Year: 2015

 

On our way to our next stopping point we made a pit stop at the Smokey Bear Historical Park. I had a great time in the visitors center learning about fires and fire prevention. We completed a special Junior Ranger program by the New Mexico Forestry Division. We also earned a really neat patch.

We saw the burial site of “Smokey Bear” who was found as a cub in 1950 after a bad fire.

Remember ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES!

9 out of 10 wildfires are started by humans! We learned a lot about how to protect our homes from fires and how we can help prevent fires from getting out of control.

It rained all day one day and we called it the lazy campground day. Mom worked on laundry pretty much all day. When she finished we headed to the game room so I could shoot darts and play foosball. I opted for a game of Monopoly.  Emmerson and Dad joined us after the game for some family foosball.

 

After nearly two solid days of freezing rain it finally cleared up. Our site at the Carlsbad KOA was fantastic. We had a huge fire pit, a covered picnic table and even a patio swing!

     

Since it was sunny we headed out to a place called the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. They had mock habitat for the region and lots of local animals.

 

 

I loved the javalina!

 

We sniffed every flower and plant that was in bloom.

 

The scenery was amazing. We truly were in the middle of nowhere! 

The prairie dogs were really entertaining. We have seen several in the wild but it was fun to see how they interacted with each other. 

We have also seen a LOT of tumbleweeds. This was the biggest one we have seen so far. When we drive they are always blowing across the roads.

 

When we finished at the zoo and gardens we headed to Playground on the Pecos. It was a giant wooden playground that you could play in for hours and still not see everything.

When we got home we rode our bikes for a while and played on the playground with the digger toy in the shade.

We did get to swim the first day at the campground but once the rain started we were too cold. This photo was from Daddy, we forgot to add that.

Our time at Carlsbad is up and we move on in the morning.

After a leisurely start to the day we drove a few hours to Carlsbad. We truly were in the middle of nowhere. The roads were worn and the scenery was oil derricks, oil pumps, open fields, a few cows and desert plants. The Chihuahuan Desert is massive! It is hard to believe we are still within its borders.

We switched to Mountain time as we entered New Mexico. We arrived at the Carlsbad KOA and set up camp and explored the campground a little. Then we loaded into the truck and drove to Roswell to look for aliens! We visited the International UFO Research Center and Museum. They had lots of information on disproving aliens. It was a bit silly but we all enjoyed our brief time. The entire town was alien obsessed. Even the street lights were domes that they added alien eyes to.

We drove back through Artesia, New Mexico and opted to just keep driving. We were all getting tuckered out. We got back, had dinner and went swimming at the campground pool! Quick showers and some downtime before bed watching Deadliest Catch on the campground free cable.

The next day was long but amazingly fun! We were out early, as usual, and drove to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

We picked up our Junior Ranger books and tickets for a tour we had booked from home. We hiked in the Natural Entrance Trail down over 800 feet, it was about 1.5 miles of switchbacks.

Coming into the cave was breathtaking. We had been to lots of caves before but this was beyond words.

We arrived for our tour of Kings Palace, with our guide Ranger Eric. We stuck close to the ranger and asked lots of questions. We found out that he started in the Florida State Park system at Honeymoon Island! He was a fantastic guide and very knowledgable. I got to lead the group with the lantern and even run the light switches to take us to total darkness in the caves.

  

Kings Palace was beautiful. We saw stalactites, stalagmites, columns, flows, draperies, soda straws and so much more. After the 1.5 hour and 1.5 mile tour of Kings Palace we opted to stay longer and tour the Big Room.

The Big Room was massive! Millions of years in the making provided an amazing sight.

After we wrapped up at the caves we took the elevator back to the surface and completed our Junior Ranger books and earned our patches and pins.

We grabbed lunch from the cooler on our drive to Guadalupe National Park. We visited Frijole Ranch and learned about how the spring water was a the key to survival in the desert. It was interesting to see springs in such a dry place.

We visited the visitors canter, hiked a short trail where we learned that this area was a stopping point on the mail delivery system. Then would travel on average 120 miles a day. I can’t imagine wagons crossing the rough dry land.

I found a bone on our hike.

We earned our Junior Ranger badges and patches at Guadalupe and called it a day as the storms rolled in.

Today we walked nearly 8 miles but no one is showing signs of exhaustion!

We have certainly had our share of weird weather on the trip so far. Nothing dangerous but just unexpected rain in the dry desert, dust storms and hail! Must be the darn Kokopelli!

We were up and out early again to drive towards Davis Mountain in Texas to visit the McDonald Observatory. First we dropped the camper at Davis Mountain State Park. We then drove up to the observatory for a daytime program. We killed some time in the exploration center.

We learned more about the Dark Sky initiative and had a tour of one of the larger telescopes. We got to see how it moves and tracks with the dome closed.

It was GIANT.

Then we toured the Hobby Everly Telescope (HET). It was made of more than 90 mirrors and looks at light instead of regular visual images. During our tour it began to rain and then hail. I was fascinated by the hail. I could hardly focus on the telescopes when there was ice balls outside the window.

