Day 20 – Big Bend NP – Day 1

There are three different areas in Big Bend National Park and we will spend a day at each one.  The first day, we’ll visited Boquillas Canyon and then later Chisos Basin.  As we begin to leave the campground we have this view.  We later find out that the tall mountains in the distance are in Mexico.

As we approached Boquillas Canyon Carmen took this picture of the mule in the desert.  The buildings in the background are a village in Mexico on the other side of the Rio Grande.

As we begin our hike into the canyon we have a good view of the Rio Grande.  The land to the left of the river is in Mexico.  That is how close we are to the border. 

Here are some of the desert flowers we’ve seen.  They are small but pretty. 

After we began the 1.4 mile round trip hike and got near the river we find these holes in the bedrock along the river.  These are prehistoric mortar holes where the indigenous people would grind seeds, roots and other plants. 

When we started our hike of the canyon we saw a warning sign about the illegality of buying or possessing items obtained from Mexican Nationals.  And that those items would be seized and violators prosecuted.  Well, here are those illegal items. 

Some of the local 46 species of cacti that live in the park; look but don’t touch.  I think this is some sort of prickly pear.

Nearing the entrance to the canyon, you can see the waters of the Rio Grande turn left between the rocks.  The cliff in the background is on the Mexican side. 

We figured these horses belonged to the Mexican men who were on both sides of the river.  On this side we think they would check to make sure people paid for the items they took.  The horses were grazing on the grass that did not exist on the other side of the river.

Looking into the canyon you lose where the rivers runs between the rocks.  In the picture where the “V” is formed by the sky, splits the countries; the USA on the left and Mexico on the right.

We have been seeing all kinds of animals, but this lotus, grasshopper, or whatever is unusual.

Some of the rock layers along the walls. 

This is one of the first lizards I've seen today.  In ran into these reeds and it was difficult to get a good bead on it.  If I hadn't been watching it  move into the reeds, I would not have seen it.

While we were on our way back to the car, we came across this unusual flowering bush.  Seems like some sort of a milkweed type of flower.

As we were passing the last of the reedy area of the trail, a dragonfly landed on one of the branches of the small trees.  It stayed there long enough for me to get a good picture of it.  This almost never happens when I'm trying to get a picture of a dragonfly.

Here we are on the last part of the trail before we return to the parking lot.  You can see another couple just behind Carmen on the trail.  One we get to the top, just to the left of the picture, its downhill to the car.

From almost at the parking lot and now that the sun is shining brightly on the rocks, we have a good view of the mountains on the US side.

No animal this time, just a beast.  Check out this vehicle that was parked in the parking lot when we got back. 

Leaving the Boquillas Canyon, we are now heading to Panther Junction where we will then go to the Chisos Basin.  To get to Panther Junction we drive the 20 miles from the canyon trail and have to pass through the tunnel again. 

Some of the scenery we see as we drive to our next turnoff.  Those mountains are quite a distance away and o  the Mexican side of the river.

Look at the different colored strata in this hill; very interesting.

The junction and Ranger Station are to the right at the base of this mountain, still some distance away.

This is what we are seeing from the car as we are driving.  Look at how blue the sky is.

We’ve turned the corner at Panther Junction and are on our way to Chisos Basin.  These rocks look like they are lava based.

More of the mountain that we see.  This is the same mountain, but from the opposite side, of the picture three pictures ago. 

The mountains with their jagged edges and carved valleys are really remarkable and with the sun moving throughout the day, the shadows make it even more remarkable.  We come to a section of the road to the basin and see a sign that indicates the road is not recommended for RVs longer than 24 feet.  Maybe it is because of terrain like this. 

One of the times when we were stopped and were taking pictures of the mountains, I saw this snake as it was slithering to some bushes.  When it got there it coiled itself and stuck its head out of the grasses.  I did not tell Carmen it was there, she would have freaked

There are some pretty spectacular rock formations in this section of the Park.

