Saturday, April 28, 2018

Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red River

It is a sunny, warm 70 degree day for our drive to Palo Duro Canyon.  Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the US.  It is a surprising find just 30 miles south of Amarillo, TX.  

So if you imagine flat Texas north-land, imagine the Red River carving a deep canyon that is below the flat plains.  It is a good hide-away for us as it was for the first people…Clovis and Folsom cultures left evidence of the tools they used.  And later Apaches and Comanches lived here.

The Hackberry campground has two primo sites (9 & 10) that are somewhat isolated from other campers.  
We settle into #9 and immediately go to visit the Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red River. From the time warp perspective, I will say that in about 3 months we'll find ourselves at the southeastern end of the Caprock Escarpment along the Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red River gazing at a large bison in a campsite without fences.

It is difficult to bundle and cover for the night’s sleep with all this warm air.  And nice to have warm things handy when the overnight temperature drops.  Morning temp inside Q is 33 degrees before Alex lights the heater & starts the coffee.  Outside it is 25.

Another fine thing to recommend this camping location: a warm building housing hot showers. Next stop Roswell, NM.  On the way there we make a slight detour to see the Graf family homestead near Clovis.  This is where Charles (aka Carl and Karl) Graf and Monika (Kempter) Graf settled to raise their 7 children.  Charles arrived in the US from Fautenbach, Baden, Germany. He wished to avoid military service and may have told some fibs about his age to aid that escape.  That and a name change from Bruder make it difficult to find ancestors.  Some genetic detective work comparing family Y DNA with  that of some cousins in Germany indicate a possible common ancestor in Franciscus Antonio Bruder and his mother, Maria Rosalia Harter and his spouse, Maria Anna Gorman.  You can see the Italian & German influence in their names.

From Clovis we head through the mountains towards ….But first there is Roswell.







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