Is That Snow or Sand

In this land of contrast, we travel west only 20 miles to move from cool sparse green forests with running springs to warmer endless sand dunes in White Sands National Monument.  The only simularity is that both snow and gypsum sand is white.  The trip takes us from over 9000 ft to 4000 ft in a short distance of about 19 miles from the small town of Clouldcroft to Alamogordo, New Mexico.  We look forward to breathing air at the lower altitude to avoid panting with the smallest of physical effort.  During our decline, it's our truck's first test to hold back the 13,000 lbs. trailer down a 6% grade without burning the brakes out.  The big 6.6 litre diesel engine did an amazing job slowing us down in manual 2nd gear at 3500 rpm, requiring braking only about 20% of the time.  Despite this, half way down we pulled over to let the 4 disc brakes cool down as the brake linings started to smell.  It was clear that if we did not use the low gears it would be detrimental to the truck brakes.  The electro-magnetic drum trailer brakes did not overheat.

The sands at White Sands National Monument comprise the world's largest gypsum type (calcium sulphate) of sand dunes in the world.  The gypsum sand is rare.  Gypsum was deposited in the bottom of an ancient sea, uplifted with the Rocky Mountains and collapsed into a dome called the Tularosa Basin between the San Andres and Sacramento Mountain Ranges.  The gypsum also accumulates from rivers running down from the mountains and then the gypsum gets trapped in the basin and as the lake beds dry up from time to time they form gypsum Selenite crystals (up to 3 feet long) in Lake Lucero (which we will be touring on Saturday on a once a month guided opportunity).  Lastly, the wetting, drying and freezing of these crystals break them down into little sand particles small enough for strong south westerly winds to blow them where they accumulate into the 60 ft high sand dunes.  The dunes appear as white snow to us and we see kids and parents tobogganing on discs which makes our surroundings only appear more like snow.  The toboganning here is great.  The sand in your underwear is less annoying than snow in your underwear.  The struggle for life to exist in this environment is difficult, yet even mammals such as small foxes (smaller than your average house cat) survive here.

The expanse of the dunes (with three large mammals exposed!)

As we set off to hike this mysterious and rare landscape it eludes us when we try to comprehend the time it must have taken to accumulate this vast area of sand from the selenite crystals in nearby Lake Lucero .  The dunes engulf 275 square miles and so we use our GPS to avoid getting lost.  Getting lost out here can be life threatening.  Although we know of no rattlesnakes or scorpions in the dunes, there is no water and although day time highs are 60F this time of year, lows typically drop to near freezing and the winds here can pick up to 50 mph without warning.  For a short period just before sunset the winds stopped during one of our hikes and the old familiar dead silence came upon us as we tried to take in the vast distances across the dunes between each mountain range.  We stop breathing momentarily to hear our heart beat.

Nearing sunset, you can see the ripples in the sand

[note - this blog written by Brad - you can tell by the technical truck stuff at the beginning!]

A Little R&R

Since we've been running from one tourist destination to the next, we decide to take a couple of days off and relax in the mountains.  We are on our way west to the White Sands National Monument when I propose this idea to Brad - why don't we pull off the highway and camp in the National Forest?  It's mostly public land, although some of it is private used mostly for cattle ranching, and we can camp for free.  He loves the idea (especially the free part) for an opportunity to slow down and relax, so we stop in a small town called Mayhill and ask a funny, older guy at the local store for directions to get to some of the "dispersed" camping areas.  "Well, you can't get there from here," he laughs.  "I've always wanted to say that," he smiles.  "Actually, you're in luck.  Hunting season ended yesterday and won't open again until Thanksgiving weekend," (which is next weekend) "and it's really pretty in there.  In fact I wish I could take you myself if I didn't have to mind the store."

