Category: grandwesternloop

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

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Hey Guys! When I was planning the New Mexico/Texas part of our trip back in 2015 (the first time we were in NM) I skipped the Carlsbad area. I kept reading all of these sketchy reviews for the RV parks in and around the Carlsbad area. We were so bummed to pass this area by because we’d heard how amazing the Carlsbad Caverns NP is. But, without a place to park our home-on-wheels…we had to miss it.

This year as I started planning our #grandwesternloop I thought about the Carlsbad area again. There are two National Parks available in the Carlsbad area and we do love our National Park Units! So, I dug into the RV park search again. And again, the park reviews weren’t the best. But I felt a little better about one in Carlsbad so we took a chance and booked a spot for two weeks. We were completely prepared to move on down the road if the park ended up being totally sketchy, but it wasn’t! It was a decent park and we spent two very full weeks exploring as much as we could!

We finally made it to Carlsbad Caverns National Park! We didn’t make it during the bat flight program, but honestly…I’m ok with that. The thought of around 400,000 Brazilian free-tailed bats flying over my head just isn’t really appealing to me. I wonder if they offer ponchos to keep the bat guano off of the people watching? The amphitheater where you can sit and watch the bat flight program is in the top picture above.

Speaking of bat guano…some of the early settlers used to mine the guano to sell as natural fertilizer. I can’t imagine what that would smell like. We were there several weeks after the bats had moved on this year and we could definitely still smell them.

I really wanted to see the natural entrance to the cave so we walked the steep, narrow trail down 750 feet to get into the cave.

I’m not a professional photographer. Far from it. I point and shoot. Seriously. So when I get into a cave with dim light…well, I take several hundred pictures of everything and just hope for the best. Fun fact: the first pictures taken in Carlsbad Cavern were taken way back in 1915 by Ray V. Davis. There are more than 110 caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Carlsbad has one of the deepest and most ornate caves ever found. It’s hard to believe that around 250 million years ago the whole area where Carlsbad Caverns is found was under a shallow tropical sea. Yup, you read that right…a tropical sea! It was this start along with some twists and turns from Mother Nature that made all of the rock formations you’ll find in Carlsbad Caverns possible.

It’s amazing all of this was created one drop of water at a time over thousands and thousands of years.

There are several Ranger led tours you can take plus a self-guided tour. We opted for the self-guided tour. When it was all said and done, we walked about 3 miles. The thought of having to walk nearly 800 feet back up to the surface was a little daunting. Y’all, I was sooo glad to see an elevator! It only took a couple of minutes to get back to the surface and the visitor center! Sweet! You can also go into the cave by way of the elevator, but I really wanted to see the natural entrance. And…going down steep inclines is usually easier than huffing your way back up. Usually.

The CCC built all of the buildings in the picture above. They’re still being used today. If you don’t know what the CCC is…go look it up. It was a vital program and should definitely still be in place today. We’re fans.

You might think the only thing to do at Carlsbad Caverns National Park is to explore the cave, but you’d be wrong. There are several hiking trails and even a 9 mile scenic drive! It’s a one way loop that isn’t as bad as it looks. We were told it’s better to have a high-clearance 4×4 vehicle, but we didn’t see anything bad. I wouldn’t recommend trying a trailer or RV on this road, but a car would work alright (in my unprofessional opinion).

We found this magnificent view on the scenic drive. I think…don’t quote me on this…that this was the Rattlesnake Canyon Overlook. There was a little pull off so we all got out of the car and walked down a small trail to stand there with our mouths hanging open just gawking at the view before us. Luckily, I remembered to take a few pictures.

I did find one pretty! I love that light lavender color!

The day we went to explore Carlsbad Caverns NP it was bitterly cold and extremely windy. We did one small hiking trail up top, but that’s all we could stand. It was too cold for us and the wind was absolutely insane. We thoroughly enjoyed trekking through the cave and the scenic drive! We ended up spending almost the entire day here and we really could have spent more time if it hadn’t been so windy and cold.

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

Back In New Mexico!

Back In New Mexico!

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We’re back in New Mexico!! We’ve been missing that New Mexico vibe ever since we found it back in 2015 during our first visit to the “Land of Enchantment”.

We spent two very very full weeks in the Carlsbad, NM area and Guys…we didn’t even come close to seeing it all! I can’t cover everything we did so I’m going to stick with our three favorite adventures in this area. Nicholas will cover a different one for y’all in a different post! The RV park we stayed at had this cool mural on the side of one of it’s buildings.

