Tag: NP

So my plans certainly don’t go exactly as planned and that’s okay. I had grand plans to get to White Sands National Park last night for sunset and again this morning for sunrise. But as we enjoyed our taco dinner last night we saw the sun beginning to set. We did try to get to the park after dinner, but it was already dark by the time we pulled up, oops. The sunset was still gorgeous from Peggy. I thought the kids were being surprisingly good sports about visiting a park during prime game time until they admitted they just wanted to hear more of our book, LOL. We’ve been reading Hunger Games together during the Peggy drives or downtime. It is a great book and something exciting always seems to be happening so I don’t blame them. As for sunrise, well, the sun rises at 6:15 and the park opens at 7 so we enjoyed our morning without a rush. But that’s not to say we still didn’t get there early.  We all enjoy doing the fun stuff before the mid-day heat! 

This park is awesome! The largest gypsum sand dune in the world. It has one road, just 8 miles and loops back to the only visitor center so it’s an easily explored park in just a half day. And we picked the right half! We had a gorgeous, cool, morning and the place to ourselves. It is truly surreal to be somewhere so beautiful and so enchanting and be alone. It was fantastic. 

We started the day in the dunes playing football, running around, playing frisbee, rolling down hills, climbing over more and more dunes. I did keep the camera out of the fine sand while we played but definitely took tons of pictures as the day went on. I hiked back to the car for umbrellas, so we lasted longer as it got sunnier out… and the umbrellas turned out to be fun props for the kids (thinking of Ms. Debbie!). The dunes themselves don’t get that hot. The gypsum doesn’t absorb the sun. We learned this is the wettest desert with a collection of water under the dunes that keeps them cool, even damp underneath which also keeps them from blowing away. But that didn’t keep us from getting hot! So by mid-day we ventured back to the visitor center to learn more and earn the Jr. Ranger badge.  

Next stop: PistachioLand! I wanted to see the “world’s largest pistachio nut” because it’s been awhile since I’ve had my fill of concrete foods. Turns out it’s not just a roadside attraction — it’s a full-on tourist trap and we loved it! We tried the pistachio ice cream, we bought various flavors of pistachios that are all grown, processed, seasoned and packaged right there on site — so good! We even took the tour through the orchard and learned all about the farming of pistachios which was really quite interesting! The giant pistachio sculpture was in honor of their dad who started the farm and also loved putting his family in car to seek out similar roadside attractions. I thought it was a son’s sweet tribute to his dad, so I’ve requested the same from my girls – a roadside attraction in my honor when I die. Maybe giant ski poles on route 26 in Upton, LOL. 

After our nutty stop we drove from Alamogordo to Roswell, NM and the alien sightings started immediately and never stopped. Even their Dunkin Donuts has a massive alien out front! We stayed at the Red Barn RV Park and found it was a surprisingly charming spot just outside a fairly tacky town. Luckily we like charming and tacky! So we went out to dinner for the first time since Pigeon Forge (which feels like a lifetime ago) just to explore the downtown a little more.

Another day that we’ll remember as awesome! And probably not remember that Murphy had his first accident in the RV, that we kept putting off lunch until we were starving, that the RV park had NO internet and sad shower water pressure, and that we had a couple tires with low pressure that we needed to address. It’s not all perfect but perfect is never our goal!

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

The trick to finding the fun:  get up early before the heat (mornings are in the 70s here – perfect), pick a hike that you can talk your kids into (Guadalupe Peak’s 8+ mile hike to the highest peak in Texas will have to wait), know that there will be something along the way to capture their interest (thanks National Parks FB Group for tips and pictures of this hike). So that’s what we did – we hiked 2+ miles from the visitor center to Devil’s Hall. Loved it. And hiked the 2+ miles back out. 

Instead of hiking up the Guadalupe mountains under the hot NM/TX sun, we hiked down into a canyon, followed a dry river bed that offered shade, climbed awesome rock formations nicked-named “the stairs”, and found the narrow canyon passage named Devil’s Hall that was actually more heavenly then hellish – cool and shaded this early in the morning! We rested, had snacks, spent time being silly, and took a bunch of photos. Once the kids start taking silly photos it’s hard to get them to stop. We had to remind them that outside our cool passage way the sun was only getting hotter so we finally said goodbye and headed back. On the return trail we saw a total of 6 people our entire morning in the park. Six. This park only sees 200k+ visitors a year compared to Great Smokey Mountains National Park’s 12 million+ visitors. It was kinda nice having the place to ourselves! 

