Day 35 to 40 – Hot Springs, Memphis and the Road Home

Mountain Tower (Hot Springs NP)

Today was day 35, but it’s our last day of planned sightseeing so I probably won’t be posting after this. From here on it is just visiting relatives and driving home along routes that we have been many, many times.

View of Hot Springs from the Mountain Tower

We started the day with an elevator ride to the top of the Mountain Tower that overlooks Hot Springs National Park. It’s a little pricey, but about half price ($4) with the NPS Golden Age Pass. From the top of the tower you have a great view of Hot Springs and the surrounding country side. 

Trail to Goat Rock

After the tower, we took our hike in the park to Goat Rock. The hike was fine, but when we tried to take a shortcut off-trail back to go back our car, that quickly became a big problem. There was no real trail and it was too steep and rocky that we had to turn back and retrace our steps along the original trail. Lesson learned. Stick to the marked trails.

We stopped by to see a couple of other sights in Hot Springs while we were there. First was Bill Clinton’s high school. Although he was born in Hope, he actually grew up in Hot Springs. We also stopped by McClard’s Bar-B-Q to try some of Clinton’s favorite BBQ. It may be the best in Hot Springs and the place was packed, but to me it was only just okay. A little too vinegary and I don’t care for coleslaw on my BBQ all that much.

BBQ Ribs in Memphis

But to satisfy our craving for real BBQ, we went to dinner in Memphis at Rendezvous for their ribs. We both agree that they are the best ribs anywhere, bar none. They are done with a fantastic dry rub and there’s nothing like them!!! It was one of the best meals of the trip and we had a few contenders for that title.

Day 34 – Hot Springs National Park

Bath House Row at Hot Springs NP

Hurray!! We finally made it out of Texas. It seems like we have been driving here forever but it really has only been 6 days. And some of the driving is crazy. First we must have the smallest car in the state as everyone else drives huge pickup or SUVs. It’s kind of comical to park in a lot where all the trucks are 2 feet taller than your car. It makes it hard to find your car. Also the freeway entrances in the big cities are weird as they come in from a parallel road instead of directly from a ramp like we do.

Quapaw Baths & Spa

Today we drove from Dallas to Hot Springs, AR, to visit the 14th and last National Park on our list. Hot Springs is the smallest park in the system and the oldest if you count the time it was protected by the government (1832). It is also different from other parks as it was and still is to some extent a commercial venture. The hot spring waters here have been used for therapeutic baths for more than 200 years and the main part of the park is a block long string of bath houses.

Thermal Baths (downloaded photo)

With recent medical advances the use of thermal baths to cure illness has fallen out of favor, but that didn’t stop us. We took our turn in the baths, including drinking the mineral water. No, not out of the bath directly but they have some set aside for you to drink. We went to the Quapaw Baths and Spa where they have four thermal baths ranging from 95 to 104 degrees. I don’t know about cures, but after an hour I do know that we were very, very relaxed and feeling good.

Day 33 – Texas State Fair

Longhorn Judging at the State Fair

We started today with a tour of the University of North Texas in Denton, TX, where our daughter-in-law, Megan, went to college. We were very impressed with the campus and we even stopped by her sorority and had some sweet tea in one of her favorite local restaurants to try to experience some of the things that she did.

The Cotton Bowl is the Centerpiece of the Fair

In the afternoon we went to the Texas State Fair in Dallas. It is the largest state fair in the United State in terms of attendance and it was pretty crowded today but not terrible. At least the weather was very pleasant. For us the fair was good but not one of our favorites because they don’t have real headliner events. That is, they choose have to have a free concert event instead of charging an extra fee, and frankly the group today wasn’t very good. However if you like the rides, they have the largest midway of any state fair we have been to.

Big Tex

One unique feature at the fair is Big Tex. He is a 55 foot tall talking statue who welcomes guests to the rodeo. Big Tex has been at the fair since 1949 when he was converted from Santa Claus, but that Big Tex caught fire in 2012 so the one today is actually a replacement.

Day 32 – Fort Worth Rodeo

Cowtown Colosseum

We drove from Midland in West Texas to Fort Worth today. And what do you do in Fort Worth on a Saturday night? We went to the rodeo. The Cowtown Colosseum was the first indoor rodeo (1918) and they have been holding rodeos there ever since.

Bulls 12 - Cowboys 0

Bull riding is always a good event, but tonight the cowboys got shut out. Only one guy even got to the 7 second mark but he was airborne by 8.

They had a guy doing lasso tricks. That isn't technically a rodeo event, but it was interesting. The guy doing the tricks is great, but the real star is the horse. That's also true of most of the other events. Another event that we always enjoy is the "calf cash" event where they send out all the kids in the audience to grab a ribbon from the back of an uncooperative calf to win a cash prize.

