Two weeks ago, Drew and I spent Spring break traveling in West Texas and New Mexico. Here are some photos of our journey. It was quite an interesting trip!
Day 1:
Monday. We traveled from Dallas to Fort Davis, Texas. The drive was uneventful, and there is not much to see between here and there. We stopped at Balmorhea State Park to see the natural spring fed pool and saw this kid swimming with a bunch of guppies and catfish. I must be too much of a city girl, cause there is not a chance you could get me to swim with catfish.
We arrived in Fort Davis around 7pm, and stayed at the Veranda Inn. While quiet and available, it was not as promised on the website. I was glad to make my trip home!
Day 2:
On Tuesday, we took a trip 3 hours north to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. On the way there, we drove through Guadalupe Mountains State Park, which was beautiful, other than the stupid highway patrolman who pulled me over for going 3 miles per hour over the speed limit and could not wrap his mind around the fact that my car had Missouri license plates and did not technically belong to me. He even called for back up!! That is a whole different rant though.
Once we got to Carlsbad, our fun really began. Here are some photos from our day in the caves.
This is Drew near the entrance to the cave. Once we got in the cave, photos were really difficult to take.
These are Cave Swallows. These birds live near the mouth of the cave. I thought they were bats at first, which really freaked me out, but it all ended up ok.
Day 3:
Wednesday was spent mostly on Mount Locke at the McDonald Observatory. This was truly amazing! I had a wonderful time taking their tours and going to the star party at night where I got to see Saturn and it's rings and moons in a telescope, and learn the stories behind the constellations. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a good days worth of activities - even kids would like this - and it really is reasonably priced!
This is the outside of the first telescope build in McDonald Observatory. It is an 82 inch telescope used for research still.
This is the telescope you get to see on the guided tour. It is the second largest telescope that McDonald Observatory has, and I think they said one of the top 10 largest in the country. It was a really neat tour.
This is at the star party at night. My camera setting made it look like day time, but it was probably 11pm. This telescope was looking at the rings and moons of Saturn.
Day 4:
After experiencing quarter sized spiders in the cave like shower, sunburns, dirt, and driving over 1500 miles, Drew and I were very ready to be home, so, we left a day early so that we could have a "chill" day before starting back to school. On the way home, we stopped at Monahan's Sandhills State Park. This would be such a cool place to take kids! They rent disks and you can slide down these huge sand dunes. Entrance to the park was only $2 for adults (free for kids) and disk rentals were only $1 an hour. Cheaper than seeing a movie!
The drive home was nice and we truly enjoyed our vacation. I mean, who wouldn't love to see stars every night, and this view at sunset?
And here is the photo I took it from:
