Carlsbad in the Rearview Mirror

I hated to leave Carlsbad. We had such a great time there and it was a real nice town. Add that town to my list of favorites. (That list is growing!) Within the hour of driving we were in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park located in Texas right on the New Mexico border. The scenery was stunning. El Capitan is an 8,085 foot high monolithic landmark that can be seen for fifty miles.




But the highest mountain is Guadalupe Peak at 8,749 feet. We had to drive right through the national park to get to our destination so we "killed two birds with one stone" as they say.

Continuing on Interstate 180 we drove past the Salt Flats - wide open spaces and salt on the ground as far as the eye could see.




I got a kick out of seeing several of these while we were driving. They are called "stiles" - a step or steps over a fence. Luckily there was one at the rest stop area so I was able to take a clear picture of it. I thought, "What was the use of having a barbed wire fence if you had steps to go over it?" So that's your word of the day - STILES.



I was excited to see a REAL cowboy just riding along side the road - was able to snap a picture of him while we zoomed past him. Well, maybe zoomed is too strong of a word with Jim driving. Let's just say I was able to snap a picture of the cowboy while we passed him. I think the speed limit was 75 mph and Jim was going 55 mph - a full 20 miles BELOW the speed limit! Do you see my eyes rolling here? But he wanted to get good gas mileage, et cetera, et cetera.




We pulled into the campground in Vado, TX, in the late afternoon. We had traveled almost 200 miles, which might not seem a lot, but in truck/trailer miles, that's about 1.5 times the distance than a regular car, kind of like dog years, based on the numbness of my butt, the stiffness of my neck, hips, and knees. We were happy to just settle down for the night. We were awarded with a beautiful sunset.