I took approximately a billion photos today. Certain parts of the world are photogenic, some aren’t. For instance, at any given moment more pictures are being taken in Venice than anywhere else in the world (that’s a completely made up statistic that is totally true) whereas in the past five years not a single photo has been taken in Pecos TX that wasn’t for a birthday or wedding. I guess I’m trying to say Big Bend is photogenic – it ranks up there with Bryce Canyon amongst National Parks.

We took the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive (that really is the name of the road) all the way to Santa Elena Canyon and the Rio Grande. I have to say the canyon was spectacular, huge, and impressive, while the Rio Grande should be named the Rio not so Grand. It’s no bigger than the Meramec River, but it IS an international border. The west side of the park is filled with mountains, bluffs, dry river beds – it’s in a constant state of altitudinal flux. We also drove into the Chisos Basin which is very impressive – surrounded by a ring of mountains except for a single “window” where all the water flows out and drops to the valley below.

Big Bend is our penultimate stop on the Journey to the Far Side of the South West. We have three more nights in the Motel Time Forgot before we move on to San Antonio and our final AirBnb. So far the two Airbnb’s with laundry facilities have been at just the right time to keep us going, but we may be forced to hit a laundromat in San Antonio. It’s one thing to get off the trail stinking and filthy, it’s another hit the trail that way.

And on that bombshell, it’s time to end the post!

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Everyday is Saturday now, not even a Sunday anymore.

Today was a travel day as we went southish to the Big Bend National Park area where we checked into a motel that feels like it’s been caught in a time loop and is stuck in the 50s. No flatscreen TV and actual keys. The cell service is 3G and the front desk puts the WiFi password in for you. Lunch was in Pecos at Chinese Buffet- that’s what the sign said in English, sadly I can’t read Chinese characters so I don’t know it’s name. I don’t know if the town is named after the river, or the river after the town, but the river runs through it.

We lost an hour but gained, well, a new appreciation for Texas. We started out in the Permian Basin which seems to be experiencing an oil boom. There are prefab worker housing compounds all over the place. The electrical grid seems haphazard as there are lines of telephone poles as far as you can see going in every direction, with sometime two parallel lines on both sides of the road, and the lines with the big metal towers going every which way, converging at substations in the middle of no where. When we got far enough south, just like that all signs of civilization, including oil tanks and power lines were gone. We turned on to Texas 1776 and the only man made objects in sight were the road and the wire fencing along it. I spent a good part of my day just looking at and for telephone poles. They were the only trees I saw all day.

Eventually we made it to Alpine TX which is a little town at the crossroads of two highways that seems determined to trap you in town since you are forced to make about five turns to get from one road to the other. But MBH and Siri kept me on the right path and we made our escape. Just outside of town was a housing development that consisted only of a gravel road down a valley and an impressive entrance with a sign that said “We sell tranquility by the acre”. I think they don’t know the difference between tranquility and solitude.

For some reason, the less I have to say, the longer it takes me to say it.

Tags: JTFSSW

We went to Carlsbad caverns today, twice. First, we got up at the crack of dawn and skipped breakfast so we could get there in time to get our timed entry ticket. Because COVID they recently decided to lima entry be selling only 1,000 timed entry tickets a day on an in person, that day only, first come first served basis. So it’s not like we were all bunched together in line, oh wait, it was exactly like that, for about 30 minutes. And they just announced they would be switching over to an online reservation system like every other place, including other national parks, starting next week. Missed it by that much. Then we drove back to town to get breakfast because nothing was open at the park and then we drove back out to the park to actually do in (down?) the cavern.

Some say the Grand Canyon is a big hole in the ground; I’m sure those same people would say Carlsbad Caverns is just a big hole underground. They wouldn’t be wrong, but they wouldn’t be right, either, as it is so much more.

Carlsbad itself is a small town at heart. I like small towns and the people who live in them except for one thing – they are slow drivers. The speed limits are ridiculous – 25 MPH through the main part of town, even on a highway with a 75 MPH speed limit outside of town (I’m loving the speed limits in the wide open spaces of the Southwest). And then they all go 5 under the speed limit, and ooze away from any stop, and sit at stop sign long enough to read War and Peace. They pull out in front of you and don’t accelerate, camp in the left lane, and in general act like taking all day to go anywhere is the fun of driving. Trust me small town drivers, driving well is the fun of driving, and driving more slowly than conditions warrant is not driving well.

And on that bombshell I’ll end the post.

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Location: Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA

Weather: outstanding.

Scenery: outstanding.

Our bodies: a little past their prime.

We hiked McKittrick Canyon in Guadalupe Mountains National Park today. This was the prettiest part of Texas we’ve been except for the Dallas Botanical Garden, and if something had been blooming in the canyon it would have won. Beauty around every corner, be careful not to step in any. Make way, hikers. I’m armed to the teeth and packing a hamster. Fellow hikers, you must gather your party before setting forth.

