So as mentioned, last time I went to Carlsbad Caverns, my buddy made us ride the elevator down 750 feet underground. It was less than spectacular. Pay the admission fee, walk around the corner and get into the elevator. A ranger told me I missed the best part by not walking down.
I had only seen photos of the entrance so wasn't exactly sure how cool it would be...but first we had to get there.
The entrance to the park was about 25 miles south of town. Carlsbad has about 10,000 residents so it's not that big and soon we were on open Federal Hwy with a 70mph speed limit (or was it 75, I don't recall) and we made short work of the trip. Tommy made is requisite stop for Instagram.
New car, time to take pics with cool backdrops. We pulled over to take some pictures of sheep on the side of the hill. Those are on Lucy's camera, will add later.
The highway was fairly flat, but as soon as you enter the park, you are in the northern end of the Guadalupe Mountains which is part of a Permian Reef laid down during the Guadelupian Epoch (272.3–259.8 mya)
Since it was very hilly driving up a canyon, we let the teenager drive to get some 3D driving time in. Yes the windshield is cracked from a TX hailstorm. Had to put the tape up to keep from getting blinded from the sun refracting off the cracks.
The visitor center was not so photo worthy (just a building lol), but if you look beyond the Bat Amphitheater you can see the mouth of the cavern. You sit here to watch the bats fly out at dusk (we did, very cool). Sadly, there were no ranger led tours to encourage social distancing.
At first I was surprised by this very for real sign, but then thought, "Duh, it's a BATCAVE!"
There is my not so baby daughter looking into the maw of the underworld. I can only imagine being the first modern human to come across this....
Switchbacks forever, lol. If you look real close you can see Naya on the very left edge of the photo a few levels down.
From here to the smaller opening, was at least 70-80 feet down. Pictures don't do it justice.
Getting closer to the darkness. During the day there was a ton of Cave Swallows zipping in and out. They were really fun to watch them fold their wings and just dive bomb into the hole. They nest right near where it gets dark.
As you can see there are not too many people. You had to reserve your time slot in advance and it was limited to 150 per hour. We were late (as usual) and started down around 40-45 min into our window, so there was no one around us for the first half an hour (very nice!).
A side shot showing the little nooks and crannies the birds were nesting in.
After the initial switchbacks the trail runs off to the side a hundred yards or so, before doubling back.
That black gap above Naya's head is about a 40 foot drop that the initial explorers had to overcome to get down into the cavern. it was really cool to see the large shaft of daylight shooting down into the cavern.
I don't recall how far down this shot was, but the daylight soon waned and my phone doesn't do well in low light. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the bottom. Going to stop here as Lucy took lots of pics with the better camera on the walk down.
As mentioned in the last entry, I had been to Carlsbad Caverns in 1988. Was driving cross country with my friend who got relocated to the LA area for work. He was in a hurry and we only spent about 2 hours at the cavern. The ranger told me I had missed the best part (what I saw was AMAZING), by not walking down from the surface (my friend made us take the elevators to save time). Swore I'd be back and it took 33 years, but finally we were going!
I have had this trip mapped out for some time, since I figured out it was a day's drive from the In-Laws. I opted to not take the Interstate, as our travels in the GMC have taught us, more to see and more relaxed pace. As you can see, it only added 4 minutes onto 7.5 hours. Check against the return trip map for the different route we took a few days later.
We got a good start and were on the road by 9AM. We did pick up an hour at the NM border, putting us in the mountain time zone. The car ran great and the only tools I had were a slotted screwdriver, vice grips, and adjustable wrench and a roll of duct tape.
The tape turned out to be a smart move as the windshield is cracked from hail and the refraction in the crack was blinding me. I tore a thin strip of tape and put it over the crack in front of me and it took care of the problem.
We stopped in San Angelino, TX for lunch and then continued on. I should have topped off on the fuel, but it was showing 3/4 tank. As is typical, the lower the tank got, the faster the needle moved and I found us out in the middle of nowhere and starting to worry about gas (just west of Big Spring, TX). I really hadn't figured out what kind of MPG the car was getting as this was the first road trip. The trip odometer started getting to around 275 and usually when I stop for gas in my other cars at 300. Lucy found a gas station and it was about 50 miles away. It was on our route and we headed there.