By chance, I found out about a very cool place in Lincoln National Forest. I’m hesitant to even tell y’all the name because it would be a shame for it to be overrun with people and ruined.  But, because I love y’all so much…I’m going to spill it. Just for you. Sitting Bull Falls!

The CCC was assigned to work at the Sitting Bull Falls Recreation Area in 1940. Most of the structures there today were built by them and they’re still standing strong.

A long long time ago a big portion of the United States was under a Permian Sea. The mountains we know as the Guadalupe Mountain Range is, in fact, an ancient barrier reef very much like the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia today. There are places where the ancient reef is exposed and you can see it. Sitting Bull Falls is one of those places!

On our hike to the top of the falls we kept marveling at all of the fossil bed we could see. If you look closely you can actually see some of the ancient reef fossils! How cool is that? And how nerdy does it make us that we spent quite a lot of time looking at the ancient fossil beds? Don’t answer that…I don’t really want to know. We’re nerds and proud of it! Ha!

When we got to Sitting Bull Falls there were two other families there. One family was leaving, but the other family looked like they were…well, just getting started on a selfie session. They were selfie-ing fast and furious. So…we hiked to the top of the falls to kill some time and see what we could find. We found some really pretty fall colors! We walked the path beside the stream that made the falls for a while before heading back to the falls. When we got back that same family was still taking selfies. Seriously…how many selfies does a person need of the exact same spot?

Speaking of the falls… There are actually three falls. You can explore all of the nooks and crannies at the base of the falls. The boys had the best time here! We found this little pool of green algae that was flowing with the water. It would move and sway with the current. I took a video of it…hopefully the movement shows up in it. I’ll add it to the video that I’ll add to the last post for the Carlsbad area so watch for it there.

Because the falls are so gorgeous…here’s one more shot of them.

Just in case y’all didn’t know…New Mexico is Cougar Country. And…as if that isn’t frightening enough…there’s all kinds of different types of rattlesnakes. I’m kind of glad I didn’t see these signs before we went on our little hike to the top of the falls.

Let’s see…oh yeah, foodies! Carlsbad was a total surprise to us! In a completely good way! I was expecting more of a wider spot in the road with some touristy shops type of area, but it’s not that at all! We found a great little Mexican place called El Jimador, another spot called Danny’s Place that not only had some great smoked meat but, a pretty darn good smothered burrito!

And then there’s Church Street Grill with their Green Chili Burgers and their Texas Toothpicks (onion straws and strips of jalapenos). Guys…this place was soooo good! Too good! Like, I-need-bigger-pants-now good!

They’re not your typical pretties, but you have to admit…they are pretty.

Well, I think I’m going to have to break the Carlsbad area into a few different posts. So stay tuned for the two National Parks we explored along with Nicholas’ post on a zoo we visited!!

See y’all down the road!!

#grandwesternloop

The Grand Canyon Of Texas

The Grand Canyon Of Texas

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Hey Guys! The whole reason we stopped in the Amarillo area was to explore the Palo Duro Canyon State Park! We spent as much time there as we could in the two weeks we had in the Amarillo area.

Palo Duro Canyon is known as the Grand Canyon of Texas and is the second largest canyon in North America. Palo Duro Canyon State Park measures in at 27,173 acres…so, there’s plenty of space to explore and some pretty epic vistas!

The CCC sent seven companies of young men and military veterans to work on developing roads, a visitor center, trails, bridges and a way to get down to the canyon floor. You can see what’s left of their camp in the pic above. The CCC worked here from 1933 to 1937 and the park officially opened in 1934.

I think the structure in the pic above is called Cathedral Rock. That’s what another hiker told us. And…it does seem to fit that name. If you look closely you can see the boys standing in the mouth of the cave.

We only did a few hikes in Palo Duro State Park due to time. My favorite hike was the Lighthouse Rock hike. We started out as soon as the park opened at 8am and had the parking area and trail pretty much to ourselves. We’d driven by the trail head parking area the day before and it was packed. The Lighthouse Rock trail is right around 6 miles round trip and takes you by some fantastic rock structures!

This was our first glimpse at Lighthouse Rock. You can just barely make it out on the right side of the pic above about mid way up. Nicholas was waiting for me to take the picture…he didn’t know he was going to be in the picture. He’s always my hiking buddy…we both have short legs.

The trail officially ends and there’s no view of the famous rock you’ve hiked all that way to see. No view. At all. But, you can scramble up about a quarter mile of this (bottom right picture) to get to the real view. The scrambling was difficult in a few places (especially with a camera around my neck). We scrambled and slipped and slid our way that last quarter mile, but we made it!!

