The trip is over and we are safely home.
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| L. Johnson Historical roadside park for lunch |
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| Flying flags at Guadalupe Peak campground |
Monday June
10th 2013 ~ 8:38 am
Pulling out
of drive and headed for points west. I
was thinking of a leisurely ride to perhaps Junction and the South Llano State
Park. By the time we are in that area it
is too early to call it a day. We choose
to go to Balmorea State Park and see how that was. It did not seem as lush vegetation as when I
was there in the 90’s. We chose a nice
spot with water and elec, filled the fresh water reservoir and went straight to
bed. Sometime around 1am nature called
and I realized the air conditioner was not cooling. I turned it off and went outside to check the
outside temp. It was very cool so the
windows went open and before morning we were pulling for light cover. Upon stepping out in the night I was amazed
at the night sky. The stars that were
visible numbered in the millions and the Milky Way was quite visible. Since we did not unhook the trailer we took a
walk around before pulling out. At the
observation deck of the ceinega (desert wetland) the turtles (2 varieties) and
fish were busy playing and I am sure wanting us to drop a morsel for them. We did not feed them because we are good
stewards of nature.
Tuesday June
11th
On we go to
find a grocery store as we are so smart we waited until a tiny grocery in Van
Horn was our option. So much for a good
avocado and veggies. We had a burrito
for breakfast and trudged off to Guadalupe Peak National Park. It has a nice parking area for rvs now and we
had aspirations of some nice hiking. As
per usual, we check in at the Visitors Center, chose a parking space, paid our
money and prayed for the sun to set so we would be in a nice shade. These spaces were dry camping so no reason to
turn on the air conditioner. We left for
our first hike to Frijoles and Manzanita Spring and Smith Spring. This should be a hike of approximately 3.4
miles and is considered a moderate. Well
I guess that could be unless you started at 1:30pm in the hottest part of the
day. Dumb. We did have plenty of water and a couple of
apples. Not nearly as much water in
Smith spring as when here before but loved the park bench for a rest. Paulette had peppermint so we used it on our
feet to help cool them off. Not sure I
wanted to dip my toes in the mossy water.
The trip ended well and both were happy to be back in the car where it
was cool. After returning to the camper,
I started cooking chicken breasts and Paulette chopped zucchini and bell
peppers. It made a lovely dinner. We had enough left over for Wednesday night.
A solo lady
from Maine had parked near us so we had many conversations with her about her
travels and ours. She left from Florida
and was wandering toward California by way of many stops. She is 70 and more weathered than me. We did the Piney Nature Trail before bed
time, cleaned our bodies in the little Casita and headed for bed. My muscles in my right hip were really
hurting but I made it okay until around 2am.
Checked and the stars were showing off again.