Breakfast at the Airbnb, lunch on the trail, dinner in town. Yum. Friendly people all day long.

Tonight: Laundry

Question: Minsc

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This morning the sun was bright and the air clear in Alamogordo, which made me wonder if I had dreamed the day before. Then I put on my sunglasses and the grit on them made the truth clear, woah, yesterday happened. So I could only marvel at how quickly the dust settled. And then we were off on the next adventure.

We drove up into the mountains (again) and tried to follow the Billy the Kid Trail – it’s a driving route, but the visitor center was closed, there are no road signs, so about all we had to go on was picture of a Google Map with stops marked but no legend. Good times, good times. At least we found a good place for lunch, the Oso grill in Capitan, where we had another chat with a struggling restaurant owner sparked by her giving a rundown of what was on the menu but not actually available. No soup for you!

The drive out to Roswell and then down to Carlsbad was distinctive for the lack of visible mountains – you could see them in certain directions way off on the horizon if you squinted hard enough, and for the near total lack of vegetation, just some sparse short dormant grass with a few yucca looking plants when we got closer to Carlsbad. The scenery got so dull MBH started reading a Poldark book.

The picture taking was so minimal today I added a couple of old ones just to refresh our memory of how pretty the desert can be.

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Today dawned bright and clear, or at least it was when we got up sometime after dawn. I’m just making an assumption about what dawn was like.

Another day, another suitcase in another hall. We adjusted to our new AirBnb last night and this morning. You know what to expect in any hotel room, although sometimes you are pleasantly surprised by something simple like a refrigerator. Every Airbnb is different, starting with the coffee machine (going in chronological order here) way beyond just Keurig or not, where are the light switches, how to operate the shower (the first showerer gives a briefing to the other even if it’s only what o’clock to put the lever so the water temperature is right), even what is in the kitchen and where is it. And just when we’re comfortable, we are on the road again.

Air still clear, we set off this morning for White Sands National Monument/Park (I’ve seen it both ways). Soon we were there and the wind had picked up. After a few walks, first on a raised walkway and then barefoot thru the dunes, the wind really picked up. After a stop where it was really hard to see or breathe we gave up on getting out of the car. We drove the whole loop, and there were a few spots on the way back it was like driving in a blizzard – white out plus sand drifting over the road, which isn’t paved for about half the drive – you’re just driving on sand, gypsum actually, of varying degrees of hardness.

Then it was off to lunch and the search for someplace open. New Mexico has really done a number on their restaurants with a long stretch with no on premises- indoor or outdoor – dining. After passing many closed restaurants we found a good local diner. After trying to help fix the front door (apparently high winds are somewhat common around which as you can imagine can put a lot of stress on doors) we had a nice chat with the owner. She is at her wits end and very stressed.

After lunch we engaged in a search for something to do in high winds & high dust. The Space museum is closed while they remodel their bathrooms. We started out to take a scenic drive in the mountains but the further north we went the worse the wind got and darker/dustier the air became, so we turned around and stopped off at Pistachio land. I know this may come as a surprise, but there is only so long you can spend at a pistachio themed tourist trap, but at least it was indoors. We then drove back into town where were going to while away sometime at a local cantina but it is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. As I write this back at the Airbnb, the sky is still a dusty white.

Tomorrow is another day.

Tags: JTFSSW

We woke up this morning in Arizona, and in a microcosm of the total trip, drove through New Mexico to El Paso Texas, and then turned and went north back into New Mexico and finally settled in Alamogordo, which the locals shorten to Alamo, which I won’t mention when we return to Texas. We went to El Paso to switch rental cars since the Sentra developed a hitch in its get along, or at least a leak in the transmission. I should post a picture of the rental car parking garage since we spent a good deal of quality time there because, according to the guy at the car rental desk, spring break had cleaned them out of cars. Somebody isn’t doing Spring Break right IMHO. But for your sakes I try to only post the most luscious photos, and even I at my craziest wouldn’t take a picture of a rental car parking lot. Just keeping it real in the Thrifty rental car lot.

Last night we saw a beautiful new moon above the picturesque hill out the front door of the Airbnb, but sadly the technology at my disposal was inadequate to capture the ineffable beauty of the sight, so until the Vulcan mind meld becomes an actual thing, you’re stuck with my puny and inadequate words.

On the subject of abject fails, we crossed the continental divide this morning in the flattest, most desolate plain which is no way to cross the continental divide. We did take a side trip to the City of Rocks (state park) but to be honest, our heart wasn’t in it with the car and our calls to Thrifty. So we had our picnic lunch courtesy of Subway, wandered around a bit, found an outhouse – the nice bathrooms were closed because COVID, the lousy ones are still open because when you gotta go, you gotta go.

