Well, here we are, in the largerst McDonalds in the world. Maybe thats an exaggeration, but this is by far the most enormous one i've been in yet. Took a picture. Maybe ill show you all later. We're in Del Rio, Texas, not far from Mexico. Most every one around us is hispanic. But don't worry all, its a very safe area, and we found a sweet campsite on the reservoir here which is part of a national recreational area. We've finally entered an area where the birds are new, so I'm pretty excited to start getting up at 6 am and birding around the camp sites that we go to these next few days. But enough about the future. That time will come. Let's reflect on the past.
3 days ago: We drove to Flagstaff from the Grand Canyon, and met up with my friends Tim and Kate again, who had moved to a new apartment closer to downtown Flag. We were very excited to be able to sleep on a blowup mattress in the guest room. We were also happy to see their dog, Carl, who is some sort of mutt, but the nicest dog you've ever met. We walked downtown with Kate to grab some burritos at the Black Bean Burrito house. Two words: a mazing. After, Kate had to go in to work, but fortunately Tim had just gotten off work (He's a birder too, and does bird surveys for the Flagstaff area. Sweet gig, I'd say). He took up halfway up Mt. Humphrey's, the highest point in Arizona at over 12,000 ft. We each had a beer (except Carl), checked out the wildflowers, searched for edible wild mushrooms, and watched the sunset on the land below us. Best sunset I've seen on this trip I'd say.
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| Wildflower fields on Mt. Humphreys outside Flagstaff |
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| Sunset from Mt. Humphreys |
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| Tim Justine and Carl watching the sun go down |
2 days ago: After a fantastic night that was capped by smores in Tim and Kate's backyard, we awoke fairly early and headed off to New Mexico, specifically Albequeque, where an old time friend of the family, Aileen, now lives with her husband Billy and their dog Rudy (another very cute little dog that has a mysterious fetish for humping your feet. Hey its a dog, I wasnt too alarmed). Along the 5 hour drive from Flag to Alb, we stopped at Petrified Forest NP, checking out some pieces of petrified wood. Nothing much in this park besides the wood itself. The surrouding area was all desert. But the 'wood' was really neat. Over millions of years, it had all turned to stone! Yup, solid rock. It's not magic. It just takes a long time. Once in Alb by nighttime, we were treated by Aileen to a traditional New Mexican meal of burritos, enchiladas, and soppapitas, which is just bread you dip in honey. We all thought we were going to explode after that meal. Justine's platter was enough food for a whole family. We couldnt even finish half of it. Aileen and her husband live in a nice development, in a nice house (sorry for lack of description), and we got to sleep on a real bed! in the guest room.
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| Petrified wood turned to stone. This was all there really was to see at this national park. |
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| Albequerque |
2 days ago: An 8 am start to the day, we awoke to Billy coming home after a night out at a friend's bachelor party. He had to go to work, but he sure didn't look like he wanted to. Justine and I went for a run, then did a little hiking before meeting up with Aileen and Billy in downtown Alb for another treated meal. Mmmm, I like New Mexican food. We toured around old town Albequerque, checking out the local stores and boutiques, the hat store, the wine and cheese cafe. A very quaint town. We said our goodbyes to Aileen and Billy, and headed off for Lincoln NF to the south. We made it there by dark, but had quite a lot of trouble finding our campground. We stopped at a small RV place to ask for directions, but the guy there only creeped us out, telling us how "he loved the young people", and tried to convince us to stay in one of his RV's where we could watch DVD's and sleep in a bed for only $50. We passed up that chance, and tried our luck at finding our campsite. Well we failed here too, driving around in the dark on dirt roads for a half hour, only encountering some random folks just as lost as us. It was getting late, and we decided to head back to the creepy RV park. Fortunately, just before this park, we found a well marked, well serviced RV park, which, besides the giant wood sculpted alien out front, ended up being a very safe and satifying place to camp under the stars. Justine was even lucky enough to see a shooting star, which I missed, of course.
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| The open road of central New Mexico |
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| This was the inviting looking RV park we decided to stay in after a night of searching. Fortunately, we didn't notice the creepy wood carved statues there to greet us when we came in at night. |
1 day ago: We awoke today with the goal of making it to Carlsbad Cavern NP, 3.5 hours away in SW New Mexico, a drive which takes you through Roswell, NM, the place where aliens are always seen, and Lincoln, NM, where Billy the Kid made his last stand. Besides that, there's not much to see along this drive. Unless you 're looking for birds like me, then its a little more exciting. But we made it to our campsite 30 miles from Carlsbad at Brantley Lk SP, and put up our tent in the heat of the day: 104 degrees. Well if that wasnt bad enough, the outhouse at this park had some friends to greet us upon arrival. A lizard in the men's room, and a mouse in the lady's room. Welcome to New Mexico. Well that was enough of that, so we went to Carlsbad and spent the heat of the afternoon 800 feet below the surface in some of the most expansive caves in the world, staring up at stalagtites and stalagmites and all sorts of other cave formations. I could go into a ton more details on the cave. But here's a quick overview. Dark, cool (58 degrees), bats, pristine, elevator back to the surface completely necessary. The pictures will help you better understand this area when I post them. AFter a dinner of pasta, we went back to the cave entrance to watch 250,000 bats leave in swarms for the night. But this year, of course, is a bad year, and we only saw maybe 500 bats leave. Still, a pretty neat experience on a beautiful night. Drove back to the campsite and watched The Mask on my laptop before falling asleep in the hot desert again.
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| Entryway into Carlsbad Cavern |
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| Stalagmite? |
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| Stalagtites? These are just little ones maybe a foot or two long. Some of them reached 20 feet long. |
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| This is the entry from which we watched all the bats leave at night. |
Today: West Texas doesnt have much. If you want a drive where you wont see a house for like 200 miles, drive from Carlsbad, NM to Pecos, Tx. Thats exactly what you'll find. It's all desert. Make sure you have a full tank of gas too. We basically made the 6 hour drive straight to where we are right now, pulling off only for gas stops and random bird sightings when I would yell at Justine to turn the car around to look at a hawk on the telephone pole. You know, just ordinary stuff like that. But we're here now, in Texas! and excited to continue east! Were in the central time zone now too, so only an hour behind all you easterners. We're getting closer!
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| Campsite outside Del Rio |
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| The McDonald's down in texas are all super-sized |
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