We headed back to camp for rest and relaxation before our late evening viewing program.

It started to rain again, then small hail about the size of a pea. Suddenly the hail got bigger, about dime sized. We thought we would float away with all the rain. This is supposed to be desert!

After the storm ended to headed out to the observatory again. The clouds were still in the area so we didn’t have high hopes of our program happening. We were able to take part of a tour and see the 36” telescope but not able to use it. I got to drive the dome during a demonstration of how it would work if the weather wasn’t icky.

We saw some photos on the guides laptop of things we WOULD have been able to see. Oh well, there is always another time. The gave us cookies and lemonade and that made it all better.

In the morning of departure we took our time and enjoyed playing outside with all the rocks and roly-poly bugs we found. We made a city for the roly-poly bugs.

Off we go to Carlsbad area for several days of fun and exploring.

Speed limit—80!!!

We had a long drive from San Antonio to Big Bend National Park. We were staying outside the park in a city named Terlingua. We set up camp in the evening and had dinner at a local diner. We had stopped on the way through the park and picked up our Junior Ranger books so started working on them a bit in the evening.

While at the park we saw some beautiful sights. We checked out a fossil sight and learned how long this land has been developing and all the animals that lived here in prehistoric times.

  

I checked out the rocks and the plants. I was deep in thought looking all the land in front of me.

Off to bed early as everyone was exhausted from the long drive. This was our last BIG drive for a while. From here on out we will be having shorter drives between points. We opted to take a dirt/gravel road called Old Maverick Road. It was about 14 miles of washboard bumpy roadsand boy was it AWESOME!

 

I laughed hard as I hung out the window as we drove at about 5 mph.

We saw jackrabbits, kangaroo mice, roadrunners, a javalina, buzzards, cotton tail rabbits and lots of bugs. Big Bend is part of the Chihuahuan Desert and the plants were so different. Some of my favorite were the ocotillo, sotol, century plant, agave, lechaguilla and lots of cacti. Everything was in bloom. The blooms on the cactus plants were so pretty.

We bought a book about the flora and fauna at Big Bend and Emmerson looked everything up to learn more about it. I looked some things up as well, but he was excited to do it so I let him.

We stopped at all the historical pull outs. I enjoyed the jacal. It was a shelter for a family made of rock and ocotillo plants. Inside the structure it was about 10-15 degrees cooler!

We drove down to the Rio Grande. There is a split in the cliffs that were about 1500 feet tall. One side is Texas and the other side is Mexico. We hiked down to the river and tossed stones into Mexico! The water felt really cold for the desert.

We continued our drive of the massive park and saw mountains made of tuff (volcanic ash) that settled and then lava on top of them. This entire area was made from old volcanos although there are no volcanos in the area today. Some of the mountains have funny names. This is Mule Ears.

The views were amazing.

Next we hiked the Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff Trail. In times of high water in the area this turns into a waterfall.

There were lots of beautiful rainbow lizards.

I want a lizard like this when i grow up but a ranger told me they were better in their natural environment. I guess I will just have to work here someday!

At the end of the trail you come to the waterfall area. We decided to climb a bit. I got scared but made it up. Down was very hard but I made it safely to the ground.

On our hike back we spotted the most spectacular cactus of the trip so far!

We stopped by Terlingua Ghost Town. It wasn’t very much like ghost towns we had heard about. It was populated and tourist industry based. After a quick visit we headed out. I bought a Kokopelli rock, which Mom and Dad are blaming our strange weather on.

We called it a day and headed back to camp. A dust storm rolled in and we were shut inside for an hour. We headed back out late for an evening ranger program about “dark skies”. Basically we learned about light pollution at night and how it effects our bodies, minds and also the abilities to see the stars that our ancestors saw. Big Bend is registered as a Dark Sky area. The stars were AMAZING!

Up early again and off to explore more. We drove to the Rio Grande portion of the park next where we saw the pterogylphs and pictographs in the Hot Springs area.

We dipped out feet in the hot springs. The water was very warm and I could have stayed all day with my legs dangling into the waters. I did make Mom and Dad nervous as I scaled the wall with the rushing waters of the Rio Grande behind me.

We also stopped at a place called the “window”. It is a gap between the mountains that looks like it goes on forever.

 

We saw a nipple cactus too. They grow mostly underground!

We checked out the visitors centers and turned in our books to get our Junior Ranger patch and badge.

We headed back to camp for showers and food. Dad was the last to shower and got caught in another dust storm on the way back from the showers. He got safely inside when we heard a smash as debris was flying into the camper. After we could see more than a few feet we saw a giant sheet of insulation that had flew into us. No damage, thank goodness! It was quite a windy dust storm.

Overall, the scenery was amazing to say the least. I had no idea Texas had such different landscapes.

We added Texas to our state stickers too.

Off to Davis Mountain next to visit the McDonald Observatory!