Tucson, AZ

We stayed in Tucson for a few day, and we loved it. It is rated as one of the top cities in the country for Bicycling, so that is what we did alot of when we were there.



While we were there, we stayed with my second cousin Cari, and her girlfriend Shelly for three nights, both of whom I had just met on this visit. I'm glad I got to meet them, and stay with them, because they were such great hosts, and such fun and nice people. I can't believe it, but I just realized now that we didn't take any pictures together. I guess I'll have to come back and visit again.


One neat attraction that we saw there was Biosphere 2, which was a big self-contained glass building where a group of people lived inside for two years in the early 1990's. It allowed no material exchange between the inside and the outside, and was an experiment primarily to see if life could be supported in an small contained environment. (In case you were wondering, Biosphere 1 is the Earth).






On our way out of town, we stopped to see my Aunt Sue and Uncle Russ's friends, Dave and Darlene. We stopped in during the afternoon and talked a while, and had a real nice dinner there. From there, that night, we headed up to Phoenix.

Tombstone

We next visited the town of Tombstone, AZ. If you've seen any of the Wyatt Earp movies, or know the stories of Wyatt Earp, this is where Wyatt Earp was, and where the shootout at the OK Corral took place.

We spent our time at the Tombstone Historama Museum, wich was located at the OK Corral.

And we also saw a re-enactment of the shootout.

White Sands National Monument

At this point, we started to head west toward Arizona. In about the middle of southern New Mexico is the White Sands National Monument, which is also in the middle of a huge Missle Range. The white sands here are made of gypsum, which is what wallboard and plaster of paris are made out of. Here there are dunes of white sand, that were deposited here by the water that flowed from the nearby mountians into shallow lakes. When the water evaporates, the gypsum remains behind and becomes part of this white desert of sand dunes.

We only spent a few hours here, but as you can see, we did enjoy our time in the sand.

Roswell

Not too far north of Carlsbad is Roswell, where we stopped into to see the Roswell UFO Museum. We both enjoyed that quite a bit. It was a small museum with a lot of things to reading about different peoples accounts and newspaper articles and stuff like that.

Carlsbad Caverns

I know, its been a long time since we last posted anything here, so its time to catch up with some stuff that has happened weeks ago. By the way, I loved the comments that I've gotten from so many of you. They were hilarious. Keep them coming, and I'll try to be better at keeping up to date.

Since Guadalupe, we've been through Southern New Mexico, through Arizona, and back through Northern New Mexico, but lets back up to Carlsbad Caverns.

When we drove into Carlsbad, NM, it was great weather in the 70's and we went for a real nice bike ride around town. We were planning on riding to the caverns the following day, but the big surprise was that it snowed that night, and was freezing the next day. Check out our desert snowman we made.


The caverns were very spectacular, but its hard to describe them, so here are some pictures that hopefully give you a good idea of what they are like.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

After we left Big Bend we traveled north to Guadelupe Mountains National Park which was at the very top of Texas, just under the border with New Mexico. All around this mountain range is just relatively flat desert, then the Guadelupe's suddenly rise 5000 ft from the desert floor. This was actually once a reef under the sea, called Capitan Reef. Because of this it is composed mainly of limestone, and all around, you are able to see fossils of sea life in the rocks.


We stayed here for four nights... The first night we simply arrived and picked a spot to sleep. The next three nights we camped on the mountain. First, we hiked up to Guadalupe Peak, which is the highest peak in Texas at 8749 ft. From here you can look east, south, and west, and see the flat desert 5000 ft below. We spent the night at a campsite a little ways below the summit.


The next day, we woke up and went back down the mountain to the visitor center, replenished our food and water, and headed back up the other side of the valley to our campsite (Pine Top).


The following morning, this time with thankfully lighter packs, we hiked the Bowl Trail, which took us up Hunter Peak, then around into "the bowl", which was a very nice hike through a region between the mountain peaks where the vegitation and life are more characteristic of regions much further north. This happened because the climate in this area used to be much wetter and cooler many years ago, and when the climate turned warmer and drier, this area in the higher altitude and protected by the surrounding mountians still remains as it used to be.


We spent one more night at the Pine Top campsite, and the following morning hiked back down and left to come to Carlsbad.