Four Corners

When I awoke and emerged from my tent on Saturday, I was greeted by a heron (or possibly a stork) sitting in the lake near my tent.  After snapping a quick photograph of him, I quickly tore down my camp and hit the road.  I was eager to find a gas station at which I could brush my teeth prior to really heading for Four Corners.  I finally found one about 20 minutes away, but at least it was 20 minutes in the right direction.

I reached Four Corners around10:30ish and spent about half an hout there taking a few pictures.  Someone was kind enough to offer to take my picture while I was touching four different states (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico in case you don’t know).  I’ve heard that the Four Corners Monument isn’t actually where the four states meet, so I may not have been touching four states at once, but it was fun anyways.  Once I finished taking pictures, I quickly ate lunch and then hit the road again for my ultimate destination of the day – Arches National Park.

Me touching four states at the same time :-)

Roswell, NM

I woke at 6:00AM and tried to sleep a bit more, but after 20 minutes gave up and tore down my camp and headed out.  I started out of the park around 7, but it took me a while to get back to the main road.  I have a GPS thing for my car and it was on crack, and in of all the places, the desert. It kept telling me to make turns that didn’t exist or to make a turn onto a dirt road that went out into the middle of the desert, and it eventually put right into some rancher’s driveway.  I eventually told it to take me back south to Carlsbad instead of points north and that did the trick.  Once I was back on the main road, I forgave it, but I was a bit nervous for a while.

I hit Roswell, NM about 9AM and was very ready for coffee.  I’ve been trying to go to local establishments whenever possible along my way, so I was so happy to find the Not From This World Coffee Shop.  Conveniently, it was located a block away from the UFO Museum andResearch Center, a destination on my itinerary for the day.  All I can say is that Roswell makes me smile.  They have totally capitalized on the whole alien thing and I love it.  My pictures can describe it so much better than I can…

The museum and yes that light post does have alien eyes painted on it.  Almost all of them do...

A top secret classified government document

The picture in the lower right corner  is the design for the new museum

Who knew there was a Journal of UFO Studies?  I wonder how many issues there are?

Ancient Mayan artwork apparently depicting their arrival on Earth from space - maybe that tour guide at Coba was on to something... (see my Mexico post)

No worries, this is just a model of "real" events

Even their Coke machines are into it

I like that the window if full of aliens - or are they angels?

I left Roswell around 11 with the plan of stopping somewhere in Albuquerque for lunch and gas before heading on to Blue Water Lake State Park for the evening.  I’ve been eating PB&J for my meals on the road, but today I was in the mood to find a sit down place.  I chose the Owl Café.  It was also tasty.  I have yet to go wrong with choosing local places and am hoping my streak continues.  I had the California burger.  I have such a hard time resisting things with avocado or blue cheese on them and this one had the former.  They also gave a free little bowl of beans to try.  I think I may have liked these even better than the burger.  They had jalapeños in them, which gave them a really nice kick.

I reached Blue Water Lake State Park without too much trouble. T hat found me when I got there.  The primitive campsites were on the lake, which was nice, but the roads to them weren’t so nice.  My little Prius did just fine, but I was reduced to 3 mph, and it was a bumpy ride.  When I got out of my car, I realized how incredibly windy it was.  I kept putting rocks on my tarp and the wind kept blowing it up.  I’m glad the people in the campsite next to mine didn’t laugh at me because it must have been a funny site.  It took me twice as long to set up camp as normal.  Even after I had the tent staked to the ground, I was still worried it would blow off into the lake.  I put a bunch of stuff inside and that gave me a little peace of mind.  I knew once I got in it it wasn’t going to go anywhere.  I wandered around the campsite a bit taking pictures and checking things out.  It is much pretty in NW NM than SE NM.  I am starting to get into more mountainous areas and it is greener.  There were a bunch of horses watering themselves at the lake.  I doubt they are wild horses, but I’m not sure exactly who put them there or where they went.  I also discovered that there is no running water at this campsite.  Thank goodness I didn’t splurge for the “developed” site over the primitive site. T he thought had crossed my mind.  I also have to say a big thank you to Scott for telling me to keep water with me because my Nalgene was on empty when I arrived.  Thankfully, I had a gallon in the back.  I’ll get more tomorrow for in Utah.  I’d rather have too much than not enough.

My campsite after my wind battle

Views of the park

The horses that hung out near us for the evening

The moon over Blue Wate Lake

Carlsbad Caverns - Carlsbad, NM

I was on the road to Carlsbad Caverns by 7:00AM. With that and the one hour I would gain when I entered the Mountain time zone, things were looking good. I stopped for coffee and gas along the way and munched on snacks in the car, which allowed me to arrive at Carlsbad National Park around 2:00 – plenty of time. I’ve got to say though, there is a whole lot of nothing between Austin and Carlsbad. It really drove home the vastness of our country. I’ve lived on the East Coast my entire life, so I am used to there being stuff everywhere.