Day 31 - Big Bend National Park (Day 2)

Santa Elena Canyon and the Rio Grande

Today we passed the three-quarters point of the trip and also passed the 7,000 miles driven mark. And to follow up on my comments about the size of Big Bend, we have driven over 200 miles in the park in two days and still didn’t see everything.

We started this morning with a hike into Santa Elena Canyon. At least that was the plan, but again weather forced some changes. We hiked down to the canyon with no problems but there is a creek that you have to ford to continue the walk into the canyon. We brought our water shoes to cross, but recent rains had swelled the creek to where it would have been waist deep. We watched one couple struggle to do it and decided it wasn’t worth it. The canyon itself was so beautiful itself, rising 1500 feet above the Rio Grande. It was just magnificent and probably the best sight in the park.

Javelina 

At this point, I want to talk about some of the animals we have seen in Texas. I’m going to have to use downloaded images because we just couldn’t catch shots of them with our camera. The most impressive was the Javelina, which we saw on our drive today. It looks like a wart hog or maybe a pig, but it isn’t closely related. 

Roadrunner

We have also seen several Roadrunners and they aren’t anything like the cartoon. They are brown and really tiny, but they can accelerate like the cartoon one. We saw a coyote at night outside of Pecos and in fact almost hit it. If we could just see an anvil falling from the sky, we could complete our Looney Tunes trifecta. Of course we have also seen a large number of lizards, Texas jackrabbits, and birds of all kinds. No tarantulas or rattle snakes, which are common in the park, but that is okay with us.

Mule Ears Mountain (obviously)

Me on my Birthday (Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend NP)

Jeanne at Santa Elena Overlook (Big Bend NP)

I added some other random photos.

Day 30 – Big Bend National Park (Day 1)

Road To Rio Grande Village (Big Bend NP)

We basically drove due south from Pecos through flat land and oil fields until we hit Big Bend National Park. The park is so big it is another 29 miles to an open Visitor Center. We learned from the NPS film that the park is larger than the state of Rhode Island and is the only National Park which totally contains a mountain range, the Chisos Mountains. Everything IS bigger in Texas!!!

Prickly Pear Cactus (Big Bend NP)

We explored the eastern side of the park today, which was not crowded and the Visitor Center there was even closed. This time of year isn’t really their busy season, which we gather is from November through Easter. The reason is obvious as it was 93 today, 104 yesterday and up to 120 in the summer. Again we had to eliminate a planned hike because of heat and instead decided to cross the border into Mexico.

We Took The Next Ride

There is a Border Patrol station in the park that allows you to cross over into Boquillas del Carmen, but you really have to want it. We went part way. We paid to be rowed across the Rio Grande into Mexico ($5 per person, round trip). From there, you have two choices. Walk the mile into town or take a burro ride for another $5. We opted to stay and chat with the people selling burro rides, partly in Spanish and partly in English. They were impressed that we had driven 30 days to get there. We stayed maybe 10 minutes.

Mexican Uber

There were a couple of things stopping us from taking the burro rides. One, there is nothing in Boquillas other than a couple of bars. Two, the 93 degrees thing again. On top of that, a burro ride doesn't seem all that appealing. And three, it kind of smacks of “Ugly American” to think they still ride burros. Those guys all had nice trucks.

View of the Valley Through the "Window"

We are spending the evening at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, which is the only night we are actually staying inside a park. This area was a volcano many million years ago and the lodge is in the basin with only a small “window” or crack in the mountain where you can view the valley below.

Day 29 – Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks

Palace Room

Our first stop today was Carlsbad Caverns. We were originally scheduled for a 9 am King's Palace tour, but the Park Service changed our tour to 11:30 about two weeks ago. This complicated the day a bit because we already had two parks on the docket today, so we had to make the best of it. So we watched the film first and took an abbreviated self-guided tour of the Big Room, then took our tour.

Large Piece of Drapery in the Queen's Room

We really liked the cave but the tour size was a little too large to be comfortable. It was still worthwhile as you see parts of the cave that you can't do on the self-guided portion. 

The cave itself was amazing and if you only see one cave, this is the one. The size of the rooms is absolutely amazing. The Big Room is twice the size of the US Capitol Building and in general all of the rooms are much bigger than we have seen in any other cave. You can look up maybe 100 feet in spots.

One other interesting feature of the cave is that is is currently drier than others that we have visited. That means that the cave features were mostly created during the ice age and not so much recently, relatively speaking.

Cave Bacon

The tour takes you into the deepest part of the cave (830 feet) and the Palace Room and the Queen’s Room were beautiful and loaded with cave features such as drapery, popcorn and cave bacon. You may notice that the quality of my cave photos is significantly better. One reason is that they had just installed new, improved lighting in the cave about a month ago. However the main reason is I have a new cell phone which take great shots in low lighting. Much better that the 35mm.