Lots of Windmills out there. over 15% of the state's electricity come from them. These are over 200 ft tall and we determined the blade tips travel over 85 mph when only making 6 revolutions per minute (fun math problem).
We got to the station and the pumps were there, but the building was 2x4 wood framing, the walls weren't even up yet, and the pump I pulled up to said, 'See attendant Inside'. WTH? I just drove out and kept going. Next gas 43 miles! I was starting to stress a bit as my Mom's car ran out of gas once showing 1/4 tank. I was now getting below that. Ironically, we were driving through the oil fields this whole time.
We made it to Andrews, TX and the car took 17.2 gallons. I looked it up and it's a 19 gallon tank. Too close comfort for me! The car did pretty amazing and got about 25mpg! The speed limit was pretty much 75 everywhere in west Texas, so we were zipping along.
I had been driving for over 5 hours now, and let Lucy take a turn behind the wheel and we headed west into New Mexico. Right when we got there it started to POUR rain. The sign announcing we were in NM was tiny as well, so we didn't stop. We drove through the town of Eunice, NM and I noticed the streets are gullied in the middle to drain all the water out of town. Several streets were a couple of inches deep already, so I was keeping an eye out for flash flooding. We got out of town the road was under construction and parts were gravel. We drove down this road for a good 8-10 miles until the construction stopped.
The rain continued and it was raining when the state road we were on met US 62. Lucy got on the gas hard, making a left and lost the back end of the car. Luckily, the car has traction control and she got it straightened out quickly. If it didn't I think we would have wound up in a ditch as she is not experienced with drifting cars (determined during post incident de-briefing with both girls about proper recovery actions when this happens).
After that little bit of excitement, the weather cleared and we made it to Carlsbad. We checked into the hotel and went to Wal-Mart for some supplies. As we flew JetBlue and only had a carry on, we all needed some things. We wound up buying frozen dinners as there was a Microwave in the room and we headed back a relaxed for the evening.
We just got back in from a 2 week trip out west, but the Pineapple stayed here docked in the marina. My friend Mark (see last blog) asked if I was going to chronicle our trip. I initially said, "No, the blog is for the spacefaring adventures of the Intergalactic Space Pineapple."
As the trip progressed and we had some interesting experiences, I decided, may as well as it'll be fun to recount the experience in a year or two.
Two reasons we didn't take the coach. First was time. To go to TX in it would be 3 days each way realistically, and that'd be half the vacation. The other was that we were collecting Lucy's Dad's 2005 Mercury Grand Marquis.
He bought the car about 5 years ago with 50K on it. It had 207K on it when we picked it up in TX (has over 210K now).
We had two whole weeks plus a weekend, so we definitely had some side trips planned. The first one went off without a hitch, but being fluid, our later schedule changed a few times, before we actually did things. The first week was fairly well set up in advance. Fly out Friday eve, hang out in Austin for the weekend, then on Monday drive 430 miles west to New Mexico and go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Spend 3 nights checking out the Cavern and nearby Guadalupe Mountains Nation Park. I had been to the Cavern in 1988, but it was rushed and just drove by the Guadalupe Mountains on the way west to LA. I swore I would got back and had been eyeing this trip from Lucy's parents house for quite a few years now.
I ended up taking Friday off of work and prepped the house and packed up. We got an uber to the Tri-Rail station and everything was going fine. Just before we left, we got an email saying our plane was delayed for 2 hours. UGH. I decided we should go anyway on time, just in case things changed. When we got to the airport the board said our flight was still on time. Hoping the issue had been rectified, we proceeded to the gate. Then about 15 minutes before boarding they announced that in fact it was delayed for 2 hrs as the crew to fly it was late flying in from Salt Lake City. As it was, we were getting in around 11:45 originally. We finally got in to Austin just before 2AM.
Saturday, still on east coast time, I only got about 4 hours of sleep and was up by 7AM local time. Jason by bro-in-law was up so we took the Mercury for a spin to get breakfast. Later took it to the car wash and bought a new battery for it. The one in the car was working fine, but it was 6.5 years old and I was planning on driving across West TX and didn't need any drama.