Then we drove. Packed up Crystal Betty, said good bye to Texas, for real this time, and headed for Alamogordo, NM. This was a crazier drive than we expected! We drove out of the Sacramento Mountains and dropped 4000 feet in 13 miles with plenty of signage to warn you this was tough on trucks. Crystal was working pretty hard today. I always picture NM as a fairly flat state for some reason but I won’t anymore! 

We were happy to be back at a KOA campground for the night with cleaner showers and a pool for the kids to jump in. The Whites City RV Park had no pool but it did have laundry so it was the first day on the trip I had dry towels! So far, every time I’ve done a wash the swim stuff is immediately used and wet again. While I enjoyed having clean towels for a couple days the wet ones don’t really bother me that much… it’s a part of camping you just accept. This whole trip has inherent discomforts, it’s like skiing – even the best days of skiing you know you’re going to be cold or wet or have an uncomfortable boot or have to deal with foggy goggles at some point but that never trumps the actual experience. We all LOVE a day of skiing and we are all LOVING camping life. 

Okay, so the weirdest part of the last couple days: we’ve been straddling the central and mountain time zones and our source of information, our cell phones, keep bouncing between the two so it is really hard to keep track of the time! In Guadalupe Mountain National Park you are actually in mountain time zone but the only cell tower that reaches here is located in central time zone so you’ll never have the right time here. A few times our phones even disagreed with each other. But we’re on vacation so who cares?

Monday, July 26th, 2021

Carlsbad Caverns is totally worth a visit! I could list all kinds of adjectives for this enormous cave but you just need to see it. We arrived for our timed entry and skipped the elevator to walk down the trail — a mile and a quarter long, dimly lit, damp, with switchbacks 80 stories down into the earth! That alone was pretty amazing. Everyone has to take to the elevator to exit, but the self guided audio players had lots of great info the entire walk down. Once you’re in the cavern there’s another mile+ loop around the “Big Room,” aptly named. We learned this is not the longest, deepest or biggest cave, but it is incredible! Maddy thought Luray Caverns was more beautiful with its stalactites and stalagmites everywhere you looked, but the sheer scale of this cavern is beyond impressive. Biggest surprise: there’s a gift shop, snack bar, and restroom facilities 700ft underground!

So I know I’ve raved about the Jr. Ranger program before, but it’s not just a cool badge, it’s the difference between walking through a park with some oohs and ahhs and really learning about what you’re looking at and what makes it so special. Yes, the activities are often pretty easy like word searches and crosswords, but you’re still learning.

I’m so grateful, again, that we’re making this trip THIS year with my kids still young enough to participate. Maddy already feels like she’s too old for some of it, but you can see her secretly enjoying the activities. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want the badge you earn?

Best part of today’s ranger program was talking to 3 different rangers at the park. These people LOVE their jobs. One even has “Batmom” as her license plate. The last ranger, Anthony, was our favorite and even though we were all starving for lunch by this point, all of us kept asking more questions! He loved the girls’ interest and even gave them an extra poster. Our favorite conversation with him was all about the Lechuguilla Cave which is part of CCNP, but not accessible to the public. The photos he shared are incredible and knowing so much underground wilderness is still being explored that may never become accessible to the public makes you appreciate the caves you can see even more.

One of my favorite parts of today’s audio tour was hearing from such a huge range of professionals: park rangers, cave specialists, paleo-botanists (studying plants of the past), microbiologists, hydrologists, geologists… it was all very interesting. We all enjoyed this park and would highly recommend it to anyone. Now lunch and siesta!

Carlsbad Caverns are located under the Guadalupe Mountain Range and the Guadalupe Mountain National Park Visitor Center is only 30 minutes from the campground, so late afternoon we decided to check it out. Back to Texas we go! National Park #7, 5th of the trip. This is a much less visited park, and we saw very few people.

Like always, we asked for the Jr. Ranger Program (I am surprised it’s never offered, we always have to ask for it) and this particular ranger was way less enthusiastic about it all. He gave us the books and the pins – usually you have to show you completed everything, they make you do a pledge to protect the parks and nature and THEN they give you the badges! Not only was he less informative, the booklet itself was pretty small and the requirements for this park were: complete 6 pages or just take a hike. So we mapped out the hike we plan to do the next morning.