Once there, I went ahead and purchased a National Parks pass there since I would be visiting several during the next week. Plus, my hope is that it gives me incentive to go to Yosemite at least a couple of times during the next year. I’ll have to do a search of others close enough to the Bay Area to potentially make weekend trips out of.

First off, the entrance fee to Carlsbad Caverns is only $6 and it’s good for 3 days – what a deal! The entrance fee for the Ozark caverns was the same and it was a one time thing. I somehow don’t think the Ozarks even come remotely close to comparing to the awesomeness of Carlsbad Caverns. They were incredible. I took a lot of photos, but being that they are caverns, the lighting sucked. I’m not a big fan of flash photography because I don’t like the reflection of the flash coming off of the things I am taking pictures of. I was maybe a third of the way down when a finally remembered that I had a tripod with me, so non-flash photos were an option. From that point on, I only took non-flash photos. Thank goodness I have a bendy tripod because I needed it to latch onto the hand railings and signs in order to get some odd angles. As of my writing this, I haven’t been able to look at the photos on my computer yet to see if they came out, so there is a chance that I have all crappy photos. They looked good on my camera, but the 1.5” LCD never quite gives all the important details. I spent over 2 hours in the caverns. It took about an hour to walk down to the bottom, and then I spent a long time walking around “The Big Room.” I didn’t take any of the guided tours, but I feel like a saw enough. It is around 58 degrees down there, it’s humid, but after that long I was starting to get cold and ready to head back up to the surface. They have at least one hiking trail there as well, so filling up two days would be very doable, but I didn’t have the time for that. Going through Carlsbad caverns was a last minute decision since I had some extra time in my itinerary, not the focus of my trip. I am so glad I did though!

A view of what I drove through to get to Carlsbad Caverns

The entrance to the caverns

Looking back up to the entrance - good bye daylight

A formation called the Whale's Mouth

Weird nubby things

Starting to get close to "The Big Room" (and I am now using my tripod - yay! I got some good ones!)

Scary! It makes me think of that Poltergrist movie for some reason

A view of "The Big Room"

Looking straight up at the "ceiling"

Formation called the "The Chandelier"

More of "The Big Room"

Formation called the "Rock of Ages"

Another scary photo

When I emerged from the Caverns, it was clear that the weather had changed. There was a huge, very dark cloud that appeared to be pretty close. I could also see lightning, so I was a bit worried about my camping plans for that evening.

Cactus flower on the park gounds

After leaving the park, I drove about an hour north to Brantley Lake State Park to camp for the night. I hadn’t run into the storm, so I decided to chance it. It never did rain on me, and I later realized that because Southeastern NM is so flat, you can see weather systems that are really far away from you.

It was a bit weird getting into the park because you basically turn off the main road and start driving into the desert. It was a bit disconcerting but I trusted the signs. Sure enough, there was a park at the end of them. It was a nice campground, but there wasn’t much else besides the lake to do out there. I set up camp, ate dinner, and showered before wandering around a bit to take pictures. The sun was starting to set at this point and it was really pretty. I read for a while but ended up going to sleep pretty early. It all worked out though because I awoke really early and set off.

A rainbow!

Sunset at Brantley Lake State Park

The moon over the park

Austin, TX

I’m not sure how I managed it, but I made it Austin from St. Louis in one day.  I guess I knew I could do it, but 13 hours seemed a bit daunting.  I had picked out a state park to camp in just south of Dallas and another between Waco and Temple as a back up.  I never did see the signs for the park south of Dallas.  I did see the signs for the other park and was ready to stop but they were accompanied by a “day use only” sign.  That would have been helpful information on the website as opposed to all of the information about the campsites there.  I was only about an hour from Kristi’s mom’s place at that point so it seemed kind of pointless to stop anyways.

I was really tired by the time I got there but seeing Kristi and meeting her family helped me get a second wind.  We went for a walk and then out for ice cream.  It was a really nice evening.

My goals for my time in Austin were pretty simple: 1) eat Mexican food and 2) eat BBQ.  I hadn’t done a lot of research of other things to do there prior to arriving and I knew it was going to be a busy time for Kristi and her family since they were just moving there from NYC.  I wanted to be as helpful as possible without getting in the way.

Things were on hold with their house my first full day in Austin, so we were able to do a couple of fun things.  Her mom (Susanna) and Jack took the two of us and Lucy and Miles, Kristi’s 4 year olds twins, to the river to go rowing.  Well, Jack, Kristi, and I went rowing.  Kristi did take the kids out in a kayak for a bit though.  I had never rowed before and Jack was a great coach.  I had a lot of fun and will probably check into it out in the Bay Area.  It is definitely great exercise and it uses your entire body. 

