We have passed by Guadalupe National Park, TX several times in our travels and this time I wanted to stop in and check it out. The “campground” is interesting- it’s essentially a parking lot with wide spaces. We filled our tank with water and we are running on battery while we are here. The ranger suggested that we take it one night at a time because the winds kick up pretty fierce here, up to 70 mph and he said that when they do, its pretty uncomfortable. Our first night here was pretty nasty, but luckily the winds calmed down by morning, and have been fine ever since.
Since we got here early in the day Friday, we did a 4.5 mile hike to a place called Devil’s Hall. It was in a canyon, and there was one part that’s called the hiker’s natural staircase that was pretty cool. Other than that it was good exercise with some nice views. We found out after the fact that had we kept going a little further, we would have entered into the territory of the local mountain lion. Although we didn’t catch a glimpse of him, we have seen some elk, Javelina, and some mule deer- one of which had the biggest set of antlers I’ve ever seen on a deer.
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| sea shell fossil |
We were using that hike to sort of gear up for Saturday’s hike, which was 8.5 miles and 2000 feet of elevation gain, and was challenging for a variety of reasons. First, the trail was loose rocks almost all the way up the trail, which is the most difficult terrain for my foot right now. Luckily I had pumped myself full of my prescription pain killer, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I am still ramping back up with the hiking, so I’m not in the shape I was before the surgery. On top of that, we forgot that we are at an elevation of 5000 ft- plus the 2000, so we ended up at 7000 ft by the end of the day. Our bodies are not acclimated to that so we were huffing and puffing a bit by the end. All in all we did ok though.
Guadalupe National Park is home to a Permian Reef. The seashore was here 250 million years ago, and as it disappeared, it left behind a lot of fossils. We saw quite a few of them along the trail. It’s always nicer to do a hike if there is something of interest to see along the way.
Today’s hike was 4.5 miles to an old lodge that was built in the 1930s. I can’t even imagine having such a remote cabin, but to each his own I guess. A park ranger happened to arrive just after we did, and he opened up the cabin and let us in so we could look around. He told us that in it’s day it was state of the art, and the owner used it as his “party house”. We had lunch on the back porch and were joined by another couple. While chatting, we discovered that they are full time Rv’ers as well, and have been for 9 years. It’s always interesting to hear people’s stories- if they full time, how they travel etc. Some people spend a long time in one place, some people move quite a bit, like we do.
One of the things that Paul and I enjoy are the people we meet along the way. This morning we met up with “the guy from Wisconsin”. Paul met him in the campground yesterday. He is staying in his SUV- no tent, just the car. He has a small cook stove and a sleeping bag. He has some interesting theories about vapor trails from planes actually being something being sprayed down to earth. Anyway, this morning he had his binoculars out, and we stopped to ask what he was watching. It turned out he was watching some elk, so we spent a few minutes chatting with him and watching elk. The people next to us are also from Michigan, but they only travel a few months of the year.
When we were in Monahan Sandhills we met a neat couple from Alaska. They were both young, and retired from public service jobs. She was a police officer, but I am not sure what he did. They were the kind of people that you click with right away and the conversation just keeps going. They travel about 8 months a year, to escape the long winters in Alaska. They are also avid hikers and she has a cool saying- “motion is lotion”- she likes to keep her body moving. While at that campground we also met the campground host- or should I say hostess. Her rig is bigger than ours and her story is sadder than ours. She and her husband were fulfilling his dream of full timing, but his cancer had returned so he has been back in Kansas undergoing treatment for months, and she is doing all the traveling, hosting, and driving, while she waits for him to return to her. She hopes that will happen in January. Everyone has their own unique story, but the common idea seems to be that they are all trying to live their lives to the fullest. Not a bad idea.
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| Hiking the Permian Reef trail |