We all had fun checking out the local wildlife in the visitor center because they were all stuffed — so many snakes! I definitely DON’T want to see any of the wildlife here in the wild. We picked out our souvenirs – Mat gets a tacky magnet for the fridge, I get a Christmas ornament (we’re going to need a bigger xmas tree!), Emmy picks a key chain and Maddy collects the free maps and a sticker for her trunk.

When we left the visitor center the kids were NOT interested in a nature walk around the center (it was less than a mile!), they were done with the sun and done with this park. So, I may have threatened to return their souvenirs and told them they could buy them on amazon if they didn’t want to actually experience the park. They agreed to a short walk. We did learn that one thing that makes this area special is there was a mail route from St. Louis, MO to California, instead of sailing it around South America, before the Pony Express. They could make the trip in 25 days!

The kids also agreed to explore Frijole Ranch, which is a history museum in the park that requires little walking. Well, it was a bust since it was closed for renovations, so kids won out and we went home for a movie and ice cream with Murphy. They were right – much more fun. To be fair to the kids, we don’t have to love everything, and we have yet to find something here that really interests us. But we’ll be back tomorrow to try again.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

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

Today we visited our 5th National Park as a family, 3rd of the trip. We had no idea what to expect and for good reason… it’s hard to explain this place. In one word Maddy called it: different, Emmy called it: boring, Mat called it: unique, and I called it: strange. So what did the USA decide to protect and make a national park 100 years ago (it’s the centennial anniversary this year)? The hot springs mineral water that was thought to have rejuvenating and healing properties, and the bathhouses built over it as a means to provide access to the people. When I think of national parks I think of the first, Yellowstone, and the Roosevelt Arch with the words “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People” so I get that they wanted to protect this area because of its special history as a precious resource. It was actually named a a federal reservation way back in 1832 before Arkansas even became a state. My problem with this park and the notion that it was protected ‘for the enjoyment of the people’ is that the government covered almost all access to the spring water under green concrete locked boxes and routed all the water to bathhouses that for a time only white people were allowed to access at a fee that attracted the wealthy. Today, 8 bathhouses stand along Bathhouse Row, and only 2 are actually bathhouses: the Buckstaff (the ONLY one that has operated continuously from 1912) and the Quapaw Bathhouse (re-opened in 2007). The only way to access the spring water today is to make an appointment (by phone or in person only) for fancy spa treatments at one of these 2 houses and they book very fast! The Quapaw has a “public mineral pool” that you can pay $20 a person to sit in, but that has very limited space due to Covid, and no one under 14 is allowed! So I found the whole experience ironic… the land was protected so the mineral water could be accessed by all for future generations and it’s nearly impossible to actually access! Which is why I think Emerson’s assessment of “boring” is fair, especially being under 14. The other bathhouses have since been turned into other things: one’s the National Park Visitor Center, one’s a cultural center housing art works, one’s a gift shop, one’s a boutique hotel, one is a brewery that makes it’s beer and homemade root beer from the spring water (that was a good stop but avoid the dill pickle beer!) and one is still empty. In the spirit of protecting a resource that promoted health and wellness they also protected the land around the town with 26 miles of trails, making this the 2nd smallest National Park.

Despite the above review, we definitely found the fun. This was probably the best Jr. Ranger program because it did get the kids involved in a park that otherwise had limited activities for them. They had fun running up and down Bathhouse Row matching pictures of architecture to the right houses, looking for certain stained glass windows in the Fordyce Bathhouse museum, filling water bottles from the fountains with the hot spring water (so they did get to taste it even though they couldn’t soak anywhere). They worked hard for their pins under the hot Arkansas sun! Speaking of the Fordyce Museum: it was BIZARRE to walk through the old, preserved bathhouse that peaked in 1947. It had a feel of luxury with all the porcelain, marble and stained glass, but it also had the feel of a horror movie and asylums of the past as it felt sterile and abandoned! The various spa technologies and primitive exercise machines were interesting (esp. for this OT) but also resembled torture devices! Then again, the town is known for attracting MANY gangsters. They even have a Gangster Museum to celebrate their colorful history. Randomly, this place also attracted baseball players so you can take a walking tour to various spots significant to baseball history.

Our favorite bathhouse was Superior Bathhouse, home of the brewery. We had a fun lunch, sampled locals beers (one was pickled flavored and the videos of Mat and I trying it are pretty funny!). After exploring the national park sites in town we ventured to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower for views of the town and Ouachita Mountains. While I’m sure the trails offer a beautiful views of wooded park, it was WAY TOO HOT to hike so we drove up to the scenic lookouts.

