After Moab I had stays planned in Caineville, Hatch, and Kanab, Utah to visit Capital Reef, Bryce, and Zion National Parks. Because of the heat and the summer crowds, I decided to cancel all the stays. I had booked 3 days for Joshua Tree NP and still wanted to visit there so found a place on the California coast for 11 nights between those dates. I stayed in Carlsbad, about 30 miles north of San Diego but with the traffic,…
Despite booking a “pet friendly” hotel, when I checked in Saturday night, I was given a form with all sorts of rules. The first rule: If I left my dog alone, they would call animal control. Absurd. So I quickly went online trying to find a true pet friendly place to stay. I called other hotels, filtered by pets allowed, but all of them said the same, no pets left in room. One even told me “no hotels allow you…
“The most arid, most hostile, most lonesome, most grim, bleak, barren, desolate, and savage quarter of the state of Utah – the best part by far” – Edward Abbey ** Canyonlands National Parkin Utah is comprised of four unique and separate districts; Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze, and Horseshoe Canyon. All but Horseshoe Canyon are contiguous but separated by the Green and Colorado Rivers. The Maze has no paved roads and is only accessible with 4-wheel drive…
I haven’t been to Santa Fe since 1998, so decided to stay for two weeks to do all the museums and historical parks and sites in the area. I found a B&B, close to downtown on Paseo de Peralta which encircles the historic center. I could walk almost everywhere and not have to deal with parking. The room was very small and I didn’t have much space for “stuff” (I was quite spread out and messy!) but they had several…
Or is it? I don’t know but thought it would be fun to stop for a day when driving from Carlsbad to Santa Fe. I am a huge science fiction nerd, growing up watching the original Star Trek and reading Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke. I never did watch X-files. I might need to find that on streaming and start watching it. I did pull up the “Little Green Men” episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 on Netflix as…
I stayed in Carlsbad to visit both Guadalupe Mountain National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Unfortunately, the Dog Fire, that started May 11th from lightning, closed much of Guadalupe Mountains NP. And I didn’t get reservations in advance for a tour of Carlsbad Caverns. They were booked for over a week. Luckily, however, I kept checking recreation.gov and got a tour Tuesday, June, 1st. I had booked 5 nights here thinking that would give me a lot of time…
The eighth wonder of the world. Truly amazing. I arrived in Carlsbad and stopped in the caverns on the way to town. I had hoped to get tickets then as well as general park info. I was told tours were fully booked until June 7th, 4 days after I was leaving. Disappointed but I thought I would continue to check recreation.gov per recommendation from the ranger. Boo and I did the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail and walked down to the amphitheater before…
Because of a large fire much of the park was closed. I visited the Piney Spring Visitor Center and did several short trails with Boo, when visiting on Memorial Day. The visitor center has a great exhibit on desert animals and plants. Well worth 1/2 hour or so of your time to stop and read the information. The Pinery Nature Trail, right behind the visitor center, leads to buildings from the Butterfield Stage, a 2800 mile route from Saint Louis…
Big Bend National Park: Mountains and deserts and rivers, oh my! Chisos Mountains, Chihuahuan Desert, and the Rio Grande make up the diverse and beautiful landscape of Big Bend. I’ve never been here, so when planning the next stage of my travels, I looked at the map and thought, I need to visit Big Bend! This is not a park that is easy to get to and it’s not highly visited. The ten most visited national parks range from the…
I had a number of people in Austin telling me to visit the “Hill Country” and specifically Fredericksburg. I wasn’t that interested until searching on things-to-do and found the National Museum of the Pacific War. Surprised a major museum would be in such a small town and why is the Pacific War history museum in Texas? Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, CinCPAC or Commander in Chief of the Pacific Theater during WWII, was from Fredericksburg. The initial iteration of the museum was…