Guadalupe Mountains National Park

We camped right in the mountains, in the parking lot over from the visitor's center.  It was kind of like camping in a Wal Mart parking lot, but with much better scenery and no convenient groceries!  It was a cheap ($8) site, though, and we were able to keep the trailer there while we went off and did other things, so it was worth it to us.  We did think we had access to a water fill station on the way in, though, and we did not.  But a little work on our part, lugging water in our three gallon jug, and working hard to conserve water, and we made it work.  We pulled in after the visitor's center closed, so we had a quiet evening before exploring the park the next day.    

The sunrises were gorgeous.  The first morning I was out there just soaking it in and taking gazillions of pictures.  The others stayed inside the trailer and admired the colors from their windows.  The second morning I was a bit more chill about the whole thing.  But, man, it was a gorgeous sight.  Our third and final morning, I saw the sunrise way earlier than this, when there were just colors on the horizon over the city down the mountain.  I did not have my camera then, but, whew, it was awesome.          

Hiking is the reason people come to Guadalupe Mountains.  There are a bunch of hikes, getting to the peak is the goal to achieve.  We went to Frijoles Ranch and checked out the history.  We also hiked, a nice little 2.3 mile loop.  Lots of rocks on the hikes, some real ankle busters.  But the hike we took had us going to a couple of springs, which were incredible to check out.  The Frijoles Ranch didn't last a very long time, and was mainly produce, though they did have some animals.  They made incredible use of the springs, channeling the waters to their trees and such.    

This was the first spring we arrived upon, which is everyone else's second.  I don't know how we got turned around and did the hike backwards from everyone else, but we did.  Which meant we did the strenuous part of the hike first.  Which sounds like the right way to do it, if you ask me.  The vegetation around the springs changes remarkably, with so much green and growing things.  Quite lovely.  It was quite a hike, though the kids kept assuring me it's just because I'm old that I think that.      

We are by no means quiet hikers.  It took several "hush!"es before the kids quieted down enough.  We had heard the deer, some rocks slid as they were walking, but it took a while of being still and quiet before the deer came out of the trees and we could see them.           We finally met another family doing the full time RV thing for a year with their kiddos.  Their kids are similar in age to ours, though they only have three.  They started in September from Florida and were headed west through some places we've already been, so we shared some of our faves with them.  

We also saw, for the first time, another Taylor Coach!  We exchanged tours of our coaches, and it was fun for all.  Very exciting to see another one.  There are just two of them in the other coach, and so they have a smaller one.  It was neat to see the differences, and I have to say that I like ours better, which is good since that's the one we have.