and terrifying.  A big storm rolled through during our stay at the Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. We drove into Amarillo on our second day in Texas to check out the Don Harrington Discovery Center.

It was another ATSC Passport museum so we got in for free again! It was a great museum but my pictures are a bit deceptive.

It was VERY crowded.

There were several school groups there and it was not a huge place so it was SUPER LOUD! I went in with our four oldest and Nick stayed out with the dog and our youngest who needed a nap. Anyone else feel like they need to go be in the middle of nowhere around no people after visiting a children’s museum? Afterwards I dropped Nick and the girls off at the camper and took the boys to the Palo Duro Canyon to hike and take pics.But because it had rained the night before, they closed the trails!

Our campsite was a good 30mins away so I felt obligated to still go even though I did still have to pay the entrance fee.

At this point it was getting laughably ridiculous.1st they are all booked up, now we cannot even go for a hike there!We still went into the museum and stopped at the lookouts at least.Our last trip to the canyon went a lot better though for sure.When we got back to the wildlife refuge we decided to check out some of the trails.It was a pretty walk.

I had to keep reminding myself that I really did love the Palo Duro Canyon and that this time it was just a flop.

Have you ever had a really bad time at a great place?

Camping, Hiking, Museums/Events, My Family, Wildlife Preserve/Reserve

Camping in Texas, CHANGE OF PLANS!

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We needed a stop on our way to the Palo Duro Canyon from the Cibola National Forest so we stopped at the Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum. It was a pretty small museum and did not look like much from the outside.

I was glad that the twins stayed with Nick and went to find a park while I only paid for 3 kids to go in.

HA It ended up being really interesting though and the boys really enjoyed the exhibits. Little Bit loved looking for touchable exhibits and had a lot of fun looking for the blue handprints that let you know you can touch things!

Next stop (we thought) was the Palo Duro Canyon!

We were getting there mid week in May so we thought we should be able to get a site for a night or two.

I was wrong…

They were having an event and all their sites were booked!

I had no clue where we were going to stay that night, we loved the Palo Duro so much the last time we came that I made sure we went through there on our way home so we could stop again!

In a panic I started looking for somewhere to stay that hopefully was not an RV park(I don’t like how close together most of the spots are) and found Buffalo Lake  National Wildlife Refuge.

We decided to check it out and found beautiful open sites and hardly any people! The best part though was it was totally free with our National Park Pass! It is really cheap even without the pass but free was nice. We did not see as much wildlife as at previous refuges we had stopped at but it was still very pretty. There is not a lake anymore, I guess it was not safe so they drained it.

The only downside to this beautiful spot was the vault toilets which were pretty bad but doable.

Our black tank got damaged getting to our last boondocking spot so we could not use the rv toilet.
After backpacking with Nick and having no toilet though I am pretty thankful for anything with a door.

We stayed two nights here and got to explore a local museum(free again!) and we did get to check out the Palo Duro Canyon but it turned out to be another fail.

HA

I will share why in the next post!

It was just a good lesson in not judging a place because of a bad visit!

My Family, Parks, Wildlife Preserve/Reserve

A Volcano and Camping in a Wildlife Refuge ~NE New Mexico

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Our first stop in New Mexico was the Capulin Volcano National Monument.

We had taken the boys there when they were little but it had been a 9 or 10yrs since we had been.

You can’t take trailers to the top so we left it at the visitors center which worked out great.

The view from the top is beautiful and you can hike around the rim and into the crater.

I did not hike the rim because someone needed to stay in the car with the dog.

Pets are not usually allowed out at national monuments.

We did not plan our next stop until last minute.

I saw the Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge on the map on the way to a state park we planned on camping at and decided to make a quick detour.

When we got there we found out they offered free camping! I was sold with this view! We also got to drive around that evening which is a great time to see animals. And we got to mark off another state on our map! It was rustic camping so no hookups but it was so beautiful! And the next morning I got to wake up to birds singing and beautiful views. This is my new favorite way to camp!