Coral Reef Mountains

 I did promise more pics from Carlsbad Caverns, but they are on the video camera and some work has to be done with the raw files.  They will get posted at a later date and back dated to fill into the time line better.

One nice thing about heading west is it is easier to get up earlier.  New Mexico is on mountain time or 2 hours behind us.  Yesterday was a long day with the cavern tour, picnic, and bat watching.  We barely made it the local grocers before they closed at 10PM.   I chose a Latin one as they usually have a hot food counter, but we were waaaay late for that.  The only prepared food they had was $5 sushi.....in the desert....after it had been sitting out how long?   Even Naya the sushi monster said hell no.   Back to frozen dinners again (thankful for the microwave!)     We did buy some hot sauces and stuff and headed back to the room.

Next morning we got a later start.  Lucy and I shut down the breakfast getting there 15 min before it was over.  They were nice and made sure we had everything we wanted before the cleared it out.  Got Naya rustled up and shoved some food in her and off we went.

Back down the same road, but past the Caverns heading toward El Paso.

Back in 1988, I took four days to drive from Florida to Los Angeles with my friend.  Three of those days, I drove in the state of Texas.   This sign indicates that 3rd day from here to El Paso to get back on I-10.  We drove from Carlsbad, toured the Caverns and made it to Phoenix that night.  We were on a mission.

Tommy ready for his photo shoot!

Add one more to the handstand, state sign collection.

Texas Tommy!  We are pretty much right under his feet in this picture.

I crossed the road to get the incoming view.

This park is only about 15-20 minutes from the Caverns.  I remembered this and added a third night to our stay so we could check it out, as I didn't get to stop here back in '88.

I learned quite a bit on the visit to this park.   The Gaudalupe Mountains  are a lot larger than what is in the park (Carlsbad Caverns is part of the same range), but it holds the highest peak in Texas at over 8500'.    The mountains are limestone coral reef from the Permian age that formed during the break up of Pangea!   The reef was a giant horseshoe and the area encompasses all the west Texas oil fields.

My bad leg was bothering me after dropping down the big hole in the earth, so it was mostly flat paths for us today. 

Believe it or not, I thought it wasn't terribly hot.  Temps in the high 80s, but the humidity was about 40% so we weren't sweating much (but still drinking a lot of water).

This was an easy paved trail from behind the ranger station down to the ruins of Pinery Station.  It was about half a mile.   I didn't take pics but I went off the trail and walked part way down the wash (no rain around, so no worry of flash floods).

The Pinery station was part of the famous Butterfield Overland Mail Route, the first guaranteed overland mail route in US History.  The station was built in 1857, and abandoned in 1859 when the route was relocated to save time.    These two pictures are all that remains of the original structures.  You can see the wood framing on the back poking over the top.  It's holding the wall up.

Another part of Pinery Station, I think this was the store house.   Surprisingly , it is only about 100 yards off of US 62/180. 

El Capitan from some distance (near the ranger station).  We didn't drive down there as it was about 15 miles further, and the hiking trails in the area are rated very difficult (altitude changes), but you can hike up to the top.   This park does not have many roads in it, so most areas, you need to hike in to see.

Just a view of the mountains behind the ranger station.  The slopes start probably 2 miles away.

After the girls finished their Junior Ranger stuff and Naya wrote a few post cards, we hopped back into the car and headed over to the Frijole Ranch.  There was a picnic area and we had lunch.   The flies out here were pretty bad and there was now a running issue as every single time we got in the car a fly came in with us.  It was to the point of comedy now...   We had a nice lunch under a covered table.  Shade made all the difference here as the sun was blazing.

After lunch, we walked up to the ranch and poked around.   Under normal times, the house has been turned into a museum, but they were still on lockdown protocols, so we had to peek in the windows.  The house was built 1876  and the spring is right there in the yard.  They are in the process of removing the white paint to put it back to the 1876 look.   I liked this shot up the side yard for other than the metal antenna base on the right, it could have been taken 100 years ago.   When the park was established, this home was used by the first rangers living in the park.

There was another spring half a mile away and another about 2 miles.  We walked to the first one as it was blazing mid afternoon.  Saw some interesting insects and lizards and plants.  Pretty sure Lucy has more photos of all that.

We were determined to have dinner in an actual restaurant this evening, so we started back around 3PM, but first had to stop for some pictures!

At this point the teenager was getting surly and didn't want to pose for a photo or handstand saying the ground was too rocky (it was).  So a brief snap and off to Whites City.
 

White's City (population 7) is right at the junction of US 62/180 and the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns Park.  We had driven by it yesterday and I had considered getting the hotel room here (there is NOTHING else) but didn't due to the remoteness.  Was last gas until El Paso!

As you can imagine, the gift shop was there for tourists.  Roswell was only about 100 miles from here, so a fair amount of green men souvenirs were available.

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Naya managed to find the Hide and Seek World Champion as he stopped in to grab a taco.

Naya could bearly contain her excitement with all the fun we were having on this trip!

Lucy got to check off her bucket list with two more National Parks under her belt!

I was not brave enough to tempt the mighty Zoltar!  We bought a few souvenirs and headed back to town.   We gave the teenager a parent break and went in the hotel pool for about an hour and relaxed.   It was only then that I noticed there were palm trees around the pool.  They were definitely brought in and non-native.

We got dressed and decided we wanted New Mexican food and plain on Mexican food wasn't good enough.  We found a place that was a walk up counter semi-fast food place called El Charro.  There were a lot of locals eating there so that was a good indicator.   The food was on point and we enjoyed it.

  

This was the view coming out of the restaurant.  Only sunset photo I got the whole trip.  Turns out the visibility was down due to the fires in CA sending smoke to the east.

We wandered around downtown a bit to see the sights and Tommy took the opportunity to get some snaps.

This was a pretty cool mural outside of a municipal building. May have been city hall, don't recall.

Traffic this time of day was pretty non-existent, this is the heart of  the downtown area about 7:30PM.

Doc Brown had asked I pick him up some Plutonium, but the gift store was sadly closed for the night.  We then parked by the Pecos River and had a nice walk around the riverfront area for about an hour, then headed back to the room for the night.   Long drive again tomorrow!