He provides us with the directions, and we head off.  The store fella assures us that "hundreds" of people bring their "million dollar RVs" in here during hunting season (so I'm glad we missed that - AND we won't get shot!), so even though the blacktop becomes a dirt road, it's still in very good shape.  Along the way, we run across a lumber mill which allows us to collect some firewood for free.  The workers in the mill are wearing cowboy hats (who doesn't down here?) and no safety equipment.  Go figure!  The mill is run down and old, and literally it seems, in the middle of nowhere, except this Lincoln National Forest.  But the wood is beautiful pine wood which is soft and will burn fast, but smells great!  As we travel along the road - Agua Chiquita Canyon Road - we start to see the pull-off areas with the stone fire rings that signify the free camping areas.  You are only allowed to camp where there is already an established fire ring, and they are fairly close to the road, but this road is not used much, in fact we only pass one or two other vehicles.

We find a site we like and nestle into it.  It is only about eight feet from a crystal clear stream that is only about two feet wide and falling quite rapidly over tiny one-foot waterfalls so we can hear it inside the trailer as we fall asleep, and under two huge pine trees that must measure almost four feet in diameter and 50 to 60 feet in height.  We are in a canyon and guess what!  There is snow on the sides of the hill where the sun doesn't shine!  I'll bet snow hasn't fallen in Canada yet, and here we are camping in it even though we came south to get away from it.  The guy at the store said they had three inches of snow on Monday (three days ago), but the ground is already dry where the sun can reach.

Note the snow on the ground; our first campsite in the Lincoln National Forest

We have beautiful campfires for the three nights that we are here, the first of the trip since RV parks don't allow campfires, and neither did the Guadalupe National Park (that was just ashpalt camping like a big parking lot), so this is a real treat, even though we are wearing longjohns, winter coats and gloves.  The moon is almost full, and it creates so much light we don't need our flashlights outside; in fact the trees are producing huge shadows on the ground, but of course we can't see as many stars.  But we can see the craters on the moon with our naked eye, and with our binoculars, we can see unbelievable detail of the moon's surface.  We wish we had a telescope.

Temperatures drop near freezing at night, although we have our furnace to keep us warm - hah! not what you were thinking!  When we wake each morning (in Texas and here in New Mexico), the sky is a beautiful deep azure blue because the air is so dry.  It's such a magnificent way to start each day.  We joke with the locals about it being "another sunny morning", and some of them look at us strangely - we know they were born here and don't understand what it can be like to not see the sun for two weeks in a row like we do in the east.  But Brad's been getting nose bleeds from the dryness and our skin looks 10 years older already.  Hmm, we didn't come here for that either!  Break out the Vitamin E oil!

On our first morning in the Lincoln National Forest, We quickly realize that, although we have a beautiful spot under the whispery pine trees, they provide too much shade, and there are a few spots just down the little access road where we've pulled in that are more in the open and, more importantly, in the sun but still right beside the creek.  So we spend 45 minutes making the move, which is made more difficult because Brad has to back the trailer down the access road onto the main road and then back it all the way down the access road again so he can pull forwards into the spot we want so our back window will be facing the sun to get the most heat into the trailer during the day.  The move is worth it, and Grady enjoys basking in the sunshine on his carpet-covered multi-level cat perch during the afternoons. 

The ground here is very hard and in spots covered with small mounds of dirt instead of grass.  As I'm looking out of the back window one day, I notice that one of the mounds of dirt is a darker colour and suddenly fresh dirt is thrown out - this is a hole being freshly dug by whatever creature lives there.  As I run outside to see what it is, Brad is just pulling in with the truck loaded with new wood, so he scares it back down the hole.  I go back into the trailer and watch it with the binoculars even though I'm only about 30 feet away.  It seems to be some kind of gopher or small groundhog.  Ok, nothing very exciting, but it's the only wildlife we've seen out here.  Brad walks over to the hole, to clear away the dirt so we can get a better view of the animal, and the animal catches sight of Brad.  After that, we don't see any more activity.  So I walk back over to the hole and discover that the gopher has filled the hole back in from the inside - I guess he figures this exit will be too dangerous with us topside!