Here’s Carmen at one of the overlooks on our way to the Chisos Visitor Center.

The “V” between the two mountains is titled “La Ventana o the Window”; do not ask me why, I haven’t a clue.  It is in the Chisos mountains and this was our view from the visitor center.

So back on the main road, we decided to take a little hike on the Grapevine Hills Trail.  As the sign says the trail enters a realm of petrified fire.  In other words under pressure molten rock ballooned up beneath the surface and as the ground eroded the exposed dome fractured into a moonscape of giant boulders.

Landscape structures like these provided windows in the rock formations.

Here we have a balancing rock along with two spires.

Some of the flowers from this hike and I'm not sure what they are, but I think they may be Desert Marigolds of some sort.

We saw may landscapes like these jumble of rocks and spires.  On the top of the cliff is a rock balancing on two smaller rocks.  I would almost guess that if we came back in f years it would have fallen.

This almost looks like a saw blade with all the rock protrusions. 

Any lizard is a good lizard.  At least this one is in the clear without any obstruction around it.  I think it is a Greater Earless lizard, but that is only a guess.

Carmen overlooking the valley we just hiked up.  We are now on a side trail to “Balanced Rock”.

This is the view just before we reached balanced rock.

Balanced Rock

The view on the back side of the hills from our hike to see balanced rock.  You can see for quite some distance.

Walking back to the car we have this view. 

Back in the car we drive back to the motorhome.  Now that the sun in the west and shining on the cliffs, we have a good view of the rock strata on the mountains on the both of the Rio Grande river.  The tall mountains with the white bands are in Mexico while the more rounded darker hills below the white bands are in the US.

Our last picture before we get back to the motorhome and it gets to dark.  You can see the different colors in the eroded side of this hill.  We are soon having dinner and getting ready for tomorrow where we will drive along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive.

Day 19 – To Big Bend National Park

The others on this RV trip with us are not going to Big Bend NP so we are leaving Carlsbad this morning as early as we can because we have quite a distance to go to get to our campground in Texas.  We are taking route 285 heading into Texas.  On our way, we pass this drilling rig.  Not sure if it is for oil or water; since we have seen a number of water tankers while driving.

Shortly after passing Pecos, Texas, self appointed home of the world’s first rodeo, we had this view of our road. 

As we are getting closer to Fort Stockton, we have views like this.

One of the ranches we have past. 

After passing through Fort Stockton we switch to route 385 south, how about this view? 

Route 385 takes us right into Big Bend NP and we reach the perimeter of the park.  The entrance station is only about ½ mile from this sign, but the Park headquarters is still 29 miles from here.

As we begin to get close to the Panther Junction Visitor Center and where we will need to turn south on the park road, Carmen was able to get this picture.  That is Panther Junction at the base of the mountain.  Not sure, what we thought we’d see here, but this is NOT what we expected, it is way more.  The desert and mountains here are really nice looking.

We have to go through this tunnel, on “dead man’s curve” and it doesn’t look like we will fit, so we take it slow and check to make sure we go through okay.  We go down the middle with no problem.  The only thing, when you are looking at the mountains, you don’t know if they are in the US or Mexico.  Oh by the way, from Panther Junction (the Visitor Center) it was another 23 miles to get to the Rio Grande Village campground where we will park the motorhome.

Shortly after passing through the tunnel we park the RV at the Rio Grande Village campground.  It is late so we have just enough time to park and get set up before it gets too dark.  

Day 18 – Carlsbad Caverns

Heading south on route 62, we are on our way to the Carlsbad Caverns NP.  Carmen took this picture and got the two Carlsbad billboards, one telling us that we can eat at the caverns.  You can also see one of the many pump rigs we have seen.

When we get to Whites City we turn west on route 7, Carlsbad Cavern Highway.  We begin to see the ruggedness of the countryside and can begin to imagine what the caverns will look like.