Lucy's sister wanted to check out Wonderspaces So we headed down there. It was pretty cool interactive art exhibit with some very cool pieces.
Here is Naya trying out what looked like a big puffy snail shell. It had fans puffing it up. Jason got lots of good photos
So these guys are a band and were using the exhibits for a photo shoot. I couldn't believe their outfits as they looked like the Disaternauts sans the Monkey masks. I showed one of them a photo of me with one of the 'nauts and he really liked it. I told them to check them out on You Tube.
There was also a REALLY cool 3D VR movie that was about 10 min long.
After that we headed out for the first BBQ stop of the trip.
Beef has really shot up in price. The menu said $20/lb, but it was actually $30/lb! This lunch plate for 5 was over $100 (we already ate some of it).
After lunch, the girls wanted to go to H-mart which is a Korean super grocery. Wound up dropping $140 on all kinds of stuff there, but had food for a couple of days dinners, etc.
The next morning my buddy Mike who lives about 15 minutes away, met me and another B-body car guy, John met me at the local Cars and Coffee. Why I washed the car the day before. It looked pretty good, and John, who has a 2006 Crown Vic gave me a bunch of tips of modifications for the car for performance gains. We walked around and looked at everything.
Mike's wagon and his Dad's (just passed away and left to Mike's son) 1982 - Z28
1960s Ford Police Car. This thing had every period correct police accessory in it. A real time capsule.
1958 Impala with Tri-color interior. Really wish I bought that one in California back in 1991. Always loved these cars (Thanks George Lucas!)
Pair of Oldsmobiles. Pretty sure the left is a 1956, the green one is a 1973 with the swivel buckets.
1976 Trans AM with new larger (17 or 18") snowflake rims.
1968 Mercury Marquis. Grandparent to our new car. This car was exceptionally clean and perfect.
1960 Bubble top Chevy with a 6 pack (3 - 2 barrel carbs). Also super clean, owner was nice to talk to.
A 1970s Subaru Brat converted to and Electric. Very professional installation, the owner does them for a business (converting old cars to EV).
I have a soft spot for 1970s square body GM trucks. 2WD Blazer is a rarity and this one was pretty nice.
I left the cruise around 11AM as we were going to Lucy's aunts for lunch. Rest of the day was with family.
As you can see by the last entry, I dropped the rig off for some needed upgrades/repairs. She was there a bit longer than anticipated, but the results are worth the wait.
I was disappointed that the Honda EV4010 I tracked down in New Hampshire doesn't fit. I had bought it sight unseen on Craig's List and paid for it to be crated, then shipped to FL. Turns out I did really well as it is a very strong unit with only 600 hours on it. They are very sought after as they were mostly used in ambulances, fire trucks, and other commercial vehicles. They are water cooled with their own radiator! I was told when I bought my coach that there were to only aftermarket generators that would fit in the space on a 23' coach. Well it turns out not to be the case if your 23 is a rear bath Birchaven. Jeff measured it every which way and finally said the only way would be to tear out the closet and the wall might have to be moved in the bathroom. We opted to scratch that off the list for now and re-group on that one. The other work was get some new tires, and bleed the brakes (since it'd already be on the lift for the new airbags. Also, had new gaskets installed around the rear window and windshield.
The new airbags was a big one, as the original Firestone bags were purpose built for these vehicles, they are no longer manufactured, so a workaround is needed. There are several options out there and after doing my research, I went with the 'Alex' bags, named after their inventor. They bolt right in where the old ones were and use readily available airbags for large trucks.
The bags installed on my coach. They added the valve so you can isolate the bags (to prevent leak down) for long term storage. They work well and the coach rode well, perhaps a tad bit firmer.
.
Web image of original set up (not my coach).
I got a call from the shop when it was done (Monday afternoon) and then had to figure out how to get my rear end out to Okeechobee about 80 miles away to collect it. Normally, I would have Lucy run me out there, but schools out and summer camp has started for so she's pretty busy and unable. Saturday's are out for her as well, as that's her busy day with work at the studio.
I was scheming trying to figure out who I could conscript into driving me out there, when the light bulb went off in my head. Amtrak! It stops in Delray, 5 min from my house and also in Okeechobee less than 2 miles from the shop. I check online and it is the Silver Star that stops. The Silver Meteor does not. The timing on the trip is near perfect as well. 1:02PM to 2:26 PM and it's only $21!
I call my buddy Mark, who lives on the Gulf Coast to see if he wants to go camping as my family had plans already for the weekend. He says yes, it sounds fun! We plan for him to pick me at the train station in Okeechobee and take me over to the shop, then we will head out to Prairie.
Waiting at the Delray Station. When they built the new Tri-Rail station, they closed the historic Delray Beach Amtrak station about a mile away. This is so people getting off the Amtrak, can use the Tri-Rail to reach other stations not serviced by Amtrak. I also found out, that you can no longer buy an Amtrak ticket from two points both serviced by Tri-Rail. Say Ft. Lauderdale to West Palm. This makes sense to me as you don't want two competitors on the same tracks!
All aboard! The website said the train was delayed 2 minutes but they were on time. I rode in the car with the door open on the right.
Video of train leaving Okeechobee. I had a few minutes as Mark hit some rain and was slightly delayed.
Mark arrived and we were over at the shop in a couple minutes. I paid for the work and then went to find Mike in the back to discuss the details of what he did. I got the two minute tutorial on the air ride system as it was disconnected when I bought the coach. We got that squared away and went food shopping as we had 5 meals to cover. Usually, I try and pre-buy the food, etc. and leave home with a loaded coach, but not this time.
We made our purchases and off we went up to the Prairie. You can see it was just a couple of bachelors on this ride. We arrived onsite and I was surprised that the road (gravel) was pretty dry. They have been spending money on it as it is raised up a bit and seemed to have been graded fairly recently.
We got set up and made some cocktails and relaxed for a bit. We then got some firewood from the stand on the family loop. Usually the firewood is ready to go and nice and dry. Even though it is covered, the humidity made it fairly damp, which I noticed when I tried to break the bigger ones down with my axe.
Even the cabbage palm fronds were slow to start. As it was after 8PM already, I threw some charcoal briquets in the pit and lit them so we could cook. As it was it was after 9PM when the meat was done.
It was overcast, but never rained, so more drinks and watching the fire until bedtime.
Saturday morning I woke up around 7 and rolled out the door to see what types of wildlife were about.
Aside from a couple of vultures sunning, there wasn't much on offer. I fully expected to see turkeys and deer as usual, but didn't. In fact I did not see one turkey or crested cara cara the whole weekend. I did see one deer on Sunday running away from the fire.
One the walk back to the coach the low sun put a nice golden light on everything.
Usually, you don't find perfect sea shells 50 miles inland. This was mixed into the road and somehow managed not to get crushed by the grader. I kept it.
Two of GM's finest vehicles ever produced (I'm biased). 1976 GMC and 1996 Buick Roadmaster (Mark's). The truck was our neighbor's. If you look to the right of the cabbage palm, you can see the moon.
Closeup of the waning gibbous before it set. Moon was full the day before.
By now Mark was up and we had breakfast and hung out for a little. I suggested a short hike before it got brutally hot out. He agreed, and I picked the easy milk run hike that is also in a hammock, so there would be shade. We did walk over, so that added a half mile to it so all told, we did about 2 miles total.
The hammock walk was fun, and I was surprised it was actually drier than December when I went with JT and MJ. I also noticed the wild Papayas that were growing and fruiting in December were nowhere to be seen. I was surprised they were there in December, and not surprised the non-native vegetation was removed. Mark's wife is into native vegetation, so he was quite interested in a number of plants we saw, that he was not familiar with.
Only pic I took on the hike. These mushrooms were the size of coffee can lids. I expected to find Alice under one. The hike was short and we stopped back at the ranger station and sat on the rockers looking north. A thunderstorm was blowing up to the NE and we watched it progress across the prairie shooting lightning bolts down.
At this point I will mention that I fully expected it to be a very wet and soggy weekend. So far it had only spit rain for a minute or two here and there. We started getting hungry and headed back to the coach and made sandwiches. After lunch we were cooling off in the coach and finally it started to rain.
