Nov 27th
We drove east from Buda today, passing through the Texas hill country and their wine region. Texas wines? Who knew? When you think of Texas you don’t think of wine. There was more of a cowboy or western theme to most of the wineries. We didn’t stop to try any, though. We stopped for the night at San Angelo State Park. We have a beautiful view of the high plains.
Nov 28th
San Angelo State Park has miles of trails, so we booked another night to take advantage of them. There are so many trails, that we sought advice from one of the rangers. For the trails that we chose, we had to drive a couple miles further into the park. We did leave Oreo at home though. There are prickly pear growing everywhere, and one of the grasses produces a nasty thorn that he keeps getting stuck in his paws. The thorns are so bad that the are imbedded in the bottoms of our shoes. The four-mile hike was good. On our drive back, we drove down to look at the lake. Eastern Texas is having drought problems too, and the lake is unusable. The water is so low that the boat ramps are completely exposed. This Park is also home to the Official Texas longhorn herd. There are hundreds of acres that is split into two fields. In one field are the longhorns, and the other contains a herd of bison. This is a nice place to camp, but I can imagine in the summer that it is extremely hot.
Nov 29th
Driving East from San Angelo, the landscape become flat and desolate. It is mostly cotton fields, with oil rigs scattered throughout. It looks like there is trash everywhere, but its just cotton. We misjudged our driving today. We ended up driving an extra hour, because we crossed another time zone when we entered New Mexico. We found free camping on BLM land just outside of Carlsbad National Park. It was getting pretty dark by the time we pulled off the road. The dirt road went up the side of the mountain, with pull-outs to camp in. It got so rough, that we had to put the truck in four-wheel drive. At one point it looked so rough, that we contemplated backing back down and taking one of the spots near the highway, but it was almost dark and backing would be difficult. We made it over the rough spots, and found a spot on the side of the hill. It’s a good thing our trailer has high ground clearance. I just hope we didn’t break anything. The view is amazing and when it was full dark, the stars were spectacular. Since we had such a difficult time getting in here, we are staying for several nights.
Nov 30th
From our vantage point, the sunrise over the desert was magnificent. Mia has been asking to visit caves for the whole trip and this stop was mainly for her. She was up early and very excited to see the Carlsbad Caverns. Due to COVID, you have to make reservations to enter the caves, and I had done that a few days ago. Kathy is not a fan of caves, so she stayed home with Oreo. We had to drive down the dirt road to get out, and in the daylight it looks bad. What were we thinking? Its going to be interesting getting the trailer back down, but we will deal with that in a couple of days. Our campsite is actually on the same mountain that the caverns are in, so we only had to drive a few miles to enter the national park. Once you enter the park it is a seven-mile drive through a gorgeous canyon. Mia’s Parks pass got us into the caverns for free. At the ranger station, she picked up a junior ranger packet, then we headed into the caves. There are two ways to enter the caves, either elevator or hiking down through the natural entrance. To get to the Big Room, it is the equivalent of climbing down 80 stories. We chose to walk. There is amphitheater seating around the entrance to the cave. From May through October, you can come at dusk and watch hundreds of thousands of bats exit the cave. We will have to come back to see that. The caverns are spectacular! No picture can do justice to the beautiful formations. We ended up hiking almost 4 miles, and we did not want to hike 80 floors back up, so we took the elevator. Back at the visitor’s center, Mia finalized her packet for her junior ranger program. She was sworn in, and received another badge. The caverns are a must-do on everyone’s list. One more thing, dogs are not allowed in the caverns. There are signs in the parking lot, telling you not to leave your pets in the car either because of the extreme heat. But this Park has a kennel to leave your pets in. How cool is that?
Dec 1st
Today was mostly school for Mia. We did hike up the road a couple of miles to see some of the other campsites. We have had several people drive by in jeeps. They all ask the same question. “How did you get that trailer up here?” A couple walked up the road tonight and asked the same thing. They had their big 5th wheel at the bottom of the hill, and walked up to see if they could make it. They said that they were staying at an RV park a few miles away, and that everyone was talking about the rig on the mountain. They wanted to see if they could get up here too. They did not attempt it. We sat outside tonight and stargazed.
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