Yesterday was so beautiful, we decided to head south and go to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park,  What a gorgeous site this is, it is in Texas just over the New Mexico border. The park has over 80 miles of hiking trails and over half of the park (47,000 acres) has been protected by Congress under the Wilderness Act.  We hiked two of the trails, that were within my abilities.  One of the trails lead to the Pinery Butterfield Stagecoach Station.  All that is left of the mid-1800's site are ruins.  Then we went to the Frijole Ranch History Museum.  There we interacted with some mules and a roadrunner, who was so fast we couldn't catch him on film.  Then we drove into McKittrick Canyon.  It is hard to describe, the dessert and the mountains blending together with a wonderful array of cacti.  In the evening, we had a terrific thunderstorm roll through.  New Mexico and Texas really need the rain, many areas we visited have been burned by wildfires.  Today we went to Carlsbad Caverns and took the opportunity to go into the cavern using the Natural Entrance instead of going into the cavern using the elevators.  The Natural Entrance is the original and historic entrance.  You descend over 750 feet into the earth!  It was awesome.  This cavern is absolutely the best cave experience you can have.  The historic entrance and the Big Room tour is totally self guided, so you can take as much time as you want to see it all.  Unfortunately, we were unable to take pictures.  Because we have been in other caves and used the same camera we couldn't bring it in with us for fear that we could spread the horrible White Nose Syndrome to the bats.  If we wanted to bring the camera in we would have to wash the camera with a Clorox wipe, not sure of the damage it could cause to the camera, we choose to leave it in the truck.  We were in the cavern 3 hours and walked 6 miles!  We loved every minute of it, but know tonight will be a little rough on the knees and Achilles tendon - (lol).  Tomorrow we head out and into Texas on our way to San Antonio.  In the meantime, we once again have a thunder storm tonight. Hugs -L

Happy Easter from New Mexico!  It is currently 75 degrees and beautiful.  Yesterday we spent the day at various sites.  First, we went to the Trinity Site where they tested the first atomic bomb in 1945.  I found the site quite sad, and realized how much the atomic age defined our lives.  Then we went to the Very Large Array.  It was really quite impressive!  I'm sure you remember the array in the movie First Contact.  Then we wandered about locating a Ghost Town that turned out to be inhabited by 2 people, so I guess that title has to be rescinded - lol.  After that we went to one of the Salinas Pueblo Missions, but along the way we got to witness first hand the amazing speed of a Pronghorn! They were running so fast that several of the photos are just blurs and dust! The Mission we went to was the Mission of San Gregorio de Abo.  It and the surrounding Pueblo are in ruins but are still very impressive and beautiful.  Tomorrow we head south and will spend a couple of days in Carlsbad and visit the caverns.  We hope that your day is beautiful too.  Hugs -L

Trinity Site, First Atom bomb test 7/16/1945  NM

Ground Zero  New Mexico

Standing in front of the Very Large Array  NM

The Very Large Array, Yea thats it's name NM

Mule Deer and ProngHorn  

Ruins of Salinas Pueblo Mission  NM

Bandolier National Park

We spent part of Saturday, all of Sunday and early Monday with Tony, we had a wonderful time!  He came down from Denver just to see us and we were thrilled. We walked around Old Albuquerque.  It was lovely, I love the old Spanish Missions.  George and I went back on Monday to tour the mission since Sunday was Palm Sunday. After that, we went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, we toured their wonderful museum and history and had lunch in their restaurant.  We shared a stuffed fry bread (definitely not Weight Watchers) and absolutely delicious! On Tuesday we awoke to snow!  Our campground sits at a higher elevation than Albuquerque and we got about 5" of snow.  It was beautiful, the clouds came down to cover the mountains and by late afternoon the snow in town was almost gone while the upper elevations remained covered.  Yesterday we drove up to  Bandelier National Monument a little northwest of Santa Fe.  We walked and climbed for 5 hours viewing Frijoles Canyon Archaeological sites encompassing cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and a village.  This park is 33,750 acres with only 3 miles of paved roads.  The views were breathtaking! We walked almost 6 miles, and my pedometer doesn't count all the climbing.  The highest site is the Long House, formally called Ceremonial Cave, and to see it you must climb a series of stairs and 4 ladders of over 140 ft high!  I climbed this when I was 19 and chose not to do it again, but George did and loved it ( I knew he would, I did!)  We chose to have dinner at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center again and the meal was spectacular (I won't loose weight this week - LOL)  Today is beautiful and sunny and we will head out shortly to enjoy the day, hope you do too. Hugs -L

Chairs at Murrah Building Oklahoma City

climbing old lava flows and taking in 900 year old art