2013 Texas, New Mexico Adventure (The first two days)

We had a wonderful trip recently, visiting with our oldest son and his family, with many adventures in Texas and New Mexico!
First I-20 Nature Preserve  Midland, Texas. http://www.i20wildlifepreserve.org/  .

We saw a roadrunner right here.  We also saw a Hawk, two Dessert Cottontail, dragonflies, butterflies, a Mourning Cloak, and woodpecker. 

 

Herb Robert blooming at I-20 Nature Preserve in Midland, Texas.  February 13, 2013.

 

After lunch we went to the CAF AIRPOWER MUSEUM   http://www.airpowermuseum.org/  also in

Midland Texas.  There is so much to see here, lots of history.

 

 We ended this day with dinner at KD's Bar-B-Q always a tasty and filling meal.  (http://kdsbarbq.com/)

 

 

The next day we took off west ~ 180 miles to Carlsbad, New Mexico.  We visited the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

 We took the natural entrance down into the cave.

 See the hole at the bottom?  You walk on the paved, serpentine, walkway into the cave.

 A pretty awesome place.  After being in the caves for two hours we came out into the sunshine again.  We sat on the back of Andrew's truck and had lunch.

 

Our "picnic table" what beautiful vistas from this place.

 

After lunch we popped back into Texas to do a hike at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Starting at the mouth of Pine Spring Canyon, we hiked Devil's Hall trail, this trail follows the dry wash through the canyon to a narrow section where the ravine cuts through thin-layered limestone and is bordered by sheer cliffs 100 feet high.  About 4.2 mile round trip.

 

Hiking in a canyon is different than hiking through the woods, of course, I would never give up the woods, but for some reason I do enjoy wandering through these rocks.

 

What a day, such fun but in two days I have had a whole week's worth of adventures.  Now we have a 170 mile trip to Cloudcroft, New Mexico. 

 

We stop off at the No Whiner Diner in Carlsbad.  Good food.

It was late when we arrived at The Lodge Resort and Spa situated at 9,000 feet on the Sacramento Mountains.  This place could be an adventure all on its own.

http://www.thelodgeresort.com/index.cfm

 

 

Here are some sunset pictures from up in the tower of the Lodge.

 

 

 

I was going to try and fit the whole week of this trip in one post but as I work on it I research the places we went.  So I get a little side tracked.  I'll try to finish this soon. 

 If you ever want to have fun out west just call up my son, he is a fun tour guide, and since he is a geologist, he has interesting information about the mountains and pretty much everything you see. Thanks Andy.

 

 

Big Bend National Park, a trip to Texas - February 2014 (Part one)

Texas here we come...

We have had quite the winter here in Grand Haven Michigan, very cold and tons of snow.  I like the snow but it can warm up now, it is the end of February. 

Mike and I took a break from winter and visited our oldest son, Andy, (and family) in Midland, Texas.  Andy planned a fun trip for us while we visited, this time we went to Big Bend National Park.  This was our second trip to Big Bend, we went there in 2011.

Our first day in Midland, Mike and Andy took the dirt bikes for a ride at an adventure park. They rode around for a couple hours while I stayed with the truck and sought out bugs and plants.  I found a few bugs not many plants, and it was warm.

The next day we drove to Terlingua, Texas where we rented an Airstream motor home from Retro Rents.



The Retro Rents Airstream was fine for a home base, except for the fact that the water supply was not secure and twice flooded the back half of the unit. 

Andy has some property nearby which we visited (mostly when it was dark).  Here are a couple views from the high point of the property looking at the moon rising.

We hiked the next day to Cattail Falls, oh cattails that reminds me of marshy Michigan...

 Along the trail to Cattail Falls...

It was very warm and I think it was at this point my cold Michigan bones thawed, it felt good.

 Cattail Falls had some water trickling down, and there were cattails and a pond.

Rock reflecting in the pond.

I saw several butterflies, and some sort of red trumpet type flower, maybe Scarlet Sage.

    Back to the truck and air-conditioning. 

Just driving along there are mountains, beautiful mountains.  Texas also has a huge sky and it seems to be mostly blue.  Since Andy is a PhD geologist, and is familiar with Big Bend, he tells us interesting information, as we ride along, about the mountains and rocks.  Unfortunately, I remember very little of what he says, but I thoroughly enjoy listening.

We started seeing these flowers alongside the road, Andy pulled over so I could get out and photograph these beautiful wildflowers, Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis).  Wildflowers!

Next on to Santa Elena Canyon, we did a quick walk here, it was getting dark.  The water level was high in the Rio Grande River.  The rock on the left side of this photo is Mexico.

A pretty mountain in Big Bend National Park, Texas

A nice home in Grand Haven, Michigan. 

 

In case you are not familiar with the location of Big Bend National Park, I circled the approximate area in red on the map below. The park is huge with ~ 801,163 acres!  In the next post, the second half of the trip, including a river rafting trip on the Rio Grande River.



Big (Bend) Adventure

February 10 2011 

This was the day the Big Adventure started, at 4 a.m..  Off we go to the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids Michigan, catching a flight across Lake Michigan to the General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee Wisconsin. 

     Over Lake Michigan

So far so good, hmm wonder where this Big Adventure is going to take place? (There is a clue in the title in case you missed it)

 Arriving in Milwaukee we headed off on another flight to Dallas Texas, to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Same airline, Frontier Airlines, things are going smooth.

Our final destination by air (American Airlines) was to the Midland International Airport located between Midland and Odessa Texas, here we met up with the reason we flew to Texas, our son Andrew

(check out his blog at http://sabkha.blogspot.com/). 

                            Downtown Midland





               Midland Texas



This was just day one, next time day two.