White Sands National Monument

Had to start the day with an oil change.  One of those little necessities of driving 4000+ miles towing a camper.

White Sands National Monument is very different.  Huge sand dunes of pure white sand, gypsum really.  One area is older, more mature as they call it, and has enough plant life in it to stabilize it.  The younger area has dunes that are moving constantly.  They have to plow the roads to keep them passable.  That part is open to walking pretty much anywhere you want.  We walked a 2 mile trail, barefoot.  The brilliant white sand doesn't hold heat like more common sand.  So even though it was a warm day the sand was cool.

Went out for Mexican food tonight.  Pretty good Mexican food in New Mexico.  Alamogordo is a nice small city.  Spacious like a lot of western cities, wide streets, lots of businesses and museums, no shortage of places to check out.  Another place worthy of a return.  We would have stayed a couple more days but the campground is booked up, someone else has our site tomorrow night!  So onward we go.

Our campsite at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park

Nice design for the White Sands Visitor Center

Older dunes

Callahan got to hike with us

So much white sand

275 square miles of white sand.  Callahan loved rolling in it.

Arrived in New Mexico

A long day's drive, 380 miles in 7.5 hours, one new time zone so it looks like 6.5 hours!  Lots of scenery across west Texas to El Paso.  That looks like a pretty big city now.   And more scenery in New Mexico.  It was varied and constantly changing, from the mountains of Big Bend to the open grasslands, to open scrub brush, a mile long pecan orchard in Lobo TX.  Downtown Lobo consists of three apparently abandoned houses.  Valentine TX has a cool name, but while it is more prosperous than Lobo it's not by a whole lot.

This Oliver Lee state memorial park is quite nice.  Up on a hillside overlooking the valley just south of Alamogordo there are lots of lights in the small residential area along the highway without any other lights in the surrounding area.  It's overcast so we don't have stars but I am certain it would be great viewing if it was clear.

Off to do some exploring tomorrow.

A Texas train

The supermarket in New Mexico doesn't look like the ones in VT!

Last day in Big Bend.  Felt well used this morning but not real sore.  We went over to Rio Grande Village to check out the campground for future use, yup, we'll be back.  It's in the opposite corner of the park.  Nice place, but we both preferred the non-electric area.  The sites that have the hookups are on pavement, the others are gravel and grass.  We can do fine with the generator(s).  The nicest campground is Cottonwood, but they have no hookups and do not allow generators.  Got to get some solar on the camper!
Took a couple nice short hikes just for the views.  Boquillas Canyon is yet another place where the Rio Grande goes into a sheer walled 1300' canyon.
Hot Springs was another short one, an abandoned set of buildings where there used to be a town based on the hot springs next to the Rio.  Not sure of the attraction of hot springs in such a warm climate, but maybe that's why the town failed!

Two Gingos on the Rio Grande

A notice on the picnic tables!

The Rio Grande, Boquillas, Mexico in the background.  The Mexicans leave decorated walking sticks and trinkets in places like this, with a can for honor system payment.  There were a few Mexicans visible on the south side of the river making more sticks.

Boquillas Canyon, Mexican horses

The road into the hot springs

View down the Rio toward the Rio Grande Village campground

Hiking Emory Peak in Big Bend

Emory Peak is the highest point in Beg Bend Nat'l Park, so of course Carlene wanted to hike it!  That was a great idea too.  10.6 miles round trip and 2500' elevation gain to 7850', and we're tired.  It was easier than it sounds, trails here are switchback rather than straight up, and lots of rock steps.  Hard to believe how many rock steps.  Being a park it gets a lot of use and that must be why they go to all that effort.  The last 50' of rise is nearly vertical.  A semi-technical free climb just beyond our abilities, so we were quite happy to get to the base of that.  6.5 hour round trip, the park says 7 is average.

We saw some deer on the trail.  I mean right on the trail.  They didn't care.  With lots of hikers and no hunting they have no concern about humans.

The lion sign was interesting.  They say there are a couple dozen in the park.  The bear are a lot more common.  They have bear boxes everywhere, in all the campgrounds.  They don't have much of a problem as long as people don't feed them.

We were just walking Callahan before bed, the coyotes were out behind the campground howling to each other.  Probably 100 yards out and several of them in an arc covering one whole side of camp.  Cool!

Park signs made of metal with the words cut out.  These should last a while!

Today in Big Bend we had a 4 mile hike to Mule Ear Spring.  All along the way we had different views of the Mule Ears, a pair of peaks that are volcanic plugs, the had rock that forms of lava at the end of an eruption and is all that's left after erosion wears away the rest of the volcano.  They are pretty cool.  I remember a similar structure in Guatemala called Piedras Partidas or Parted Rocks.

Later we went scouting our hike for tomorrow, Carlene wants to do Emery Peak, the high point of the park.  Up to Chisos Basin to check out the campground and trail-head.  They don't recommend trailers over 20' on the road and I can see why.  One hairpin turn on the main road up and three more going into the campground.

Our campsite in Terlingua TX

Trail to Mule Ear spring

At the spring

Mule Ears Peaks

Panorama from Sotol Vista

Exploring Big Bend

We found a round trip route through the western part of Big Bend Park.  Found some great scenery, made notes for some hikes we want to do in the next few days.  Didn't do much hiking today because we had Callahan with us and dogs are not allowed on the hiking trails.  Tomorrow he gets to spend the day in the camper so we can hike.  The one short hike we did was 1.7 miles into Santa Elena Canyon, very narrow gorge in the Rio Grande.  1500' walls above the river, a 3' wide trail going upstream for a short way until it peters out to sheer cliff walls.  Pretty impressive.  There were the usual many places to stop along the road for scenery photos.  Finally a 13 mile rough gravel road to get back out.  It would have been a great road, almost up to Maine's Golden Road, except this was so washboarded that it was 10-15 mph instead of 50.

Still cannot post any pictures due to the crappy signal strength.

Big Bend, arrival

What a gorgeous day!  We had not seen another Vermonter since leaving home, but there in Seminole Canyon Campground we found 3 other Vermont campers!  We decided that we didn't really have time for the canyon tour, something to do on the next trip.  Seminole Canyon is nice enough for a stop on our next trip out here; and we are having such a good time that there will be another winter trip.
So we left about 0920 and saw two school busses of kids waiting, apparently, for the guided tour at 10.  All of a sudden it appeared to have been the right choice!
Along the way we stopped for fuel in Langtree TX, home of Judge Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos back in the day.  They had a good looking museum but no parking for a rig like ours, so we went along.  Another thing to do next time!  Next fuel stop was Sanderson TX, the guy beside me at the gas pump recognized my 2m ham antenna, he is N0BED, Jim, from Denver CO.  We talked off and on for the next 50 miles until we split for different campgrounds.  We will see if we connect on the air again over the next few days.
A few miles down the road there is a coyote trotting down the middle of the road.  I managed to avoid hitting him but it was close.
Our campground tonight is not as nice as Seminole Park, but I did not expect that it would be.  Carlene calls it a gravel pit.  Not quite that bad.  Not a great deal better either.  It's nice enough, flat, fairly spacious for a commercial park, a couple stores nearby.  Weak WiFi, again.  Not sure how many pictures I can squeeze through.

Apparently, none.