Today was to be our last day at The Ranch (we checked in last Friday), unless we decided that we wanted to stay another few days or a week... and we still didn't know where we planned to go next! We were thinking we might go to the Guadelupe Mountains National Park - just into Texas south of where we are now. They have two campgrounds - both boondocking only - so we were a little concerned about how hot it might be and whether we would need to run our air conditioners (which would require running the generator). Both campgrounds are also first come, first served. The primary campground in the main part of the park is about 75 miles south of us, and I had read that it is just an asphalt parking lot with lines marked on it for RVs to park. The other campground, Dog Canyon, was a little further west as well as south, and it appeared to have dirt or gravel sites - which might be cooler than asphalt. I couldn't find any reviews on it though. We had also heard about a place that was recommended to visit: Sitting Bull Falls - where we were told that a waterfall appears out of the ground, there is a stream for a short ways, and then it disappears again. It was about halfway to Dog Canyon so we decided to drive the Jeep over today to see if we thought Miss Doozie could make it.
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| We started the day by getting our mail at the local Lakewood post office. I had read that the post office existed pretty much because The Ranch was here... the "town" of Lakewood is pretty sparse! Our mail did not leave Livingston until Tuesday, and the tracking information indicated that it should arrive before 8pm on Friday, but I got a text message this morning that it had made it to the Lakewood Post Office - great! That meant we would not need to come back by here to pick it up later. |
We drove in to Carlsbad for me to drop a prescription off at the CVS, and then we headed to Sitting Bull Falls.
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| We got to Sitting Bull Falls and thought that we would need to pay to visit - thinking it was a New Mexico State Park -- but it is part of the Lincoln National Forest, so Dwayne's Golden Pass paid our way (for free). |
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| I think this was my first experience of walking into an oasis. Though there are green plants in the foreground of this picture, we had driven through miles and miles of just desert scrub like on the hillside in this picture (30+ miles from US285) ... but as we walked on the path to the falls overlook... |
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| ... we started hearing the sound of burbling water... and as we rounded the corner, we saw the falls and the pool below... It is hard to explain how refreshing the sound of water is "in a dry and dusty land"! |
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| Regardless of the falls and the stream, it was *hot* - Dwayne said that he considered striping off his clothes and sitting under the falls. We didn't spend a lot of time there before heading back to the Jeep to continue our trip... sure glad the Jeep has air conditioning! |
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| We were entering the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Dog Canyon, Texas. |
We stopped in the ranger station and had a great chat with the volunteer ranger there. He lives in Big Bend National Park in the winter, and volunteers at various other National Parks or National Monument areas during the summer. He let us know that their campground would not accommodate Miss Doozie (it is for 23' or shorter rigs).
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| This was a map of the campground - there are 4 RV sites and 8 tent sites. |
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| This gives you some idea of the layout of the area - Dog Canyon isn't even noted on this map but it is where Route 137 ends at the Guadelupe Mountains National Park. To get from Dog Canyon to the Visitor Center (which is off of US 62/180) is over 100 miles. Note the dotted line road that goes from 137 along the western side of the Lincoln National Forest - more on that in a bit! |
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| These are the 4 RV campsites - you can see that there is a fence behind them (so you can't back up further to get more space) and they are about twice as long as a picnic table. |
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| There was a corral available too though! |
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| So you could bring your horse trailer and ... uhm... sleep in it? while your horses were kept in the corral? |
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| The views were quite beautiful though - this is behind the RV sites... |
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| And in front of the RV sites. There were hiking trails that went out from here - the parking in front of the RV sites was for hikers. Just for grins, I stepped off how far Miss Doozie would hang over the road -- she would have blocked the whole road, and probably had her front bumper in the hikers parking area! But hey, no one else was there, at least not today! |
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| As we were leaving, there were 3 mountain goats or big horn sheep in the road just outside the park (in New Mexico) - I stopped to take a picture but took it with my phone from inside the Jeep, so not very good quality... |
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| They only stayed a few seconds before bounding off over the fence and disappearing into the scrub on the side of the road. |
Remember that dotted line road? On our way in towards Dog Canyon, I had seen a sign that indicated "El Paso 155 miles" and an arrow pointing toward a dirt/gravel road. I asked the ranger about it and he said that he would not recommend taking an RV on it, but that it would be fine for a passenger car. He said the gravel road was about 25 miles, and then it became hard surfaced - originally a two lane asphalt road, but that the sides have grown up with grass in the asphalt so now it is about a one lane, but that you rarely see more than 3-4 cars on the whole trip, so it is no big deal. Then when it crosses into Texas, it is a great wide well maintained road!
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| The sign for "El Paso Gap" where the gravel road heads off from route 137. |
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| See? El Paso is 155 miles that-a-way! |
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| And... that's what the road looks like. |
You can see that there is a cattle guard at the entrance to the gravel road. There were numerous cattle guards on our trip, and signs warning of "Open Rangeland". Most of the way, it was not clear how the cattle got water, but closer to Dog Canyon, the farms/ranches had large metal storage containers which evidently held water for the cattle...
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| I pulled over to take pictures of these two tanks (as I write this, I am reminded that in west Texas, like where Bud's family have their farm/ranch near Anson, they call the small ponds that have water in them drawn up by windmills "tanks"). |
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| As soon as I stopped the Jeep and got out, the cattle started moo-ing... |
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| everyone came over to the fence... |
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| .... wanting their picture made... or... thinking I would be bringing food, more likely! I was sorry we didn't have Miss Doozie cuz I could have played them a tune on the Musical Horn! |
After driving out there, and realizing how warm it would be, even at higher elevation, we decided that we needed to search out a cooler place. I had looked at staying near Cloudcroft after visiting Guadelupe Mountains National Park, so we decided to head there next - maybe to stay a week... that's the current plan anyway!
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