Turkey Trip #3: Bison Crossing

Welcome to Caprock Canyon State Park, home to the Texas State Bison Herd.  Yes, bison. No, not buffalo.  Either way, stumbling upon one of these massive beasts as you turn the corner driving thru the park is both thrilling and a bit startling!

We arrived at the park after dark on Monday, after having missed the initial turn onto the park road (which lead us down a dirt road beside a cotton field that the harvesters were still working in - needless to say, I am once again impressed with RDB's ability to keep it cool, and execute a perfect 3-point turn with our giant camper on in tow!).  This park is far enough away from any developed cities that it was also made for great star viewing - including seeing the Milky Way, though not nearly as pronounced as it was at Copper Breaks the night before.

Diesel wasn't all that excited about being out in the dark where he couldn't see what was going on, so he sat right on top of my feet for a bit (goofball). RDB had a little fun with the red flashlight I bought (knowing that we'd be visiting dark sky parks and that red light impacts your night vision less than white light does.). For under $10 on Amazon, I've been pretty impressed with it (there's a second one in our cart right now. )

We got up in the morning and I fixed tea and coffee, ushered RDB out to the truck, and we drove the 5 miles deeper into the campground to enjoy the view of the canyon walls and in search of the bison herd (300+ in numbers this winter, including about 60 new calves from this spring).  

Lots of beautiful cliffs, but no bison.  So, we went into town to have lunch at the Bison Cafe, only to find them unexpectedly closed for the day.  We just keep missing bison time and time again!  So we walked to the little cafe next door for lunch instead. From there, we pulled up the geocaching app to find a few around town.

One of the first geocaches we found led us to the Quanah Parker arrow trail. We found several along our Thanksgiving week of traveling thru the panhandle.  Also - we couldn't resist driving back over to Turkey, Texas (where we found another QP Arrow) to grab a few pictures of downtown and the antique water-tower.

Back in the park, we set up to get our video for the Park n' Drive, and repeated the quest for the bison herd.  Once again, we were rewarded with a few bison one at a time, but no herd!

That last guy? Totally using the fence post to scratch on.  And he was really loving it - he was scratching as we went past and still scratching when I came back over to the amphitheater to take a few pictures before we started our trip over to the next park. 

We really enjoyed the 'hunt' for bison here in the park, the amazing views of the canyon, and the dark skies and stars at night; we didn't even have a chance to check out the trailways!   We were only here for a one night stay over, and even though there's not much to do in town, we could see ourselves coming back again and spending some time. Maybe next time we'll actually get to see the full herd, and not just the lone bison. 

We were at Caprock Canyons State Park, Honey Flat Camping Loop Site #17 (30a/W).  Perfectly close the bathhouse (paved trail that leads thru the trees), relatively flat (thus the camping loop name!).  There are posts on either side of the campsite which made for tricky parking - but again, my RDB is the best at navigating those tight spaces!  Heads up - there's a 16% grade as you go further into the campground - the only sites back beyond that are electric only or primitive, just don't ignore the sign that says "no trailers over 15 feet beyond this point." 

More camping photos here.

Fora. drive thru of the campground, go here.