The heat eventually chased us back to the pool and we never ventured back out even though Garvan Woodland Gardens was high on my to do list. The air-conditioned RV, games and quiet family time won out. Perfect. All in all it was a great day and I’m really glad we experienced Hot Springs National Park!

Wednesday, July 21st, 2021

We spent the morning in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, aptly named, and could have easily spent the day. We woke the kids early, they were not excited after yesterday’s tiring day and late night, but this was our chance to see the park. I’m very glad we were up early because it became increasingly congested as the morning went on. We learned it’s the most visited national park in the country with over 12 million visitors each year and going up. We also learned it’s free to enter because “the land was purchased from private owners with the agreement that they and their heirs would be able to continue to visit the land without financial burden” according to the park ranger. They make it up elsewhere and this was the 1st place we’ve had to purchase the Jr. Ranger program book for a whole $2.50. (most national parks and sites have free booklets and activities to complete to earn a pin and so far the kids have earned/collected them from Glacier NP, Federal Hall in NYC, the Freedom Trail, Shenandoah NP and now GSMNP. Actually, only Emerson has Federal Hall because she filled out the whole booklet to earn it and Maddy didn’t, but when she realized she missed a pin opportunity she wanted to go back, lol).

We drove up to Clingman’s Visitor Center by 7:30am and walked the .5 mile to the lookout. It was paved and a gradual grade but it was still a workout. The lookout is atop Clingman’s Dome which is the highest peak in GSMNP at 6,643′ and the 2nd highest peak in eastern US. The morning temperature was low 60s up there and we were not dressed appropriately having been sweating since Virginia. It was a great structure that probably has amazing views of the Smoky Mountains but we wouldn’t know, it was too “smoky”. Mat and I laughed the whole way up because we were in a huge cloud and couldn’t see very far in front of you. The kids were good sports and enjoyed the foggy view from the lookout anyway. It was really beautiful in it’s own haunting and peaceful way. It was like someone had started painting the trees but hadn’t put the background in yet. Clingman’s Dome is the highest peak in the park in both Tennessee and North Carolina since the stateline goes right over it so we can check another state off on our road trip. Surprise, I wasn’t expecting to visit NC this trip. After our excursion in the very “smoky” mountains we waited in line to get into the Sugarlands Visitor Center (yup, a line to get in!) and enjoyed doing the Jr. Ranger program before heading back to the Ridge Outdoor Resort to pack up the RV and continue down the road. So many hikes and waterfalls to see in GSMNP, next time. Off to Nashville, TN in the afternoon.

We made it to campground by 3pm thanks to driving through a time zone. We set up camp, all 3 kids went to play in the pool, and I cleaned up, did laundry for the 1st and figured out our blog. I’ve been journaling but figured out how to add the pictures and share it. Now to find a not spotty network…

Today we drove into Shenandoah National Park for a beautiful morning hike. It’s the kids’ 3rd national park ever and the 1st of the trip. We loved the Skyline Drive through the national park and even saw some deer. Despite the news reporting massive crowds at all the parks we were alone most of the day! We picked an awesome 2 mile hike from the guide book (that was more of a walk really) to the summit of the park’s highest peak, Hawksbill Mountain at 4,050 feet. It was beautiful views from the top! Maddy was excited to say she hiked a 4,000 footer even though we drove most of the way up, lol.

Then it started warming up so we went back to the waterslides! We all did the 3 waterslides many, many times. It was a blast. But it was 3 stories of stairs every time so I’m pretty sure I got more of a workout at the campground than on our hike! Luckily, the pools and slides close at 2pm for cleaning so we could drag the kids away to see more of this beautiful area.

We spent the afternoon in the Luray Caverns and absolutely loved it! I was amazed, Mat was surprised by how big and remarkable it was, Emerson thought it looked like Disney, and Maddy, who had been saying for months she wasn’t looking forward to being so far under the earth, quickly found herself enjoying it. It was a cool 60 degrees which was an added bonus! If you’re in the area it’s definitely worth the stop.

And to finish off a great day? Back to the pool. We got one more swim in before the rain and thunder started which was fun to watch from our camping chairs under our awning. We’re going to be sad to leave Jellystone Park. The kids have rated this the “Best campground” yet and today the “best day” yet… it’s the 2nd campground and 3rd day, lol.