btw - this type of camping is called dry camping or "boondocking" - camping in a trailer or RV with no hookups.  We are fully self-sufficient.  Our 80-gallon fresh water tank was almost full when we arrived, our grey (dirty) water and black (sewer) water tanks were almost empty and we filled our propane tank which runs our furnace, stove, water heater and fridge, our two six-gallon gas tanks which run our generator for our microwave/oven, electrical recepticles (so I can blowdry my hair, recharge the battery on my laptop and camera) and lights and which recharges our two marine batteries the latter of which also runs our lights.  We can camp for about four days like this, more if we really work hard on conserving water.  The water is always the "problem", especially since I'm such a girly girl and wash my hair everyday.  But really, after three or four days of being nowhere, I'm ready to hook into an RV park and watch TV and have real water and electricity.  Even I have my limits!

We know that the road ahead has some steep climbs in elevation.  The city we have to go through, Cloudcroft, has the highest elevation of any city in New Mexico - 8,650 feet.  Then within 14 miles, the elevation drops into the city of Alamogorda at 4,335 feet.  There are warnings for trucks about the steep grades and that only those with air brakes should attempt it - it should be fun!  The drive through the National Forest from our campsite to Cloudcroft is breathtaking.  We continue on the Agua Chiquita Road which is a loop from Mayhill to Cloudcroft, but at a snail's pace of about 15 mph.  The road in most places is no more than one vehicle wide, and continues to be only dirt, but not too rough.  At one point, it winds steeply through a mountain pass (Lynn, you would have been crying, I swear), and my GPS kept saying "turn around when possible", (you must be joking!) so I just shut it off!  I was fairly certain, having an innate sense of direction, that we were heading the right way, but you never know when these roads will take you off into nowhere; but I did see that map once in the store at the beginning of this little venture.

Near the top of one particularly steep, windy, narrow pass, we can see where a forest fire had swept through.  Brad took a pic:

Partially fire-ravaged hillside at the top of the mountain in the Lincoln National Forest, NM

And keep in mind, it's FREEZING up here, with the wind howling through these trees like a late-night horror movie.  Case in point why we don't travel at night.

We meet only one other vehicle on this road, fortunately at a point where he can pull aside to let us pass, because we'll be damned if we'll back up anywhere.  The views are stunning when we can see the forest beyond the trees, and lo and behold, we finally make it to a paved intersection - but there are no signs telling us which city is in which direction!  Hmm - I love guessing!  Try left -should be west if we've traveling north, right?.  And we end up in the town of Sunspot, home of THE national solar telescope.  What an accidental find.  We tour the institute, but aren't allowed to look through any of the six or seven telescopes they have here ("Do you know how expensive these telescopes are?  We can't let just regular humans look through them you know!"  Well excuse me for not having a Ph.D. in solar physics!  I didn't know I'd need one when I left Ontario a few weeks ago.)  Anyway, we do get to LOOK at one of the telescopes and can see that it's trained on a sunspot; other telescopes are used to look specifically at just the corona, just solar flares, etc. - very detailed, specific aspects.  We move on, and find our way to Cloudcroft and make the amazing decent into Alamogorda - it is steep - and to our campsite nestled in the valley between two mountain ranges.

What an adventure.  Off the beaten track is certainly worth it.

Addendum - December 5/10:
The Lincoln National Forest is home to a legend - Smokey the Bear!  It was in this forest that Smokey was found as a cub during a forest fire.  The poor little guy was badly singed and orphaned, but thankfully rescued by a fire crew who found him clinging to a tree stump.  He was nursed back to health and it was decided, because of his firey rescue, to use his picture as a symbol to help prevent forest fires.  That was 60 years ago.  Who doesn't know Smokey the Bear today?  He was rescued only about 60 or so miles north of where we were in the Lincoln National Forest.

