Sunday April 14th, 2024.
After a nice trip to San Angelo State Park and a successful raising of the tent, despite the broken tent poles, I have now had a good night’s sleep and can venture forth to the next locations.
Carlsbad Caverns is the main point of interest on this trip, but I see that I can make it to Guadalupe Mountain National Park as well.
I have previously purchased my tour tickets for Carlsbad, so I have until 1pm before I need to be there, so it’s time to get this car on the road.
I love driving through the desert.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park has several entrances, so it took me a moment to find the headquarters entrance, but I was able to get in, find a parking spot and get my National Park passport sticker and stamp.
Per my usual method I checked in with the rangers and shared how much time I have available and asked what I should see first.
This park has several entrances, many paths and a lot of campsites.
Thanks to the advice from the rangers I will start my visit at the Frijole Ranch Museum.
The parking in this part of the park confused me. I wasn’t sure if I should drive up the path in my car or if the path was for horses.
I think that cars are allowed, but I have time to spare and so I figure a walk is a good call anyway.
Here is a weird face I make while taking a selfie along this walk of desert road.
Here is another weird face that I made while taking a selfie along this walk of desert road.
A nice view of a pointy mountain.
And then back to making weird faces while taking selfies along this walk of desert road.
Look at this thing!
What is it?
Before the invention of plastic, I bet this is what whiffle balls were made of.
Walk complete. Ranch reached.
There is an amazing geyser well thing here.
See how it flows over the top and through this trough outside of the building (bottom left of the picture)?
The water flows to other parts of the ranch from here for a constant, guided stream.
What a great ranch.
I haven’t taken any weird selfies in a bit, though.
Hmm. Not weird enough.
There we go.
Here’s a peek inside one of the buildings.
Oh, and Toot Mountain is erupting. What amazing timing.
As I was leaving I met a couple of visitors and we struck up a conversation about RV life, which is a topic that I am fascinated with.
Bill & Cathy gave me a lot of great advice about how to see the States in an RV.
I’m glad that I came to this park early in the day. It seems that there may be issues with parking later in the day in some areas.
They were also looking to hire a new ranger and I would absolutely love a job like this, though it would be difficult for me to live so far away from the city.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico.
I’m here a bit early so I’ll spend some time poking around and really looking through the gift shop.
Nice view from up here in the parking lot.
I’ve heard that there is free camping in the area and to check in with the rangers to find out where it is.
They have a map that they made and they gave me suggestions about the most likely places to find a site for the night.
One thing that I did not expect during my visit was the sudden realization at how much I have wanted to visit here.
My thoughts of this place are from the happiest moments of my childhood and I almost cried.
I’m here a bit early and I am told that if I wait to get in line to have my reservation printed out that the line should be much shorter and so I continue to explore the lobby and surrounding areas.
Here is what the line looks like to redeem reservations.
In the front of the lobby I offered to take a picture by the sign for a couple of families and this began a chain of folks taking each other’s pictures here.
Of course someone offered to take my picture as well. 😊
I’ve been eating nothing but sandwiches on this trip so far and I decide to spend just a little bit of money on some hot food.
The cavern tour that I booked is self guided, which I did not realize.
I’ve never had a cavern visit where I was allowed to wander around on my own.
One thing that caught me by surprise is just how large the cavern rooms are.
I’ve visited many caves, but I’ve never been inside of a cave that could fit my entire apartment building inside of it.
At one point during the tour I heard a couple of women behind me speak quietly to each other in Spanish and then begin to laugh and so I looked back and saw what they were looking at.
I could not help myself and I also laughed at the boob formation.
I am a child.
There is a lot to see inside of this cave system, but I don’t have many stories to tell from this segment and so I will share a slideshow of the other pictures that I took during this part of the visit.
I don’t know if Carlsbad is expanding their store to the cavern or if they are in the process of closing down a cavern store and moving it out, but there’s a whole shop area and lobby here.
And now I would like to introduce you to Emerald Eagle the Yellow-Naped Amazon parrot who I met as I was leaving the park.
I saw a guy chatting with the rangers and telling jokes and asking if he could enter the park with the bird.
He was not allowed to bring this glorious bird inside, but he did let me hold them and told me a ton of stories.
I first asked if I could take their picture and the owner said “Don’t take a picture of me, I’m ugly.” and so only the bird is pictured above.
Emerald Eagle does not like pets.
They will slowly slid backwards on my arm and I was worried they would fall off, but I am told that this is normal and that they absolutely will not fall off.
I also got some birdie cuddles.
It was a good visit, though shorter than expected.
Time to find a camping spot.
I’ll first go to the suggested location by the park ranger and if it is full I will check out some of the alternatives listed on the map that I took a picture of.
Success!
This location felt like a RV campsite and that I was intruding, but here is a free campsite with shelter, tables, fire pits & a good place to put up a tent.
Delightful.
Unfortunately I did not take a shower yesterday and there is not a shower at this location.
In fact there’s not a bathroom or any running water.
Heck, I need to top off my water bottle.
A quick search on my phone shows a nearby park with a bathroom. I’ll run over there to use the toilet and fill up my water bottle.
I need to go quick so that no one takes the campsite that I’m trying to use.
Woo-hoo! I made it.
The spot I want is still available and now that I’m back I can see that there’s a bathroom nearby.
Well heck.
There’s still no running water here, so the quick trip to the park bathroom wasn’t a waste.
I may need to take a shower at a truck stop tomorrow.
Time to put up the janky tent again. This time I will try using the new pole instead of piecing together the old pole with a single piece from the new one.
It works!
It’s not an elegant solution, but now that I can see that it fits maybe I complete the pole by installing the stretchy rope that belongs inside of the pole to make for easy assembly tomorrow.
Let’s try out that kite that I couldn’t fly last night.
The wind here is good, but not super strong like yesterday.
So much dust in the desert.
But the kit is a success!
I spent the next hour chatting with the folks in the RV next to me about what RV life has been like for them.
Today was a good day and tomorrow’s goal is to visit Big Bend National Park which is a popular location.
RV folks are good for chatting with.
A beautiful sunset while surrounded by travelers.
A good end to the day.
Penny says “Hi.”
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