Trip Report-Part 2

After touring the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, we drove to Tucson to spend the night with my hubby’s sister.  Our GPS really saved us here as it was late and dark.  We would never have found her place without it.

She fed us a wonderful breakfast and we caught up with each other a bit.  We were soon on our way, however, as we had made reservations in Carlsbad, NM for that night.

Our route took us into El Paso, TX which unfortunately we hit at evening rush hour so it was a little hairy.  We had to pass through a Border Patrol check stop somewhere outside of the city. 

We appeared to be driving around a range of mountains.  First they were on our left then they were on our right.  I finally asked hubby to stop so I could take a picture.  When we stopped there were wild flowers growing  along the side of the road right where we stopped.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of those, too.

I learned that this was the Guadalupe Mountain Range and we drove through it to get to Carlsbad.

We ate dinner at Chili’s in Carlsbad and spent the night.  We had never eaten at a Chili’s restaurant before so that was a new experience.  We thought that the restaurant was very busy for a Tuesday night.  We asked the waitress if something special was going on, and she said it was like that every night.

On Wednesday morning we went to the caverns.  We did not go to the natural entrance as hubby has difficulty walking steep trails due to an accident some years ago.  We decided to tour The Big Room since that is accessible by elevator.  This is an 8-acre part of the caverns that has a paved 1 mile trail that winds through it.  Below are some pictures from The Big Room.

The rope ladder in the right lower photo was used at one time to reach passages even lower in the cave than where we were.

I have been playing with PicMonkey’s collage feature so thought it would be fun to use it for these pictures.

From Carlsbad we drove to Snyder, TX to visit with hubby’s niece and her husband.  The next day we drove to Prescott, Arkansas.  Hubby lived there as a child and wanted to see if he could find the property where he lived.  I don’t really understand his compulsion to do this, but tried to be supportive abut it.  I am happy to say that he did find what he was looking for.

Our next stop was a day in Branson, Missouri and my visit with Danni.  That will come in Part 3.