Some of the small caves along the cliffs we have seen on our way to the caverns.  You can easily imagine that these were used by ancient people for shelter. 

We are now at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns and the visitor's center.

Some of the flowers that are still in bloom here at Carlsbad Caverns, I think this one is a Perennial Rockcress.

You can either take the elevator down to the main cavern to begin your tour or start the tour by entering the “bat” cave or travel a couple of miles through other caves and caverns to the main cavern room.  The Bat cave is where the bats come out in the evening to catch dinner. 

Beginning the mile plus hike to the main cavern begins with a steep drop (there were several drops actually) as you can see from the pictures.  These caverns are huge, miles long, wide and high.

From inside the cavern entrance looking back up the way we just came down. 

Not in the cavern for very long, we come to a number of formations like these two pillars.  

Some of the formations have been given names.  This one is called the Whales Mouth.  You can see the resemblance to the baleen mount of some whales.

Now we are going even deeper into the cave system.  Here we must go down another 8 switchbacks before getting to the walkway on the bottom. 

Here’s Carmen in one of the passageways between caverns.  Carmen knew she would be cold, so she is wearing her insulated shirt.

This is a group of stalactites, icicle-shaped formations, hanging from the ceiling of the cave roof.  Scenes like this have become commonplace in the cave system.  

We have reached the “Big Room” and make our way to the restrooms.  Also located here is the elevator that will return us to the surface and the snack shack.  You can see from the map that the end of the cavern is still a little over ½ miles away. 

There are many formations in the cavern, too many to show in this blog.  But, some like these are great to look at.

Some of the formations we’ve seen that kind of “run” down along the wall.  This picture is a little blurry, but I wanted to show different formation.

In one of the “rooms” you get a sense of the size of this place. 

We came to another of the large rooms with formations, here with columns. 

Some of the “ribbon” formations located in the cavern.

Formations take on all kinds of shapes, stalactites, stalagmites, ribbons, and columns all can be seen here at this location.

We came upon these two huge columns.  For the column to get fat like this on the bottom there must be more water than usual dripping from the ceiling.

We finally take the elevator back up to the surface rising 754 feet or 75 stories.  Up on the surface we can see quite a distance from the top of the mesa we are on.

Here a lone Ocotillo (I think that is the name for this plant) dessert plant looks over the other plants near the welcome center.

We head back to the campground and settle in for the night.  Shortly after getting back to the campground we were treated to this sunset.  Tomorrow we leave for Big Bend National Park in Texas. 

Day 17 – To Carlsbad

While the others will take a more direct route to Carlsbad, Carmen and I are going to go a little out of the way and take a detour up to Lincoln, New Mexico, home of Billy the Kid.  So we head north on route 54 then turn north on route 70.  Then, we traveled west along route 380, the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway through Lincoln County. 

We stopped in the town of Lincoln and home of the Lincoln County war. 

Here is where Billy the Kid escaped from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s jail (above the courthouse). 

Not much is open, since it is the middle of October and way past tourist season, so we did not stay very long.  After walking around town and taking a picture of some of the old buildings, supposedly as they existed in the 1870’s, now tourist shops.

Leaving Lincoln, we are heading to meet up with the others, and will pass through Roswell.  Back on route 380 east we come across a group of Pronghorn Antelope.

Later as we near Roswell, Carmen took this picture of the longhorn bull.

Also, we passed some horses, not sure if they are wild or just out in the field.

Did I say we were going through Roswell, home of the alien crash in 1947?  We, or should I say I, had to stop and of course go into the UFO Museum.

Inside the museum we looked around at the different stuff and had to get a picture with some of my new friends.

After a visit to the UFO Museum, we were leaving and had to get a picture of Carmen with some sort of alien encounter.  Not a believer, she finds this amusing.  We stop for lunch before continuing on our way to Carlsbad.  We still have a little way to go before we get to our campground in Carlsbad and will probably get there in time for dinner.