I am way behind on posting our "day off" adventures. I'm going to briefly say something about each place we have visited. All along I have been posting some pictures for my FB friends and will continue.
One of the first places we went to was Carlsbad Caverns. It is huge. We entered through the natural entrance rather than the elevator and took about 2 hrs walking around in the cave. It is an awesome place. There are many tours to take but we just did the self-guided with audio. We have been able to visit twice with two different sets of great friends. One evening, Dale & I went back for the Bat Flight which on our night happened to be a bust. For whatever reason, the bats didn't fly out at dusk as they normally would. The ranger said it could be due to the extreme drought this area has been having. Since our visit a while back, several campers have seen tons of bats coming out. We will definitely go back.
The Guadalupe Mountain Nat. Park was our next place. It is just over the Texas line and takes about 1 1/2 hrs to get there. It is a "hiking" park and we were able to do the Devil's Hall Trail. It was several miles and quite rocky in areas. Some areas we had to look for the cairns to see which way to go. A very cool day but not in temperature. It was 102! But with our CamelBaks, we were prepared.
Roswell is famous for their International UFO Museum and Research Ctr. That is only one hour north of us and was really interesting with all the articles, pictures, and affidavits that are posted there. It isn't a big place but definitely worth the 5.00 to enter. There was a cover-up of something, that's for sure! I'm not saying what...
White Sands near Alamogordo, NM was a day trip. The sand dunes look like snow. There is a long loop road that you drive through. They are composed of gypsum and are so bright that even with sunglasses I couldnt see what I was taking pictures of when aiming my phone at the dunes. We also had a couple discs to slide down the dunes but it was slow going. I had bought a 75 cent square of wax at the visitor center to wax the bottom of the discs, but somehow must have dropped it and we didnt have it when we got in the park. Slow.....
Lincoln, NM was our most recent trip. We took our 2 days off and went overnight to Ruidoso, NM. It is up in the mountains which is opposite of the climate we are living in here at the campground. Only 2 1/2 hrs away but a big scenery change. Ruidoso was our jumping off point to visit Lincoln and also Capitan. Lincoln is the town that Billy the Kid spent time in and escaped from the courthouse by shooting 2 people. The actual buildings are still standing just the way they were and the town hasn't changed except for the adding of the paved road through town. So much history there that shaped the town and New Mexico.
Just down the road is Capitan where the real Smokey Bear cub was rescued from the forest fire and was only a few weeks old. Another interesting story. The posters came several years before the bear and fire. So when Smokey was found, he became the poster child for Only You can Prevent Forest Fires. After healing, he spent the rest of his life in DC in the zoo. Then after 20 some years when the original Smokey died, Little Smokey Bear was the next one to take the title. After the 2nd one, there were no more. Capitan was able to reclaim the original Smokey back after he died and we saw his grave there at the Historical Park.
We have had rain the last 3 days. Very unusual here! But glad to see it. Life is great here but we sure miss the family!
No comments:
Post a Comment