Drove 99 more miles across Texas early today to arrive at Monahan Sandhills State Park before the hot sun. We have been excited for this state park because they let you sled down the dunes! They rent the sleds, sell wax, give you tips on sledding techniques (um… we’re from NH, we got this!), and then say “you can go anywhere you want in the sand dunes, just don’t forget how to get back to your car.” So we left the AC running for Murphy while we explored the dunes and had a blast sledding. The fun was balanced pretty equally with work… you go down, but then you have to come back up! I was a little worried about getting exercise with all the RV driving, but when every step you take up is in sand rushing down the dune you don’t get far fast, LOL. We played, got filthy, showered in the outdoor showers, worked up an appetite for an early lunch… luckily we have an RV in the parking lot for clean, dry clothes and a hot lunch! So much fun. Reminded us of our amazing summer in Africa 4 years ago, but in west Texas.

Then more driving. More oil. Just google Permian Basin oil boom to get a sense of our surroundings. Everything was so industrial and semi-permanent looking, and flat! And RV parks everywhere, but not the kind vacationers want. And medians on the highway are merely a suggestion here — trucks that don’t like the highway just drive right off to the frontage road, right over the medians. And we saw a huge highway sign that read “hitchhikers may be escaped convicts”. Nice. After a few more hours crossing Texas, we finally made it to Whites City, NM. We are definitely back in tourist territory with not 1, but 2 national parks within 30 minutes of here. We set up camp — twice (to get better shade and a flatter spot) — and then headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park (minutes away) for the evening Bat Flight Program at sunset. Our 6th national park and 4th of the trip! We listened to a ranger program, sitting in the beautiful outdoor amphitheater, all about the resident bats right up until the stars of the show started leaving the cavern. We witnessed hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the cave for their evening feeding. It was quite a spectacular sight. And we learned this is how they originally found the cave! Can’t wait to come back tomorrow and head down INTO the cave (with the hundreds of thousands of bats that return every morning!)

We had a great first night in New Mexico and an awesome thunder storm to make us feel cozy in the camper during the night. We were able to watch the lightning light up the desert sky from our bedroom window, another incredible memory. Saturday, July 24, 2021