Guadalupe Mountains 

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is only about 35 miles away from Carlsbad, but you cross into Texas to get there. There are no roads in the park and thus it is mainly geared for hiking and backpacking in the high country. We took a short nature hike in the park and visited the old Frijole Ranch, but didn’t have time for much more as we still had a long drive to Pecos left. The mountains above are beautiful the park contains the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, at 8,751 feet.

Day 28 – Balloons and Aliens

Balloons Over Our Hampton Inn

This is Balloon Fiesta week in Albuquerque where they have daily launches of a large number of hot air balloons. It is a very famous festival and people come from all over the world to see the balloons. Unfortunately it wasn’t a Mass Ascension Day, which sounds vaguely religious but in fact it means that all balloons are launched at the same time. 

Two Balloons in Kohl's Parking Lot

Today they launched a smaller number of balloons, individually over about a half hour. The good news for us is that the wind was blowing perfectly and the balloons flew right over our hotel. It was an amazing sight and we even did some balloon chasing to see where they would land. We found two which came down safely in a Kohl's parking lot. Impromptu landings are a normal event.

Flying Sauce McDonald's

We left Albuquerque and headed south to Carlsbad, NM. Along the way we skirted the White Sands National Monument to the north, passed through the Lincoln National Forest where the living symbol of Smokey Bear, an American black bear cub, was rescued in 1950 from a fire. We arrived in Roswell, NM, in time for lunch and we had to eat at their McDonald's which features a flying saucer room.

Jeanne With Aliens

Of course when you are in Roswell, you have to visit the UFO Museum. In case you aren’t familiar with Roswell, a flying saucer supposedly crashed there in July of 1947 and the bodies of three aliens were recovered. It made national headlines for a week and then was followed by a government denial (it was a weather balloon) and charges of a cover-up for more than 50 years. The museum was packed with what seemed like believers but even after a mostly laughable 45-minute video, we are still skeptical. In any case, it was a mandatory stop.

Day 27 – Petrified Forest National Park

The Old Faithful (Petrified Forest NP)

We toured the Petrified Forest National Park in the morning. The sky had cleared after the rain last night, but it left us with a tremendous wind which made walking a bit difficult at times, but we did our planned hikes. The fallen trees are from 218 million years ago during the Triassic period, which predates the Jurassic period in which dinosaurs came into dominance.

Crystal Cross-section

The trees became submerged in a local river and then packed under soil until they eventually fossilized. During one of our hikes we were able to see cross-section views of the trees which are beautiful, multi-colored crystals. We saw yellow, red, blue, white and purple crystals.

Painted Desert Overlook

The northern part of the park overlooks the beginning of the Painted Desert which covers a large part of northeastern Arizona with beautiful pastels.

Wigwam Motel (Holbrook, AZ)

Another interesting part of the trip is getting to see portions of Route 66. Route 66 was completed in 1927, running from Chicago to LA and it was THE major migration path to California for many years. It has been replaced by I-40 and other interstate highways, but you can still see icons of the past such as the Wigwam Motel. We considered staying there, but decided it was too rustic.

Navajo Dinner

Finally we capped the day with a fantastic meal. You know that they say when in Rome do like the Romans. Well, we are in Navajo country and we had a great Native American meal at the Pueblo Harvest Café, looking out at the Sandia Mountains at sunset. We dined on Posole and Green Chile stews, Jemez Enchilada with ground buffalo, vegetables, frybread and other Navaho delicacies.

Day 26 - Northern Arizona

Well, I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

Today was mostly driving to reposition us for a visit to the Petrified Forest National Park tomorrow morning. We left Vegas in the morning and drove 5 hours to Holbrook, AZ, where we are spending the night. There really wasn’t too much to see along the way, but we did make a stop in Winslow, AZ, for some obligatory photos. If you know the Eagles, you’ll get the reference.

Such a fine sight to see (Jeanne with Glenn Frey)

After 5 days of hot weather, we are finally back to cooler weather and back at a higher elevation in Holbrook which is over 5000 feet. Also in a rarity for this area, we have a rainy evening.

It's a girl, my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford

Days 24 & 25 – Las Vegas

Excalibur at night

Three nights and two full days in Las Vegas have left us wishing we had planned to stay longer. We mostly just slept late, relaxed by the pool during the afternoon and went to shows in the evening. We saw Beautiful, the musical about Carole King which was playing at the Smith Center, on Friday night and went to the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana tonight to see Rich Little. We really enjoyed both shows but they are geared for an older crowd, so basically our demographics. The weather has been pretty warm, in the 90s both days.

Red Rock Canyon

One thing we noticed is that Vegas continues to change. We drove out to see Red Rock Canyon and that has moved from being a state park to now being managed by the Bureau of Land Management (federal government) and it has a new visitor center and improved parking. The Riviera casino, where we stayed on our first visit to Las Vegas in 1989, has been torn down and a new casino is being built in its place. There is at least one new casino, Cromwell, and two or three other new ones under construction on the strip. No sign of a slowdown in the casino business here.