Me and Jack about to push off of the dock

Getting a few instructions

Kristi's turn

For lunch Kristi, her husband Brian, and I went for Mexican food at a place called Manuel’s – check number one.  It was super tasty.  Later that afternoon Susanna, Kristi, the kids, and I went to one of the city pools that afternoon.  Her sister’s family joined us there and we swam and had a little picnic.  I was able to get in about half an hour of lap swimming.  It felt so much better than my outing at Lake of the Ozarks State Park back in MO.  That first time back in the water after being out for so long is always so hard.

The next day Kristi and Brian were anticipating gaining possession of their house fairly early in the day, so I decided to head out on my own for several hours to stay out of the way.  My first order of business was to have BBQ for lunch.  Brett (from St. Louis) recommended a place called Iron Works BBQ and it was awesome!  After that, I went to the Whole Foods headquarters and spent about an hour there walking around looking at everything they had to offer.  It was huge, at least from my relative perspective of the NYC Whole Foods.  I picked up a few things for my impending camping trip before heading out in search of a place called Barton Springs Pool in Zilker Park.  Kristi recommended it and it was very worth the effort of finding it.  It isn’t really that hard to find, I just had a stupid moment, maybe blind moment is a better description.  I pulled into the park and skimmed the sign directing me to all of the attractions and completely ski[[e dove the part that said Barton Springs Pool.  I got to thinking maybe it was just near the park and not in the park, so I drove around for close to an hour trying to find the place before deciding perhaps I should check out that sign again.  Sure enough, the first thing on the list was Barton Springs Pool.  I should start off by saying it isn’t really a pool at all.  It is a natural spring that has been dammed up to make a “pool.”  It is really beautiful and much bigger than I expected.  The water was pretty cold, so it took me a while to get in, but once I did I swam around for about half an hour.  It wasn’t quite like open water swimming because it was full of teenagers, so it was more like paddling around.  There was plant life growing from the bottom, which was probably about 20 feet deep at the deepest point, and fish, big fish, swimming around in it.  Since I had my goggles, it was kind of like snorkeling (without a snorkel).  It made for a fun day.  By the time I got back to Susanna’s house, Kristi and Brian had finally been told that they would get the keys that evening.  After dinner, I went with Kristi and Susanna to the house to help out with the cleaning.  It’s a really nice house, and I’m so happy for them.  After we returned, I finished getting things ready for my departure the next day.  I wanted to get an early start so that I would reach Carlsbad Caverns well before the cavern entrances closed.  I was not going to have a repeat of the Ozark Caverns.

Barton Springs pool

St. Louis - Part II

I returned from camping and Scott returned from Philly on Saturday, May 30, and after we ate dinner we went to Ted Drew's Frozen Custard for desert.  It is a St. Louis institution and I have been told a must do.  It was definitely tasty.  I got a caramel and chocolate chip cookie dough concrete.  I love caramel.

On Sunday, we took Scott's '69 Mustang convertible out the a winery in Hermann, MO.  It was a really nice drive, although we did make a wrong turn at one point adn end up back in St. Louis.  We made about and hour loop before we got that corrected and were finally on our way.  we went to the Stone Hill Winery and tasted a few wines.  It was definitely a different experience than in CA.  First off, it was free, which was nice.   Also, instead of having the wines ordered in the order they should be tasted, they were ordered from driest to sweetest.  All the whites, roses, and reds were mixed in together.  They had two pages of wines to choose from, but most of them were on the sweeter side.  I'm more of a fan of dry wines, so that narrowed down the tasting list pretty rapidly.  I ended up buying a couple of bottles to take to Austin with me as a thank you gift to Kristi and her family for letting me stay with them.  After our tasting we sat outside and had some cheese and other snacks before heading back to St. Louis.

Scott's car

Stone Hill Winery

Part of the vineyard

It was a bit weird because the winery was in a sub-division

They had a few more acres up on the hill, but most of them were in another nearby town

That evening, we ate dinner at the Schafly Brewery in downtown St. Louis.  They make good beer and it is a really nice local option compared to the Annheiser Busch products.  after dinner we headed over to a bar called The Dubliner to meet up with Leilah and Brett for a drink.  It is Guiness' 250th anniversary and they apparently made a limited number of kegs of their original recipe and sent them out to Irish Pubs around the world.  The Dubliner happened to be one of them (and they were on their last keg of it), so we all got a Guiness 250.  It was really good, but definitely different than what we are used to.  It is a little lighter in color and flavor.  I had a great time hanging our with Leilah and Brett and hope to see them the next time I visit St. Louis.

I really enjoyed my time in St. Louis.  It was great to meet Scott's friends and just hang out and relax.  Thanks so much Scott for letting me crash at your place for so long!