The Last Week October 30, 2018
With the end of our adventure in sight,
we enjoyed a few more days in New Mexico. We explored the Bradbury
Science Museum in Los Alamos and completed our visit to the second of
three sites that comprise the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. If
you read earlier blog posts, you may remember we visited the Hanford
Nuclear Reactor site in Richland, Washington in September. We hope
to visit the third site in Oak Ridge, Tenn. next summer. We camped
at Bandelier National Monument and made an early morning visit to the
cliff dwellings the next morning before making our way out to Cochiti
Pueblo land to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument (Bureau of
Land Management). We made a three-mile hike through a slot canyon up
to the mesa top and marveled at the rock formations known as “tent
rocks.” Quite a scenic location that we had never seen before and
we thoroughly enjoyed it.
The cliffs at Bandelier are composed of tuff from volcanic eruptions.
Visitors are allowed to go into the dwellings that have ladders.
Lovely fall morning on the nature trail at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico
Hiking through the slot canyon before getting to the uphill part of the trail.
(Facebook Friends: Brian posted a video of this part of the hike.)
Almost to the mesa top
Looking down to where we started
The view from the top made the 500 foot elevation gain worth the effort.
We drove to SE New Mexico and camped
near Roswell at Bottomless Lakes State Park. The “lakes” are
sinkholes filled with water. We passed through Carlsbad with the
Guadalupe Mountains silhouetted against the western horizon and into
Texas, dodging potholes and oilfield trucks all the way to Pecos.
Our last night of camping was at Monahans Sandhills State Park where
some friendly RV folks offered to loan us a ceramic heater for the
night. We politely refused and commented that the overnight low of
55 degrees was going to be 20 degrees warmer than we have been
experiencing most of the past month.
Seen while geocaching:
At night, the sign has lights that change color and flash.
Artwork along U.S. Highway 285 southeast of Vaughn, NM
The geocache on this side of the highway is titled "Hey You!"
Geocache on this side - "Cowboy Ruckus"
Ingram, Texas - Hill Country Arts Foundation
People have asked us if we ever feel
unsafe in campgrounds and the answer is always “no.” Campers are
some of the friendliest folks we ever meet (or they generally ignore
each other). Our plan to camp at another state park in the middle of
Texas was discarded because it was closed due to recent flood damage.
Our last night of this trip was spent at the home of long-time
friend in beautiful Bandera.
We are well aware that our means of
traveling is not the norm and it is hard to put into words how we
feel about our experiences. We enjoy what I will call “elemental
living” in which our physical needs for food, water, and shelter
are met very simply. Our travels feed other needs beyond the
physiological ones – curiosity, beauty, desire to learn new things,
spiritually refreshing contact with nature and God's creation in all its various
forms. We have not formed any plans for extended road trips in the
near future, but we have plans to camp in about a week with our
children and grandchildren in a state park in the Texas Hill Country.
We attended Open House at Clear Lake City Elementary this week and
saw our 4 year-old grandson's “All About Me” page and he has his
favorite thing to do as camping. That made my heart sing!
Trip summary:
13,046 miles in 68 days through 13
states
10 National Parks visited and 17 other
National Parks Service locations (national monuments,
historical parks, reserves, historic
trails)
3 national monuments administered by
National Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management
865 geocaches
