Arriving in New Mexico

Yesterday I drove from Fort Stockton, Texas to the "town" of Whites City.  In town is one large store consisting of about 3 large rooms consisting of a few groceries, T shirts and other souvenirs.  Across the street is a large restaurant and some motel-looking rooms.  There is a post office, an over-priced gas station and a tiny museum.  And the RV park that is just outside the gateway to Carlsbad Caverns. 

On the way over, the rest of west Texas was what I expected it to look like, flat dry land with some bushes trying to grow, lots of oil drilling rigs, and in some places, huge round storage tanks for the oil coming out of those wells.  It was a two lane highway with a speed limit of about 70, nothing fancy.  The state line was nothing fancy, a few signs that had been used for target practice - Welcome to New Mexico, Mountin Time,  State Law, use seat belts. 

For some reason, the terrain became a little more hilly right after passing into New Mexico, and the oil rigs were still in evidence.  I found the RV Park, expensive not because it was an oasis in the desert and luxurious.  No, it was expensive because it was the only game in town, the only game for miles around!  I set up camp and had lunch, then drove up to the Caverns.  The photo above is from one of the roadside lookouts. 

I'm not going to bore anyone with details of the formations in the caves, since I've done that in a few other blogs.  But, I will mention one fact I probably didn't - these places are very far underground.  In this instance, if you don't take the steep, winding path of the natural trail for about an hour, you take the elevator.  Being the adventurous sort of person, I took the path on the first day and the elevator on the second day.  The elevator takes you down 850', be sure to clear your ears on the way.  That's not the bottom either, there are caves under these caves and they all continue for miles. 

The adventure continues tomorrow as I move north in New Mexico.

Caverns of Sonora

Sonora, Texas is just off I10, the interstate that goes through Texas. It’s pretty much isolated, not too many towns along that road in west Texas. So, anyone who wants to see these caverns is going to be out of the way. My phone barely worked there.

Sonora has a cute little historic district with some old buildings that date back to the 1800s or early 1900s. The court house is quite impressive. I went to the Old Ice House Ranch Museum, housed in the old ice house. This museum is filled with artifacts from that time period, as well as more modern items, such as World War II ration stamps. I was talking with the woman who runs this museum (and owned some of the display pieces). She told me that most people go to San Angelo for shopping such as monthly groceries, clothing and other items. San Angelo is about 60 miles away.

The main tourist draw is the Caverns, an extensive, live underground cavern with amazing formations. We were able to see less than 2 miles of it, but it extends about 8 miles total. Amazingly, this cavern has formations in it that I haven’t seen in other caverns or caves. It is billed as the foremost show cavern in the world.

The most photographed area of the cavern is the first photo above, Horseshoe Lake, about 5 feet deep, although the water is so clear you think it’s shallow. The guide casually mentioned that we were inside a giant geode. A geode is a rock that has mineral matter in it when it is opened. Some of them have brilliant colors and designs and others are just plain. An internet search will give you an idea of what it is. Some can be as small as a golf ball or as large as a boulder.

I never get tired of these caverns, so after a few more stops, I’ll be on my way to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, one of the more famous ones.

Longhorn Cavern State Park

 

 

Another cavern tour – a completely different one.  This cavern was formed with an underground river instead of water dripping from above and forming stalactites and stalagmites and other formations.  This cavern has walls formed by flowing water and are smooth in most areas. 

Years ago, this extensive cavern system was home to many bats, but they have relocated because they were being disturbed by the noise of tours and lights during their daily sleeping time.  There is supposedly a small colony of bats that reside there, possibly in the less-traveled areas – we certainly didn’t see any. 

 

There are multiple tours that can be taken, including one where they provide knee and elbow pads and you get to crawl through small areas and get really dirty.  I opted for the basic tour, just over a mile in length, and it took about an hour and a half.  We walked through areas only 4’ tall and into areas that were as high as a 2 story building. 

 

 

After a quick lunch in their little restaurant, I walked a couple of their hiking trails and explored some of the old buildings built in the 1930s by the CCC. 

Texas is Special

For those of you who have heard that Texas is different - it's true.  In many ways, it's special.  It's mostly a good special, not the cynical, sarcastic "special".

 

Texas is so special that Ford has a pickup truck labeled "Texas Edition".   Seriously.  I imagine that it's only sold here, but who knows, maybe someone can order it in Alaska or some other place.  There's another pickup labeled Lone Star Edition made by Ram.   Chevy probably has one, but maybe I haven't seen it.  I even saw some travel trailers in one of the parks that were labeled "Texan". 

 

San Antonio is special because it's got the Tower of the Americas (shown above), which was constructed for the 1968 World Fair.  There are 3 elevators that will take you to the top in just over 2 minutes - it's 750' tall and you can get a great 360 degree view of the area.  If you wanted to walk up to the top, there's only 952 steps.   Guess who didn't do that? 

 

San Antonio also has the Alamo, right in the middle of downtown.  Throughout the years, the city just built around it.  It's special because of the history, but I was surprised that it was quite small, but then, it did start it's life as a mission.  There are other missions also, with larger buildings and more history. 
 

In one part of San Antonio, El Mercado (Spanish for The Market) was delightful, with crafts and goods both relating to Texas and Mexico.  There was almost more imports from Mexico than local items.  There were onyx items, sombreros next to cowboy hats, Mexican pottery with wonderfully bright colors, cowboy boots and embroidered Mexican style clothing. 

 

Texas has the USS Lexington, a WWII aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum.  It's massive, took me 3 hours to go through it and I didn't read everything.  Definitely worth a visit.
 

