No, the title to this blog is not a reference to Cornelius Ryan's 1950s era book and movie of the same title about the D-Day invasion of Normandy. But, if you're interested in WWII, they depict this day very accurately. Also, if you watch closely, you can see over 40 famous actors.
It is, however, a reference to our drive back to Texas on Friday. Texas is big! Our route back to Austin today seemed to take forever. More on this later.
The biggest decision of the morning was whether or not to go to Carlsbad Caverns. There were many reasons not to go: we were concerned about the cold 56 degree temperature as we had brought no warm clothing, someone told us we needed reservations (we later found out you do for the ranger guided tour but you can walk right up and do the self-guided tour with little or no wait), and mostly, we were concerned with the time. Anyway, I figured if we had come all the way to Carlsbad, we might as well go see the caverns.
To mitigate our concern about the temperature, we stopped by Wal-Mart to purchase some long-sleeve clothes for everyone. Needless to say, the pickings are pretty slim in Carlsbad, NM in the middle of summer for long sleeve clothes. The lady looked at me like I was nuts for asking. Nevertheless, she very helpfully walked me around to the various clearance racks to pick out a variety of items for each member of the family. The good news is, almost everything was on clearance and so the cost of these items was only around $3 apiece. We looked like a pretty motley crew though.
The caverns are about 30 miles south of Carlsbad seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We drove into the park and made way towards the visitor center, where you enter the caverns. If you've never been there, once you crest the hill coming into the parking area, you'll see a fantastic vista. You're elevated about 500 to 1,000 feet above a plain that stretches forever. I did not realize this is the edge of the mountainous region of New Mexico. It really is beautiful and I doubt my picture will do it justice.
There are two ways to enter the caverns, via the elevator or via the walk-in route. The walk-in route takes about 1 1/2 hours longer and follows a steeply descending treacherous trail. This sounded fun for me but with 40 pounds of Tate strapped to my back and our limited time until Abby would need to eat again, we opted for the elevator route which drops you right into the caverns, 750 feet down, in about 57 seconds.
The caverns are huge. I could not believe how large they are inside. I believe if you measure the floor area you'll come up with about 8.3 acres. The circular route we went on traversed over a mile, and I don't think we even touched the surface. I recall reading there are 37 miles of explored caves in this complex, and they discover more every year. It's worth seeing if you have never been. Some of the geological features are huge.
After leaving the caverns, you have to head back north and cut across county road 720, which is a bumpy 2-lane road, to get over to highway 285, which leads you back to Texas towards Fort Stockton. Believe it or not, for the first time on our trip, I actually heard "do you know where you're going?". Yes I did, even though I did have to make one small u-turn when the road forked and I took the wrong fork.
By this time it was 1PM and everyone was hungry. Unfortunately, the nearest town that promised any palatable food was Pecos, Texas, about 70 miles into our future. Even when we got there, it was difficult to find anything. Alas, you can be certain to find a Dairy Queen in every small Texas town and we munched on some of the best burgers there are (albeit after a long wait).
I mentioned our trip was long. I recall somebody telling me once it takes longer to traverse Texas north-to-south and east-to-west then to get from the extreme boundaries of the state to their respective boundaries in the US. I've driven to Louisiana many times for work and it always hits me when I cross the border back into Texas on I-10 and see the sign that says "El Paso 878 miles".
Even though we have enjoyed ourselves, we were ready to get back towards home. In front of us we had endless miles of mixed terrain consisting of rolling hills interspersed with the occasional mountains and some large flat stretches. Virtually one thing is constant though, there are oil pump-jacks everywhere. I'm used to seeing these and they are one of the lifebloods of economy in Texas. But, in the last 10 years, wind turbines have sprouted up all over west Texas. There was a wind energy conference in downtown Houston a couple of months ago and I read in the paper where Texas has more wind production than any other state, followed closely by California. I can believe it with all the wind turbines we saw and the huge turbine blades we saw going down the road for construction of more.
I knew we were close when we got into Fredericksburg. Central Texas will always be home to me. I love it here and will probably retire near here someday (don't hold me to that).
We arrived at Jennifer's parents house around 10PM and got the kids settled in bed. Finally, no hotel to check into.
We'll head home to Kingwood today and get everything unloaded. Our friends David & Sheri Walling went by yesterday to turn our air-conditioner back to normal from the "vacation setting" I had it on so we'll come home to the frigid house we are accustomed to. I'll write one more post tomorrow for this trip and include some fun statistics about our journey (How many gallons of gas did we consume? Who is the ultimate 20-questions champion?) . Also, I'll post a few "out-take" photographs that didn't make the original blog.
Tate asleep on the Aero bed yesterday morning. One of Dawson's chores for the trip was to set this up and put it away at each hotel stop. Despite all his work, he never got to sleep on it as it seemed to work out best for Tate to use it. Notice Jennifer's slipper-covered feet. Her bare feet never touch the hotel room floor, ever.
The entrance to the park.
Jennifer, Dawson, Braden, & Abby as we walk into the visitor center. Notice the shirts Jennfer & Braden are wearing. Jenn's shirt came off the men's clearance rack and is a bright red work out shirt. Dawson, who will wear shorts & t-shirts even when it is below 30 degrees, is holding his shirt and never put it on. It really was not as cold as we thought it would be.
The boys & I by one of the formations. There are hundreds and many are very large. I think the tallest was over 80 feet tall.
The vista from the parking lot at the visitor's center.
Finally, back to Texas.
3 comments:
One time when David and went to Canton, TX to the flea market a severe cold front blew through. We stopped at Wal-Mart and the only warm shirts were Neon Orange sweatshirts.(the kind Hunter's wear) We looked horrible but we could always spot each other from 1/2 mile across the market.
Glad to have you all back home safely
That Abby is a little sweetie, she's always smiling.
Yeah so the trip is coming to an end, I suspect that as I write this it's probably over. We always find that although we get feeling a little sad as the end approaches we always feel grateful for home when we pull in the driveway. It's been fun following you guys on this EPIC journey and it has ignited our desire to hit the road again sometime soon. It's a blessing when we can travel so far, see and do so much and all return home safe and sound.
BTW: I got a laugh out of Jennifer and the slippers as Crystal is the same way, everyone has socks on during our trips. Once we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere late in the night and had to stay at a "bargain" motel. Both bedspreads were laid directly on the floor and we were out of there by 7 am skipping the complimentary "fruit" juice and stale mystery fruit danish.
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