Guadalupe and Carlsbad

Ok, so I got way, way behind in posting...part of it is no internet to be found, part is moving right along and part is, well, just plain lazy!

Heading out of Big Bend today where to… we'll heading in the Marfa, Guadalupe Mountain NP but have no idea where we'll stay. 
Last night there was a lot of wind and lightening and thunder off in the distance. The lightening lit up the mountains, very "wow". The wind howling did wake us up. 

Plants learned:
Creosotebush
Prickly pear (many varieties)
Giant Dagger Yucca
Tarbush 
Sotol 
Honey Mesquite 
Ocotillo 
Harvard Agave
Lechuguilla 
Cane Cholla
Thompson' s Yucca

Between Alpine and Marfa we saw some kind of antelope (small antlers, brown with white patch) and just after Marfa we saw some kind of long horn sheep/goat.  We were moving along so missed the pictures.

The Prada store is really not in Marfa but just on the outskirts of Valentine. Valentine looks more like a ghost town then the ghost town in Terlingua. There looked to be about a handful of occupied very small homes and hundreds of abandoned ones. 

And then Jim said, " a cow is a chicken"!  Who knows.......





Made it to Guadalupe Mountain National Park, talked to the Ranger and drove through the campground. Found out we can sleep in the rest/picnic areas in Texas and there is a BLM area (bureau of land management) just into New Mexico. One entrance was too rough for this van to pass but the second was great for about 2 miles. There were several other campers out there when we 1st got there but by the time we had taken a bike ride down the road, climbed down into a ravine and biked back to the van, there were many many more. I counted 21 vehicles and at least 8-10 more came in a bit later. So much for seclusion. 

The wind rocked us in and out of sleep last night and the furnace came on several times. We have the furnace set to 62. The temp outside got down to about 45. 

 

Heading to the caverns. 
It was Awesome! Took the elevator down 750 feet and did the self tour… then walked up, 😮. Whole thing took us about two and 1/2 hours and put 3 miles on with 1 1/2 miles of it almost straight up hill!!!  Not bad for a couple old retirees.

We then went back to watch the bats 🦇 come out. Hope there's lots!!
While waiting for the bats there were small birds putting on a show coming and going from the cave entrance. 
The BATS WERE AWESOME!! The Ranger said they had a permanent colony of about 3000 bats over the winter and thought there might not be many more up for the spring and summer but when it was over he estimated there were around 10,000. They swirled counter clockwise around the entrance, some several times and some less, then out into the open. You could see a long trail of them black in the air, so cool. Everyone was very quiet and you could hear the rustling of their wings. 
Watched for about 20 minutes until the last one was out. 

Spent the night at the rest area. Pretty noisy, a semi did pull in within feet of us and I didn't know until I got up in the morning and looked out the window and just saw a wall of truck. 
Headed over to the Salt Basin Dunes. Thought we'd get breakfast at a cafe along the way but of course it was closed. By closed I mean it never opens anymore.  You'd think I should have figured that out......


We went across a large barren salt flats. It's amazing that people do live out there. 

We went 40 minutes off the main road down a road that was made of gypsum, all white with small drifts of sand, almost smooth! Still we drove slow. We got to the park parking lot and promptly backed into a fence and broke a post. After some debate we decided to call the park when we got cell coverage and go on the hike to the Dunes. We rode our bikes out about a mile until the sand got too much for our tires. We have what I guess is hybrid tires so not as skinny as road but skinny as compared to the big sand tires we saw on the coast. Anyway, we parked the bikes in the middle of salt flat desert and climbed up a dune with sparse vegetation. Once at the top, we could see what is called sand dunes…being from Michigan these dunes were pretty but nothing like the "Dunes" at Sleeping Bear Dunes or even anything like all the sand along the Michigan coast. Oh, well.....

Jim figures a satellite saw what happened and so he paid via satellite

We wondered a bit and then rode back and headed toward El Paso and Tucson - Joshua Tree! 

Stopped in El Paso and bought a polarizing lens and a National Park book, then had lunch at a little restaurant called Delight. Excellent food! Menu all looked very good! We then walked around the corner and got coffee at Coffee Box. This place had a train box car feel, and had three patios/decks, one out front, one out back with a walk up window and one on top.  We didn't stay to enjoy, had to keep moving!