Caving!

In our past travels, Brad and I have traveled up and down the eastern United States a fair bit, and we have been to many caves in Pennsylvania and Virginia, our favourite being Luray Caverns in Luray, VA, and to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky which is the longest cave system in the world.  But I have to say that Carlsbad Caverns are, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful caves I've seen.  The rooms are as big as I remember any at Mammoth Caves being, and as beautifully decorated as any at Luray Caverns with stalactites (formations that hang from the ceiling) and stalagmites (formations that form on the floor), drapery (formations that hang like drapes from the ceiling) and soda straws (formations that hang like straws, sometimes hollow, from the ceiling).

A formation known as flowstone - this one about two feet high

We spend about a day and a half exploring Carlsbad Caverns.  We take both self-guided tours: the walk 750 feet down from the natural entrance and the 1-1/4 mile walk around the "Big Room".  We also take a Ranger guided tour of the King's Palace, but we both enjoy the self-guided tours much better as we are able to go at our own pace.  Again, since it's off-season, the crowds are thin and we are often almost alone on the trail.  In fact, on the first afternoon when we walk down through the natural entrance, we ARE all alone until one of the Rangers comes along to hurry us up as it's almost closing time and he has the duty of turning off lights behind us.  It's also very quiet in the caves as people are encouraged to only whisper and Rangers are strategically placed throughout the caves to remind people to respect the rules.

In the Big Room

There always seems to be a new surprise around each bend in the path, and Brad takes over 140 pictures over the two days that we visit.  He uses long time exposures and a tripod to capture the natural beauty and better depth of the formations.  His excitement over the photography probably more than doubles our time in the caves, but I know he'll get some excellent shots.  The National Park Service only uses full spectrum lighting, not coloured lighting on any of the formations, however as the lights age some do change colour and look red or green in the photos.  Algae sometimes also grows near the lights where water drips near them too, so green colouring will often appear in photos.

Marilyn in the Big Room

Carlsbad Caverns, which are in the Guadalupe Mountain range, are quite unique in how they were formed.  Most caves are formed by rainwater, which is slightly acidic, seeping through the soil and dissolving the limestone (a full explanation can be found here).  However Carlsbad was once part of a shallow inland sea, many millions of years ago.  But as the earth changed, geological forces pushed up the Guadalupe Mountains.  Deep inside the mountain range, cracks had already formed in the limestone rock and the water, rich with hydrogen-sulfide because of the extensive gas and oil found underground, mixed with rainwater and created sulphuric acid.  Sulphuric acid is highly corrosive and it easily ate away at the limestone within the cracks under the mountains, forming the caves.  By this time, about 2 million years ago, the sea had drained away, and usual cave processes took over - water seeped through the earth above, bringing with it minerals like calcium and iron, and driped into the cave.  The minerals from very slow drips solidified on the ceiling as stalactites, faster drips fell to the floor of the cave depositing the minerals there to form stalagmites and eventually after millions of years or tens of thousands of years the two would meet in the middle to form a column.  (A formal description of the formation of Carlsbad Caverns is here.)

Formation known as drapery in the Big Room (these are about six feet long)

It's quite cold in the caves, only 56 degrees F, about 12 degrees C, and 90% humidity.  After several hours in the caves, we feel like we're back in Hamilton in the spring, but fortunately that's still about five months away.  All we have to do is rise the 750 feet back to the surface on the elevator and we're back in the sun (although the wind has kicked up again!).  What an experience.  Another year, we'll come back and take one of the other Ranger guided tours, perhaps one where we have to crawl on all fours, or the lantern tour.

Still in Texas - Ok! It's Big!

After leaving Monahans Sandhills SP, we drive southwest to Balmorhea State Park.  It's about an hour drive.  We can see the Davis Mountains in the distance, tiny specks at first, but then looming larger with every mile ticked off.  Their peaks are quite jagged and the mountains are brown and dry.  We will likely visit the Davis Mountain State Park during the return part of our journey to Texas after we've been through Arizona and California after Christmas.