We didn’t lose an hour Sunday morning like everyone else, we lost an hour this morning because (1) Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time, and B. New Mexico does. Arizona really should change their state motto from the Latin for “God enriches” to “Ornery” or “like no where else” or even “live free or die” – that one may be taken but it’s a good one and seems to fit. If I was smart, when I retire I should buy a house in New Hampshire and one in Arizona.

Desolation factor for the day Maximum, beauty factor Minimum.

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Last night we took advantage of the remoteness to stargaze, until we got too cold and went back inside.

This morning dawned cold and clear so we visited Chiricahua National Monument which managed to be extra beautiful and not particularly desolate. Really stunning scenery.

Our week in Arizona has been filled with two lane backroads, some dirt, most paved; sunshine, hiking, and mountains. When we are in the valley, there are mountains all around us, and when we are on the mountain top, there are still more mountains, some close, some in the distance. The roads have either been super straight or super curvy. The food has ranged from surprisingly good to way past time to change the oil in the fryer, from Mexican to burgers, from picnic lunches to sit down dinners. Our current Airbnb even provided a basket of farm fresh eggs. The people have been super friendly, from locals to tourists. Tonight the manager (probably owner too) of the restaurant we picked dinner up from told a gentleman who ordered a drink with his to go order he couldn’t sell it to him since he was openly carrying, but if he concealed his pistol or put it in his car there would be no problem. Arizona has been fun.

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Now that it’s the two of us, we have become planners on our long vacations. We start with trying to figure out how many days in each location, and then look for Airbnb’s or motels to stay in, and based on availability we might change locations or durations. Then we book our stays, and any flights and car rentals. It all gets written out in a text document so that there are no gaps or overlaps – we learned that lesson the hard way when we set up or Ireland & Scotland trip and left a gap. We have kind of a rough notion about what we are going to do, but it begins with the spine of where we are spending the night and how we are getting there, booked in advance. Later we investigate each location for all the things we might do, and those all get included in the trip planning document. Some places, especially with COVID, require advanced booking (like Biosphere 2 this trip) so we go ahead and make those reservations in advance. And then while on the trip each night we review our options, look at the weather forecast, consider suggestions from friends and locals, and decide what we are going to do the next day.

Then one day all your options are outdoors and the forecast is cold and windy. And when you wake up, it’s snowing. And snowing. So you do laundry, hang around the Airbnb, eat lunch at a diner – we’ve had the best luck eating in diners at RV parks in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, your rental car is just fine after the roads you drove it down yesterday, so you kind of just putz around minor attractions including the local maxi-mart where you pick up a couple of things and drive the car down some more dirt roads, which seem to be most of the roads in this part of Arizona. It snows and rains on and off all day, but the wind never stops blowing. You keep an eye on the nearby National Monument but all you see is clouds and precipitation of some form dropping out of them over the park all day.

So you write your daily post early and relax with MBH. And you remember, Tomorrow is another day.

Tags: JTFSSW

Today we packed our bags and said farewell to Tucson. Because of groceries, we actually left with more than we arrived with. So after my second run of the trip (shortened because we are on vacation), a second nice chat with Cindy our Airbnb host, we left our second stop on the Journey and headed out into the unknown again.

We went through Saguaro National Park East where the desolation factor was upped and the beauty factor was lowered. There seems to be maybe 10 basic plants in the park, the same ones we’ve seen every day so far, so after awhile I have to admit our attention wavered. And once again bicyclists infested the park – at one pull off MBH hadn’t bothered to get out of the car and I came running back because I saw heading towards us a cyclist slowly climbing a hill on the one way one lane road with a bunch of cars oozing behind and I didn’t want to get stuck. They were the most exciting moments of the visit but I’m sorry to say that between my unexpected arrival and the shortness of the hill we failed.

Oh to own a cycling shop in Tucson.

We had debated and discussed both with ourselves and with our host Cindy where to go in the afternoon so we headed towards the wine country around Sonoita but never made it. We found Charon vineyards a little ways south of I-10 down a gravel road where we enjoyed a delicious lunch, a very tasty Cab Sav, and had a nice view of the ever present mountains of Arizona. We cannot figure out how we traveled in the days before smart phones, GPS, and the internet. We did, and quite well, but we just can’t remember the technology besides paper maps.

But you can’t get from Point A to Point B without traveling, so we set off for our next Airbnb in the wilds of Sunizona and after a brief stop to purchase gas and milk we discovered you can drive a Nissan Sentra down spectacularly bad dirt roads. Did you know a dirt road over a hill becomes a rocky road? Now I do. Did you know a low dirt road becomes a soft sand road you shouldn’t stop on? Now I do. Even with all our modern technology you can sometimes take the road you really shouldn’t travel. Or need to. We were never lost since we could always see our blue dot on a map, but it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between not knowing where you are versus where you want to be.

I sure hope the car runs tomorrow.

Tags: JTFSSW