On Friday I left the Davis Mountains and drove up to Guadalupe Mountains NP. I had remembered being told in the past that the park is supposed to be a beautiful place. Of course, I had to apply the Texas factor so I wasn’t getting my hopes up too high. The park is pretty small – only 82,000 acres – and there are very few roads into it. The campground was in a nice setting, right up against the mountains, but the RV area was actually part of the trailhead parking lot. I wasn’t too excited at first, but it turned out to be not that bad. There was even a short trail I could take Abbey on. We got there in the early afternoon so after taking Abbey on her lone trail, I took a moderate hike up one of the canyons. 
It wasn’t quite as beautiful as I had been told, but I think part of that is due to the severe drought the whole southwest has been under the last several months. The next morning I started out early on a loop hike which was supposed to be pretty strenuous climbing over 2300 ft. up to the Bowl. It also was supposed to have an entirely different ecosystem than down below. The Bowl did have pine trees but it wasn’t overwhelming, at least not to me. The view from the top, however, was quite nice and it felt good to get in a moderately difficult climb. Besides, I can't complain too much. I did get to see the tallest peak in Texas - Guadalupe Peak. 
I’m sure Abbey was happy she missed it, especially since it was pretty warm. I got done much earlier than I expected. That afternoon a couple from Germany pulled up in the site next to mine. They had a pickup with a truck camper on the back that they had actually shipped over from Germany. They have been traveling around since July and are winding up their trip in a few months. They had a really big dog, Mila, with them so I can only imagine how cramped it was in their camper. Poor Mila had sore paws from the rough rocks and all the burrs. Apparently she had gotten a few stuck in her paws and they must have gotten infected. They didn’t have any booties for her so they put socks and plastic bags on her front paws. It was pretty funny looking but I felt bad for her because I’m sure they hurt. I have to pull the burrs out of Abbey’s paws all the time. They didn’t have anything to disinfect them with so I gave them my peroxide and some other stuff. I told them I used to live in Germany but was embarrassed that I could hardly speak a word of German. I really have forgotten much of the little German that I knew. Anyways, they tried to talk me into going to Alaska this summer instead of the Canadian Rockies, which I have been planning on. It was their favorite place so far. Of course they could go to some pretty remote places with their truck that would be hard for me in my RV. Maybe I’ll have to look at trading mine in for a truck camper so I can see the real Alaska. Decisions, decisions. And I thought this was going to be easy.
On Sunday I went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. I was anxious to compare it to the previously visited Caverns of Sonora. I have to admit that they aren’t really in the same class, but in some ways I like Sonora better than Carlsbad. They were much smaller, but much homier. For their size they had an amazing amount of formations and they did have more color than Carlsbad. But for sheer size and volume of formations Carlsbad prevails. Carlsbad also had helictites, like Sonora, though they kind of got lost because of all the other formations. It also had something I hadn’t seen before – cave pearls. I’m learning more about caves than I ever imagined. I wanted to do one of the auxiliary tours which were supposed to be a bit more active so I signed up for one on Monday to go down into Lower Cave. Other than climbing down a rope and a few ladders it wasn’t that strenuous. It was an OK tour, but it was a little slow for me. The guide did a lot more talking so we didn’t cover as much ground as I had expected. However, there were some pretty amazing formations nonetheless. Sorry, but the lighting wasn’t that great so I didn’t take any pictures in Lower Cave. We mostly just had the light of our headlamps.
Sunday evening I moved to a new campground at Brantley Lake State Park north of the town of Carlsbad. It turned out that a couple I had first seen in Big Bend, and ran into several times in Terlingua and the Davis Mountains, were staying there as well. When they saw me pull in they came down and invited me over for dinner – my first dinner invitation by other RVers. I guess I’m one of them now. Actually, Doug and Liane have been fulltimers less than I (only 2 months) so I even had some tips for them. They plan on traveling around for about 2 years or so before looking for some type of work to do. Of course, they are in their 50s and a bit closer to real retirement than I am. Then again, I could always do workamping or be a park host….. Just kidding Dad. In any case, I had a good time talking to them and comparing notes on places to go, but I probably had a bit too much wine. I was pretty tired today, Monday, after the Lower Cave tour. Tomorrow I’m heading to either Cloudcroft or Ruidoso, NM, depending on which has less snow and open campgrounds. That’s all for now.
Carlsbad Pics