For those who are adventurous enough, you can scramble up onto Lighthouse Rock! It was sooo incredibly windy!!! So windy! But, Guys…check out that view! So worth all of the scrambling and slipping.

It’s always hard to get a good perspective on how big things are in photos. Here’s a pic of Alex standing near Lighthouse Rock. We had the place pretty much to ourselves. There were maybe three other people there and none of them stuck around long.

It wasn’t until we were on our way off of Lighthouse Rock that other hikers started to show up. We didn’t see too many other hikers until we were almost back to our car. The empty parking area had filled up and people were waiting for places to park. We were home by lunch and ready to head off on another adventure!

We did find a couple of pretties! I love the vivid purples and I’m always a sucker for the wispy wild-hair pretties!

Here’s a little video of all of our Amarillo area explorations!

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

Heading West

Heading West

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Hey Guys! We’re back on the road and heading west this loop! We’ll spend the next year making our way through twelve states before heading back to Missouri to visit family again. The plan is to finish up the remaining six states in the contiguous US left on our map, grab a few places we missed as we went through some of the states the first time, as well as, revisit a few of our favorite places. We’ll (hopefully) hit around 40 different National Park Units as we make our way through our #grandwesternloop!

We spent two weeks in the Amarillo, TX area. We don’t normally stop at “roadside attractions”, but we found ourselves at two different roadside attractions while we were in Amarillo. Cadillac Ranch was created in 1974 along Route 66 just west of Amarillo by Chip Lord, Doug Michels, and Hudson Marquez . For those traveling The Mother Road this roadside attraction is a must. And don’t worry…it’s completely legal to spray graffiti on the cars at Cadillac Ranch.

We had to leave our mark. Can you find it?

We’ve heard that the city is thinking about closing Cadillac Ranch down because of all of the spray paint cans being left there. We saw quite a few littering the ground near the Cadillacs. We brought our own cans and we threw them away in the handy dumpsters the city has provided when we left. If you go…make sure to do your part and put trash where it goes.

The other roadside attraction we found ourselves at was the Jack Sisemore RV Museum. We weren’t really sure what to expect here, but we’d heard it was a neat stop and at a great price. Free!

Jack Sisemore has been collecting old RVs for over 25 years. He’s redone some of them and left some in the condition he found them in. He has several RVs in his collection put together to make this museum that you can walk through and see how much RVs have changed over the years. The oldest one he has is the 1921 Ford Lamsteed Kamkar you can see in the pic above. The Kamkar body was mounted onto a standard Model T Ford and came with everything you needed. It was made by Anheuser-Busch and sold for a grand total of $535.00 in St. Louis, MO.

This is a 1976 FMC and was owned by Max Factor, Jr. You might know him as the president of Max Faxtor Cosmetics. We had way more fun going through these old RVs than we thought we would.

Each RV that had been restored also had been set up with items popular the year the RV was made. Check out that video camera! The kitchens were stocked with items from the specific year of the RV. Check out the old tins!

You might recognize this bus from the movie RV! It’s the one they used to film the movie! The inside of the bus was…a little lackluster. I’m going to have to rewatch that movie and pay attention to the scenes shot inside the bus.

Some of the vehicles in the museum aren’t strictly…RVs, but they’ve been used as one. I love this old VW bus! Talk about vintage vanlife!

At the back of the museum they had an old gas station set up. Check out the air conditioner on this car! Here, let me give you a better look at this beast of an air conditioner. Can you imagine sitting right by it? My head would be frozen! It was a true feat of engineering and could be yours for the low price of only $12.85!!

We snuck in a National Park that we hadn’t planned on. The Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument was a very cool place to visit. When we got there we almost didn’t make it inside due to an infestation of paper wasps. I didn’t get any photos…I was more worried about being stung, but oh my word…there had to have been a couple hundred wasps flying around the visitor center. It was slightly terrifying.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the actual quarry because we’d just missed the last tour. We did peruse the museum and watch a film about the area before heading out to see what we could of the park. This area was known for it’s flint. The Native Americans would come here to get the flint to make their weapons and tools. We were able to see and touch some of the flint! Somehow, we ended up on this one lane (but not one way) dirt road. We hoped it would lead to some amazing overlook of the flint quarry, but it just kind of wound it’s way around the area where Lake Meredith used to be. Our GPS was convinced we were driving through Lake Meredith. Ha!

Let’s talk foodies…we found an awesome burger joint called Hil’s Burgers in Canyon, TX! If you go…make  sure to get the onion rings. We also found a Torchy’s Taco in Amarillo…so we had to eat there. Once… or twice…or more.

We also went to a very cool state park, which I’ll tell you about in the next post because this post is getting to be way too long!!

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop