We left Marathon, TX and headed northwest to an area between Carlsbad and Artesia, NM. I'm not even sure what the town is because we are staying on a ranch that has an RV park for members of a club called ESCAPEES. We happen to be members because when we left NJ we joined two groups.....Passport American and ESCAPEES. This particular place came up on our app when we were looking for places in the area and we decided to give it a try. It is very cute here. I forgot to mention that all members of ESCAPEES are fulltimers, so that puts the majority of them in a age bracket. So this "ranch" is actually located on a real ranch and is a little community for people who full time travel. Many of these people live here most of the time, but take off when they can or want I suppose. We are on someones "plot" who is away on a trip. Everyone is very sweet and we were greeted with the ringing of a bell and a big hug :) I went to the exercise class this morning. Happy hour is everyday at 4pm in the main house, as well as bingo and other activities throughout the week. Cute little community in the middle of nowhere.
Today the girls and I went to the Living Zoo State park located in Carlsbad, NM.
Very neat place and we finally got to see a mountain lion up close and personal.
It was an animal refuge so we were able to see the animals, local to this area, up close and personal. Some of the exhibits were dated, but most of it was great. The girl's favorite was the Prairie Dog village. Very cute little rodents :)
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
We went to Guadalupe Mountains National Park for the day.
It was about a 50 minute drive from camp. Pretty and so amazing to think that all of this was once under water during the Permian Period. The Guadalupe Mountains were formed as a coral reef down near the equator. Most of the hikes at this particular park were for serious hikers and backpackers, so we watched the ranger film, completed our junior ranger packets while doing a small hike. We visited the Frijole Ranch, which was built by a spring next to the park back in 1900-ish.
We hiked part of the trail loop behind the ranch, but could see yucky weather approaching so we decided to turn back. It was a good day and neat to learn about a corner of the US we didn't know before.
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| Texas Madrone, known for it's red bark. |
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
We have joined the party group next door the past couple of evenings. Around 5 o'clock the rig across from us has anywhere from 5-15 people out having a cocktail and talking around the firepit.
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| A slow night at the party house. |
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Today we went to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Just like the Guadalupe Mountains, just south of the caverns, it was once under water in the Permian Period and is now 750 ft. below ground. We went down in the elevator because we had bought tickets for the 1:30 ranger tour of King's Palace and did not have time to hike the natural entrance.
We plan to go back on Saturday early in the morning and hike down. The girls have been wilting flowers as far as hiking goes in this desert heat, but maybe they can handle some cave hiking at 55 degree F with no sun. The ranger did a great job giving the timeline of the cave and it's history as far as they know. We learned about stalagmites, stalactites, straws, popcorn, and several other types of formations of the limestone down in the cave. We toured the Big Room and made our way up in enough time to ride the elevator up and finish the junior ranger packets.
On our way home........Mexican food in New Mexico :) Pretty good.
Friday, April 3, 2015
Today was a low key "recovery day". We stayed around camp, did school work, laundry, cooked some yummy food. We found out why one of our tires was losing air.....a nail, and had it patched. Second nail so far on this journey. We joined the campfire tonight and as things were winding down and most people had left we picked up some awesome tips from super knowledgeable guys/girl. Everything from how to not use our breaks when we are going downhill through the mountains to the best places to see in different areas of the west. This group of people have been so welcoming to us and have given us such good information. Great stop.
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Returned to the caverns to hike in through the natural entrance. So cool!
The caverns themselves are amazing, but something about walking in through a hole in the side of a mountain, versus taking the elevator down, adds to the amazement of it all.
Once we were down deep in the caverns we finished hiking the "Big Room" which we weren't able to finish on Thursday. The only downside was the crowds were much bigger on Saturday of course.
We headed back to camp in the afternoon and had some of the guys around the ranch help us check over our camper. We're sill learning so much and any time we have knowledgeable people around we soak it up.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Travel day. Said goodbye to new friends.
Woke up thinking we were heading to Ruidoso, NM, but at the last minute changed our plans because we saw evening temps in the low 40's and 30's and daytime highs only up to 60's. That particular town is in the mountains, so we decided to head to Alamogordo, NM instead because temps looked to be about 10 degrees warmer day and night. We may do a day trip up to Ruidoso during our stay.
During our visit at The Ranch one of our most informative firepit discussions was how to haul 10,000 lbs (or 100,000 for that matter) down a mountain with a steep grade and not use our brakes. We learned so much and just in time because the mountain pass we made through Lincoln National Forest over to Alamogordo went from over 8,000 ft. down to around 4.000 ft. with 6% grade downhill. We didn't use our brakes once on the downhill. Thank you Dave and John!!!
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| Heading out of The Ranch. |
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