The Lee Family: Cadillac Ranch and Home

On our final morning at Palo Duro Canyon, I woke up at 8am after very little sleep thanks to our mouse friends and figured I'd make myself one last cup of instant coffee and enjoy the amazing view while the girls slept in a little longer. The canyon really is spectacular and looks different throughout the day as the light changes. It's been such a great trip and I really hope we get a chance to return next year, hopefully with CK who I think would also enjoy it as much as we have. I got the girls up around 9am and we got packed up and said goodbye to our little cabin (and the family of mice) and loaded up our car. The girls were both sad to leave and we all agreed that we'd had a very fun few days!

Once we were loaded up, we drove down to the Trading Post for a breakfast sandwich, possible the best in the entire state of Texas. Between two soft yeasty buns is a fried egg, cheese and bacon and it is just perfection! We enjoyed our breakfast and then headed for the park entrance, where I officially checked out of our cabin. I told the nice young lady that the cabin had a good amount of mice, and she clearly knew that the cabin had small, furry occupants. She explained that the cabins are in the wild and as hard as they try to keep the mice out, it's an impossible job. As we drove outside of the park, I noticed a huge group of Barbary Sheep along the far side of the canyon. They were so cool! It was great to see so many of them together and great to actually see the Barbary sheep of Palo Duro Canyon. We saw a lot of wildlife on this trip, but I didn't think we'd see the Barbary Sheep. We continued on our way after a few photos and headed toward Cadillac Ranch.

I figured since we were so close to Amarillo, we had to stop by Cadillac Ranch and see the cadillacs. I last visited Cadillac Ranch probably 18 years ago while in Amarillo for a work trip and the cadillacs have since been moved to a different location, a little further out of town and more in the middle of nowhere. We parked along the side of the access road and I couldn't believe how many other cars and RVs there were to see the cadillacs. The girls just assumed that Cadillac Ranch meant we'd be visiting a ranch with animals and they were a little disappointed when we pulled up and there were a bunch of cadillacs planted in the ground off in a field. We walked out to the cadillacs, which were surrounded by mud and about a foot of water from last night's rain. There were lots of people spray painting the vehicles and the girls were fascinated. Finally, someone came up to them and handed off their half-used spray paint. They kicked off their shoes and headed into the mucky mud and water to get to the vehicles. I stayed well on the shore and took pictures as they painted. They had a great time! Olivia initially had a hard time making her spray can work, but she soon figured it out and they both spray painted their names on the Cadillacs and just sprayed in generally on various parts of the cars. They loved it and it really is an experience unlike anything else one can do. They spray painted a few cars and had a great time for maybe another 30 minutes and then I called them over to start heading home. Of course, they were covered in mud, so I had them clean themselves off in the water as best they could and then we walked back to our car. There were more puddles, that were marginally cleaner, by our car so they finished cleaning off their feet and legs there. Of course, Olivia had to have her feet CLEAN, so I used wet wipes from the car to get her feet totally clean. Sofia just doesn't care.

We strapped in and headed home, taking the same route we took to get to Palo Duro Canyon. It rained, sometimes very hard, for most of our drive. The girls took naps or read and I tried to find a good radio station and not focus on the fact we had at least five hours of driving in front of us.

Maybe an hour into our trip we stopped in Claude, Texas to check out The Burro, a super cute little coffee and gift shop. It literally looked like something we'd find in Grapevine, Texas, but was instead in the middle of a mainly-dead downtown. Wonder how the little cute place makes it. I bought a "Bee Kind" shirt and a coffee and wish we had more time to explore the cute little place. The girls soon fell asleep and the rain continued on and off until we stopped around 3pm at The Blackbird Cafe in Quanah, Texas. It too is super cute inside and out and we planned to get some sandwiches, but they were done serving food. Instead, we got two pieces of cake to go. The girls ate them in the car and I tried a bite of both, which were fabulous! Soon, we entered the metroplex and decided to stop at Buc-ee's by the Speedway, which is only about 30 minutes from our house. It felt good to stretch our legs though. Before we knew it, we were home to CK and Buddy and couldn't wait to show off all our pictures and tell all about our fun few days! Such a great time!

The girls sleeping in on the last morning.