Mark announced it was nap time so I grabbed a book Naya wanted me to read and sat in the passenger seat and started reading and occasionally looking at the rain outside. It rained for about half and hour fairly steadily and then let up. I was into the book now, and an hour slipped by. Mark woke up rejuvenated and I could tell he was antsy and asked about going into town. I said it was a bit of a ride, but he wanted to go.
I looked at Sebring Raceway to see if there was a public event and saw a Porsche club had the track rented for the day. I had never really explored Historic Downtown Sebring, so I agreed and we hopped in his wagon. Turns out it was 48 miles and took us an hour to get there.
What looked good on the map and google as a thriving historic downtown area (Wikipedia entry: The Sebring Downtown Historic District is a U.S.historic district (designated as such on March 16, 1990) located in Sebring, Florida. The district is at Circle Drive and Ridgewood Drive from Mango Street to Magnolia Avenue. It contains 22 historic buildings.)
was far less impressive upon arrival. The circle was nice, but there was nothing going on. I mean maybe a dozen cars total parked around the circle at 5PM on a Saturday and the only business doing anything was the ice cream shop.
We drove around the circle and then went out a block to a bigger circle and went around that. Then we started taking random turns driving around the neighborhood looking at the houses and buildings. We both like Mid Century Modern architecture, but a lot of it was older or newer (we did see a couple pretty cool houses).
Our exploration continued and we looped around Lake Jackson and ultimately made our way back to the west side and US 27. We headed to the Sunset Grille with a view of the lake looking west.
We opted for outside, then worried about rain, but it all went by to the North as pictured. A seaplane took off and that was pretty cool. The service was meh, but they brought us chocolate cake as a consolation for making us wait 40 min for food (it wasn't busy). The food was decent quality, but not super good.
We finished and headed back to the campground. We still had an hour of light and got busy prepping the fire. Tonight was more successful as I didn't need any accelerants to get it going, just cabbage palm fronds, but arguably they are like nitroglycerin lol.
You can see the beginning of the sunset in this photo, but a few minutes later, mama nature put on a show the likes of which I haven't seen in decades.
Mark took this shot with his iPhone. Pictures do not do it justice. The sky was ON FIRE. It was truly amazing how bright orange and purple and blue it all was. It was changing by the second and lasted for well over half an hour.
It's obvious that Mark's camera is better....
This photo was a couple min before the sunset, so out of order, but if you notice Mark is holding a battery powered fan to blow away the smoke. Had I had the camera out 45 seconds earlier you would have seen Mark engulfed in a cloud of smoke as it was just pouring all over him as the wind was changing. This prompted the fan and me taking out the camera. Oh well missed opportunities!
We burned through a lot of logs and called it a night.
On Sat afternoon, the campground host stopped by to let us know there would be a few controlled burns in the park the next morning. We got a late start ( I woke up at 5 but went back to bed). As we had gone out for dinner, I had steak in fridge that wouldn't make it home. I diced a couple of potatoes and an onion and left Mark to tend the skillet while I cut up the meat. It was all cut up so it cooked quickly and we had breakfast bowls of steak and potatoes (with onion). Very tasty and by the time we were done, they were lighting fires.
I was surprised how close to the campground they lit it. Little did I know lol.
It got closer! You could feel the heat from the edge of our site. The fire was about a hundred feet away but blowing away from us.
By now, I had mostly packed up everything and was watching the fire. I decided to let it burn out a little as it was right on the edge of the loop road.
We then vacated the site and drove right by where I said I wouldn't in the above video ha ha ha.
I got to the road on the way out and was confronted with a minor issue:
I idled through it and was the no worse for wear. I dumped the tanks and got rid of the trash and bid farewell to Mark as I won't see him until Oct or Nov, as he will soon migrate north like the snowbird he is (he stays longer every year).
On the way out of the park I saw a snake run across the road in front of me (black racer), and a deer running away from the other fires they set.
These were much larger burns than the one by the campground.
The ride home was uneventful (hooray!) and I was back home around 3:30PM.