So we arrive at Balmorhea.  It is an oasis in this desert.  In the state park, there is a 3.5 million gallon pool which is man-made, but naturally spring fed, and there are so many springs feeding into it that it takes only four hours to fill the pool, most of which is 20 to 25 feet deep!  The water is as clear as the purest Brita water.  Because this is off-season, there are only about four other couples here, one of which is scuba diving or learning how to.  Brad and I have our snorkel gear, and we head to the pool.  There are tons of small fish near the back of the pool where the springs are, some larger catfish and we also see one big turtle.  The clarity of the water allows us to easily see all the way to the bottom which is natural stones and plants, not tiles like you'd expect in a pool.  The water temperature is a constant 72 to 76 degrees F, but we are wearing wetsuits anyway, just so we can stay in the water longer.  And the water does feel very warm; in fact when we come out of the pool it feels cool because of the dry air and breeze.  But the sun is hot and we heat up quickly when we come out of the pool.

Brad snorkeling in the pool at Balmorhea State Park

Balmorhea is a beautiful place to spend the afternoon, but we head out late in the day to make our way to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park north of Pecos.  We camp in the National Park because there are so many hiking trails that it doesn't make sense to drive back and forth for an hour every day from the nearest town.  There are no hookups in the park campground, so we make sure to fill with propane, water and gas for the generator.  Because of the higher elevation (the highest peak is almost at 9,000 feet and the campground is at 5,700 feet), it's very cold - about 0 degrees C or 32 degrees F at night and only about 65 degrees F or 20 C during the day.  Because the range is so high, clouds actually form above it as the warm desert air rushes up the one side, so clouds are common over the mountains and on the one side of the valley.

We hike the McKittrick Canyon trail, which has some red, gold and orange trees visible from the trail, but nothing like the colours we get in Ontario (especially in the Muskokas) where an entire hillside will be blazing with colour.  Here there will be a clump of up to a dozen trees; and this is what Texans call spectacular fall colour.  I guess in a landscape of brown, dry grasslands, these hints of fall colour can be spectacular.  We also learn that the Guadalupe Mountains are geologically significant because they contain the most extensive exposure of the world's largest fossil reef.  There are three geological markers right here in the park and it is rare to find three such markers in one place.  Yet this national park is the sixth least visited park in the US.  The other five least visited are all in Alaska.  At least we won't be elbow to elbow with other hikers here, except that we happen to be visiting on a weekend and the trail is a bit busy with fellow hikers.

Brad and Marilyn in McKittrick Canyon, Guadalupe Mountain National Park

We also drive out to the Salt Basin Dunes which are like sand dunes but they are actually made up of gypsum (the material that makes up drywall or sheetrock).  This is a one hour drive from the park campground partly on a dirt road, then a one mile hike.  The dunes rise out of the desert scrub to a maximum height of 60 feet.  There are all kinds of animal tracks in the sand - coyote, lizards, rabbits, and I believe a deer; however we see absolutely no signs of life at all.  What makes the dunes so beautiful too is that the Guadalupe Peak is the backdrop, and today there are some clouds to animate the deep blue sky as well. 

Salt Basin Dunes of Guadalupe Mountains National Park

The wind picks up late in the afternoon and by the time we get back to the campground, it's gusting pretty good.  We're in for another cold night; thank goodness for the propane furnace.

Texas - it's not as big as Ontario!

