It's that time of year again: a get away break after the stress of preparing for Nativity, the madness of the holidays, and to celebrate our anniversary. We're making it a habit to take a vacation in January and trying to go some place warm! Fortunately, a lot of the national parks are in the south or California, so it's convenient to go to one of those in January. This year we picked out Guadalupe Mountains and Calsbad Caverns as our destination. Both are close together not too far from El Paso, Texas. This puts the total of national parks we've visited up to 23 out of 56. If you don't count Alaska, which has 8 national parks, & Hawaii, which has 2, we're about halfway there.
We left on Monday morning, Jan. 16 spending most of the day on the plane or in airports. We did not arrive in El Paso until 7:30 pm.
But on Tuesday morning, our adventure began. We drove to the Guadalupe Mountains where there are 80 miles of hiking trails. (And no, we didn't do all of them.) The sky was so blue overhead with just a few puffy white clouds floating by. There was a cloud making a shadow on this mountain that caught my eye.
The surrounding countryside looks just like the old western movies with hills dotted in sagebrush and cactus. However, one of the trails we found in the McKittrick Canyon followed a stream so there were varieties of trees and foliage along the way. The trail ended at Pratt Cabin where we just sat and soaked in the sun for a little before returning. 4.8 miles round trip.
We were going to do more hiking, but Andy's ankle was bothering him so we decided to continue on to Carlsbad Caverns. When we got there, we explored the main cave called "The Big Room." I had no idea how big those caverns were. As high and awesome as the surrounding mountains are, so the caverns are on the inside of the earth. To get to the main cavern, you go down an elevator 750 feet! That's as tall as a 75 story building! The Big Room mentioned above is actually the size of 6 football fields. There are all kinds of stalactites and stalagmites and draperies and soda straws and clear pools and rock formations and tunnels leading off to who knows where. Wow! Truly amazing - all underground.
We went back on Wednesday and took 2 guided tours as well as did some exploring on our own. The morning tour took us into the Left Hand Tunnel that was not lit. We took candles and Andy and I were the only ones in that group, so we got individualized attention and lots of interesting tidbits about the cave. After that tour was over, we had a couple of hours until the next one we had scheduled, so we sat outside in the sun and ate some snacks. The day was nice and warm, up in the 70's, but very breezy. Then we hiked down the natural entrance of the cave where the bats exit...down, down, down 800 feet from the surface. The shins and calves got a serious workout!
The natural entrance is where all the bats come out from May through October. I was happy enough to be there after they went south for the winter. The visitor's center and the guides on the tours make a big deal of the bats and we were encouraged to "adopt a bat" because they are mammals just like us! That's ok, I'm sure they're important for the environment and I'm glad they eat insects to help out the farmers, but I feel as much like adopting a bat as I do about adopting a tarantula or a boa constrictor! No thanks! In my opinion, only a mother bat could love a bat!
We got down in time for another guided tour to the "King's Palace." That section of the cave had this huge room that at one time, back in the 20's and 30's, dances and meetings would be held there. It's hard to convey from these pictures with our little amateur camera the size of the room and the beauty of all the hangings and forms and shapes. It really was amazing.
It reminded me of that hymn:
For the Beauty of the Earth and we could change that to include
For the Beauty Under the Earth!
Between the two days, we were in the caverns about 7 1/2 hours, so it was good to be out in the sunshine again.
On Thursday we were hiking fools! We went back to the Guadalupe Mountains to the visitor center and checked out the Pinery Trail. That one was easy, only 3/4 mile round trip on a paved walkway. The trail went by the ruins of a stagecoach station built in 1858. It was one of many stops along the 2,700 mile route from St. Louis to San Francisco. There were stations built every 20 miles and the stagecoach would do 120 miles a day, making the trip in 25 days. Can you imagine traveling by stagecoach all day? Sometimes the coaches would be very crowded and there were pictures showing people in all kinds of positions trying to get comfortable. (And I complain about the discomfort of traveling in an airplane!) Along with people, the coaches would carry 200,000 pieces of U.S. mail and all kinds of luggage.
From there we drove to the Frijole Ranch and hiked the Smith Spring Trail. It was termed "moderate" and took about 2 hours, 2.3 miles round trip. There were springs in a nice wooded area, then the trail continued back to the ranch. Look closely or you'll miss the springs.
Can you believe how those plants grow on the top of this rock?
A Craggy Tree
Water in the desert!
There was an interesting museum in what used to be the ranch house. Other buildings included a spring house, school house, post office and some other out buildings. The school house had a sign outside that told how this particular family hired a school teacher to teach 8 children (not all theirs), giving her $30 a month, her room and board and a horse.
Another hike that sounded inviting was named "Devil's Hall."
All the hikes we did this day were easy to moderate with occasional ups and downs, but mostly on the level. The hardest part of the Devil's Hall hike was when it followed a "wash," where the bottom was all river rock and large gravel, as well as huge boulders that we had to crawl up or jump down from. That hike took a good 2 1/2 hours, 4.2 miles round trip.
Between the cavern hiking and mountain hiking, our leg muscles were very sore. I think we hiked over 7 1/2 miles on Thursday. Again the weather was beautiful, the temperature got up in the 70's with lots of sunshine. The wind was pretty fierce except when we were down in the canyons, but that helped keep us cool.
We started back toward El Paso on Friday morning, taking the long scenic route. We drove up through the mountain pass in Lincoln National Forest, passing through Cloudcroft, a ski resort. Our purpose was to stop and see the White Sands National Monument. We found it on the map, but had never heard of it before. That was also amazing, 275 square miles of white sand dunes. Some of the dunes had vegetation, but others were just pure white gypsum. We drove in, then hiked up a dune. It looked like a winter wonderland except it wasn't snow!
Continuing on our way, I saw another notation on the map that sounded interesting - Dripping Springs Natural Area - and decided to check that out, too, since the day was still young. We stopped at the visitor center, got some info, then hiked back to Dripping Springs, that happened to be dry at this time of year. But it was a nice hike, which would have been nicer if my leg muscles hadn't been soooo sore. That was a 3 1/2 mile hike. There were some ruins of a hotel and resort that had been built in the late 1800's, and used up to the 1920's when the Depression hit. People had tried to find gold, silver, copper, ore of any kind in the hills, but ran out of money before anything of value was found. If there's anything there, it's well hidden and still hasn't been found.
And so ends our vacation adventure for this January. It was enjoyable and memorable and fun. Andy & I really relaxed and were refreshed (in spite of the physical workouts!). It was nice to get the break from the winter weather back home, too. Interestingly, we were a little concerned that we might not get home on the day we were scheduled because the weather channel forecast snow. Thankfully, the Philadelphia Airport did not cancel or delay our flight and we arrived back on time. We had quite a job getting the ice and snow off our car which was ironic considering that just a few short hours before we had been in warm and sunny 70 degree Texas.
The day we flew home, I found this verse in Deuteronomy 33:26 & 27:
He rides on the heavens to help me and on the clouds in His majesty. The eternal God is my refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. A good word picture to think about as we're flying up above the clouds!
