The Journey to Las Cruces

Wednesday, April 27th – Carlsbad, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico – Day 76

I will miss our parking lot camping site. It was free, quiet and had a good view of the stars. Of course, the guy screaming obscenities against someone else in their trailer late in the evening wasn’t ideal.

On our way out we stopped at the Guadalupe Mountains visitor centre to fill up our water and purchase a pair of hiking sticks. The drive past Guadalupe provided some spectacular views of the mountain. Our next stop was El Paso, a 2-hour drive. Gen had fond memories of the El Paso salsa and taco commercials, so we decided to investigate.

We drove downtown to visit a free art gallery. The AAA Chihuahua’s baseball team had just finished a game and there was no parking anywhere. We proceeded to the scenic drive. There was a fantastic lookout from the nearby mountains. We got out of the car, walked to the lookout, and paid a quarter for each kid to look through the binocular stations. El Paso is crammed against the Rio Grande and on the other side is the mother city, Juarez. El Paso is very safe where Juarez is safe in the main areas but at times has been very violent.

We drove down the mountain and into a small town where we stocked up on ice, water, gas and Gen did a little shopping. We proceeded through the Mountains to Las Cruces which sat on the other side. We debated over and over where to go and what to see to the point we passed most things.

We finally settled on a hike to see an area where there were dinosaur tracks (or technically not dinosaur but ancient reptile pre-dinos). We learned when we got there that most of the tracks had been stolen or disfigured until the remnants were removed to a local museum for preservation. We decided to see the place where the tracks were. The hike was uphill and about three miles to the valley where the prints were originally found. We made it about a kilometre uphill.

On the way back, Charlotte was complaining something was poking her foot. After the third complaint, I looked at her shoe and found a 2cm long thorn sticking through the sole.

Our campsite was Leasburg Dam. There was no water in the river so the dam wasn’t being used but there was a small spring with a beaver dam in it. There were dry riverbeds everywhere and even the Rio Grande was a trickle. We arrived and while setting up we met Sue. She was the camp host and ended up giving us great advice. She also let us know there were sand toboggans available from the park office. We enjoyed the sunsetting over the mountains from our campsite.

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A Desert Forest

Saturday, May 28th – Joshua Tree National Park - North to Joshua Tree National Park - South, California– Day 107 Our campsite was a large open dirt area with some scrub around the outside. In the dark we had managed to park beside the pile of horse poo and shaving. Horses were allowed in this site. Gen stepped in the middle of a pile. The Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre was a five-minute drive away. The town of Joshua Tree was packed with college age millennials communing with nature. There was a market with kombucha, organic greens and a few small tortoises. It was all very pleasant but very busy. The laundromat was at the edge of the market, I charged the devices and did the laundry. Gen bought some produce from a guy loading a truck. I even snuck in to buy some watermelon kombucha. The drive into the park was ten minutes followed by a ten-minute line to show our pass. A quick stop to fill up our water bottles and we were into the park. The amazing thing abo

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 3

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91 Our day was shortening already, our next hike, the Grand View Overlook was closed due to a search and rescue operation. Apparently, falls and accidents happen quite a bit at National Parks; Gen looked up the top ten most dangerous parks and Canyonlands wasn’t there (it was number 12). We got a recommendation to hike the White Rim Overlook trail, a 0.9-mile easy hike. The kids were running out of energy. They made it most of the way and then decided to stop to climb a rock. Gen and I continued the short distance to the canyon edge to see the sights. Canyon after canyon after canyon was what we saw. We stopped to sit and marvel at the scenery as the shadows started to lengthen. On our drive back, we saw the sun set and we stopped at the visitor centre one more time to see the view from just across the road. I couldn’t get enough canyons; I was in love with the park and w

A Desert Forest - Part 4

We finally decided to move to our last destination before the sun set. The Arch Rock Nature trail was next. We reached the parking lot and saw the rocks in the distance, we were debating what we wanted to do. We just started moving and once we did, we found ourselves racing down the trail to the rocks. The kids wanted to play monster and once they started running, everyone else was running as well. We had another poo-mergency with no restroom in sight, the evidence is buried in the desert. There was more climbing on the rocks. We took pictures of the sun setting and took a quick look at the Arch rock before starting back to the car. Gen was behind the wheel, an hour later we were leaving the park’s south entrance. We stopped at the Ranger station to freshen up in the bathroom and fill our water bottles before heading to our campsite. Luckily, the site was the overflow campsite for the park so was minutes from the outside of the park. We

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