We are driving straight across Texas, from Texarkana to Abilene first (where we spend a night at the Flying J truck stop) and then on to Monahans Sandhills State Park east of Pecos where we only expect to spend a couple of hours, but instead camp for two nights.  It's really beautiful here.  First, the drive from Abilene to the State Park is very windy, so much so that there are little tumbleweeds tumbling across I-20, and hundreds of windmills in the flat, desolate plains surrounding the interstate.  There are also cotton fields, about half of which have been harvested, and the other half are bursting with their white balls of fluff, ready to be picked.  And then there are the oil drilling rigs - hundreds and hundreds of them.  Somewhere along the way not far west of Abilene, these replace the windmills.  In Midland, a sign boasts that this city is the Hometown of George and Laura Bush.  We also drove through Hope, Arkansas which is the birthplace of Bill Clinton a few days ago.  Looks like we're in President Alley!

We love to chat with the "locals" to learn more about the places we visit and the people.  At breakfast in Abilene, we chat with our server, a 19-year-old young man named Zach who has lived in Texas all his life, and has left the state only once to go to Colorado for a high school band trip.  I guess Brad and I are fairly adventurous travellers:  I have been in 31 of the 50 United States; Brad has been in 28 (I only exceed him because of a couple of business trips).  We find that many Americans rarely leave their home state unless they move to take another job.  We have also travelled across Canada east and west, so are we unusual?  Send your thoughts and comments on that.

Monahans Sandhills State Park is a pretty interesting place.  There are "living" dunes and others that are "stable" (they don't call them dead dunes).  Living dunes are still forming with moving sand, like the Sahara.  Obviously, these dunes aren't that big.  The non-living dunes have scrub growing on them and are stable - they no longer move with swirling sand.  It is hot, sunny and windy here.  The ranger says the wind only stops when it gets to about 100 degrees!  We rent a plastic disc for dune surfing, but this proves to be less fun than you'd think because we can't get any speed going down the dunes as the sand is too soft and we sink too far down.  It's more work than fun since you have to walk back up - there's no tow rope like on a ski hill.  The sand is cold only a few inches below the surface, and moist. 

Brad sandsurfing at Monahans Sandhills State Park

Back at the trailer, small house finches are driving the cat nuts!  They are lined up to get at any drop of water coming from our hookup.  They are even landing on our open windows, which open from the bottom angled out, so Grady is running from window to window trying to sneak up on the birds.  He doesn't chatter at them like other cats do; he just watches them and only once or twice lunged at one.  During our second night in this park, we are the only campers.  There are only about 30 sites here, but it's an eerie feeling to be so alone.  Of course, there is a park ranger, so we are safe.

Grady birdwatching

On the morning that we leave Sandhills SP, Brad is exploring around in a small wooded area at the top of a dune and finds a small plastic container.  In it is a note that it is a "letterbox" started on March 13, 2010, and there are five other entries from others who have found it since.  Each person has their own stamp, but the note says that if you find the letterbox by accident, you can go on their website to check it out.  I think I will - www.atlasquest.com.  I make an entry even though we don't have a stamp (they can always rip out the page if we've made a faux pas) with our name, city and date found.  I guess this is a similar endeavour to geocaching.

Grady is much more comfortable in the truck now.  He is learning to "live" in it - he sleeps, eats and even uses the litter box while we are moving.  He no longer hides out in the "cat cave" under the back seat all the time.  He'll sit or lay on the console in between Brad and me, or sit on top of his carrier on the back seat and look out the window, or even sit on top of the back of the back seats.  He's become much more bold.  And when we get to Monahans Sandhills State Park, I get brave and put his leash on and let him walk in the big sand dunes where we are camped - and he loves it!  There is no one else around and nowhere for him to hide, otherwise I would never let him do this as he's not leash trained.  But he is very good and doesn't pull or try to get away.

Grady out on the dunes

We also finally buy an iPod Nano at Walmart, so we can download our music from my laptop and have more than just our CDs to listen to in the truck.  We have finally caught up with the new millennium!  In about an hour I get everything figured out with our 2008 and 2009 top 250 songs downloaded.  It's a very cool little device.  How did we live without all of these gadgets before?

Power Drive

Well, if truth be told, it hasn't really been a power drive.  We just toot along, about 5-7 hours a day, taking our time and not tiring ourselves out.  We have five whole months after all.

We leave home on Wednesday, and it is cold but sunny, and we are happy to leave the chill behind; or so we think.  We spend the first night at a campground in Ohio, along a the Miami River.  It is beautiful, but it is FREEZING!  It is no warmer than home, and I really don't expect it to be because we aren't far enough south yet.  Also, the campground is 1/2 an hour from the Interstate, and we decide that it's too far a drive out of our way each day.  So for now, we'll stick to what we can find on the Interstates and not reserve campgrounds.

Grady (the cat) doesn't like riding in the truck and spends most of the time under the back seat.  He can't sleep because his head keeps bobbing up and down.  You don't realize how much a vehicle shakes your body - we're used to it, but on a small body like a cat's it's really noticable.  He's always happy when we stop and get him into the trailer where he can stretch out on the bed or his three-tier tower and have a decent nap!

For our second night, we decide to "camp" in a Walmart parking lot next to another RV.  We learned last year when hiking in Utah and talking to other campers that you can park an RV or trailer in any Walmart parking lot overnight, as long as you don't unhook it from your vehicle.  Of course, there are no hookups for water or electricity, so you have to be fully self-contained, which we are (we filled our water tank this morning at the campground).  So this is where we spend the night, in Franklin, Kentucky near the Tennessee border.  And again, it's FREEZING!  So I can now say that I've been naked in a Walmart parking lot!

Because we don't have any electric hookups here, we have to run our generator to make dinner.  Brad had made an exhaust stack out of heat-resistent PVC pipe that takes the gas fumes from almost ground height up to about one foot above the roof of our trailer so that no one get asphyxiated.  After about 10-15 minutes of the generator running tonight, he hears a strange noise, says "uh-oh" and quickly shuts down the generator.  He runs outside and when he comes back in tells me that the heat from the exhaust has melted the PVC pipe at the bottom and the rest of the pipe has collapsed.  Fortunately, the wind is taking the fumes away from us and the other RV in the parking lot, so we'll be okay tonight, but we will need to find a Home Depot or RV supplier within the next couple of days.

The next morning, it's raining and still cold when we get away.  We think about going to Graceland, but with having to park the trailer and the cold weather, we decide to power through to warmer climes.  However, we don't get far and spend night number three in West Memphis, Arkansas which is just across the border from Memphis, Tennessee.  Here we stay in the parking lot of a Flying J, which is a truck stop for truckers and RVers.  They offer discounts on gas/diesel and propane, and also have a dumping/water filling station for RVers.  So we now have a Flying J discount card.  What is really interesting here is that we park at the end of the parking lot under some trees.  As the sun sets, we can hear what sounds like hundreds of birds chirping, but they continue after it gets dark.  We go outside and look into the trees and realize that they're not birds, but hundreds of bats.  In the morning, we see that the trees have some sort of hard-coated fruit on them, almost like dates, but not dates.  The bats are obviously gone in the morning, but they sure were loud that night.

Finally on Day Four, Saturday, it's sunny and promising to be a bit warmer.  We head out for Texas, and just before 5pm make Texarkana on the Arkansas/Texas border.  We stop at the Texas Welcome Centre for some information and it's so beautiful and quiet here, that we decide to stay the night.  There's construction at the entrance to the Centre (not active thank goodness), so it looks like the Centre might be closed, or it's difficult to find, so we're the only ones here besides two or three truckers.  There's an all-night security guard and lo-and-behold, they have free wi-fi!  So I'm able to catch up on this blog and send a couple of emails home.  Today, we also find a Home Depot along the Interstate and Brad is able to pick up some metal fence tubing to replace the melted PVC generator exhaust pipe.  Good thing he's handy!  (If the ladies can't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!)

So that's where we are now.  By Monday, we should be at our first hiking destination - Carlsbad Caverns and then Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  But more on that later.