I've only been through part of east Texas, and I'm sure that there's more special things I'll see.  So far, I've found one thing I'm not thrilled with (besides the bumpy roads and lots of traffic).  Since Texas is famous for BBQ, I tried that today.  This restaurant was highly recommended and is a local chain.  I got a pulled pork sandwich and found that there was only two kinds of BBQ sauce - warm and warmer.   Is it only Florida that has the sweet BBQ sauce?  I guess I'll stick with the Mexican food unless they can guarantee me sweet BBQ sauce.   For any Texans reading this - sorry, I guess it's a personal taste thing.
 

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to touring some caverns, where it's going to be a chilly 70 degrees inside, compared to the 90's we've been having.  It doesn't feel like 90's in Florida though - not yet.

 

State Park Week

For the past week, I have stayed in two Florida State Parks and visited a Wildlife Refuge Center.

St Marks Wildlife Refuge Center and Lighthouse is along the Gulf Coast of Florida in the Big Bend area. I spent a few hours there, hiking the trails and photographing the lighthouse and other wildlife in the area, including the cute critter below, who refused to sit and pose for me.

　

The next day I was settled in at Florida Caverns State Park. As soon as I learned this park had cavern tours, I knew I wanted to see them, so I reserved a spot for a few nights. I love caves and caverns and Florida has so very few of them, this was a real treat. For the tour, I was fortunate to be one of a group of three, so I was able to take lots of photos without people being in them. After the tour, I spent a few hours hiking the trails and watching the wildlife, including one squirrel who wanted to have a conversation.

　

I left after a couple days and headed a few miles west to see Falling Waters State Park, so named for an actual waterfall in the park - in Florida - very rare, since this state is so flat! The park itself has a high elevation of 324 feet above sea level, but that's not where the waterfall is. The waterfall is a short hike to a sinkhole in the woods where the water comes off the edge of the sinkhole to disappear further into the sinkhole 73 feet down. There is a wooden platform built down into the sinkhole so you can get closer to the waterfall and see it hit bottom and disappear into a cave. I visited the waterfall the first day and then the second day after a heavy rainstorm. The second day, there was about twice as much water (and noise) with mist rising from the force of the water falling.
　

From there, I went to a more populated area at Mexico Beach, still on the Florida Panhandle coast. There is a get together here of several solo RVers, most of them seem to be women. It will be fun to compare notes with other women who have the same wanderlust as I do.

　

　

Moving Along

The past two days have been pleasant traveling through unpopulated areas and small communities. I've been traveling on a divided 4 lane highway that's been sometimes as straight to the horizon as Alligator Alley.

I did have a bit of panic yesterday morning when I realized that my brake controller wasn't working. I was leaving Holiday, Florida on Route 19 in heavy traffic and pulled over in an empty parking lot to assess the situation. I had checked everything that morning and it seemed to be working then. I took the power connector from the trailer to the truck and gave it a good squirt of Boeshield T9 - plugged it back in and wiggled it in an out a couple times. Then I tested the brake controller and - YES! - it's working again. I can only hope that all my future problems will be taken care of with a spray can of magic.

I spent last night parked in a WalMart parking lot, in the company of at least 4 other RVs and a couple tractor trailers. Tonight, I'm in another WalMart lot further up the road, with a couple more RVs. Nice of WalMart to let us come in and park for the night along the way. Of course, I ended up buying some good looking strawberries for breakfast tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll head to St Marks Lighthouse for the tour, photos and hikes along the trails. Then it's up to Marianna, Florida to see the caverns in one of the State parks. Florida is not known for caverns, except for the underwater variety, so this is unusual for this area.

After that, I'll head for the Panhandle coast and points west.

New Adventures

A restless spirit has been urging me to go somewhere.  The spirit did not mean a week long vacation, it did not mean a long weekend - it meant go away for quite a while.

I did go away for quite a while back in the middle of the 1990's - all the way to the Caribbean in a boat, sailing around from island to island for years.  My story is told in my book, Island Fever, available on Amazon in Kindle or paperback.   I also have slide shows of my travels on You Tube - IslandFeverCruising channel.  My blog that's mostly about cruising and a few other things is on http://landcruisingadventure.blogspot.com/

So, now the spirit has decided to send me somewhere totally different from tropical islands, palm trees, oceans, sailing tropical rum drinks.  The spirit has decided I should be going west to visit mountains, deserts, canyons and caverns.   Yes, pretty much the opposite of what I did for 10 years on the boat. 

In order to accomplish that, I need to divest myself of most of my belongings - house, car, furniture, etc.  My brother helped obtain and outfit the pretty blue truck you see on this blog - this will be my tow vehicle.   Thanks to Bob Karl - Bob Karl Used Cars in Troy, NY.   (Yeah, OK, it's a plug for him.)  I am now looking for a fifth wheel camper to go with the truck, that's the kind that hooks up into a hitch in the bed of the truck.   There are so many of them out there, all different sizes, makes, models and colors and floor plans.  I have to take a deep breath and step back from it sometimes.

As soon as my truck arrives from New York, I'll be selling my car, buying my camper and moving into it in order to facilitate the sale of my house.  It will be easier to sell if I'm not living in it, it will appear cleaner and more tidy without me and the cat.   That cat is so messy, I can't keep the house looking nice with her around.

As things happen to get me closer to blast-off day, I'll be writing here about what's going on - taking pictures and sharing.  When I'm on the road, I'll be writing about where I am, what I've been seeing and sharing the sights along the way. 

So, join me for my journey.  Let's hope it's fun, safe and exciting. 

Betty