Category: Post-COVID Shutdown 2022
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Busted in Carlsbad
It’s hard to wrap your head around southeastern New Mexico. It’s not artsy Taos or wealthy Santa Fe or scientific Albuquerque. It’s a product of millions of years of geology that left a system of massive, intricate and stunning caves known as Carlsbad Caverns National Park, hundreds and thousands of feet below ground. The same…
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Boulderdash in Guadalupe National Park
Hiking in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is nonsense! There are 11 marked trails, all of them long and strenuous except the two overlooks at two different Visitor Centers. Spoiler alert – the one we chose didn’t end well. It was a bittersweet departure from Ft. Davis at dawn. We didn’t feel like we’d spent nearly…
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Decoding Fort Davis
If we didn’t have reservations in New Mexico, we might still be lost in West Texas. Despite the tough conditions in Big Bend, it was worth some heatstroke to immerse in nature’s extremes on the borderlands. Wrapping up in Marfa and Ft. Davis, these dusty arts and cowboy towns felt settling, even without pickleball, lettuce…
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Marfa Marfa Marfa
Four years ago, Marfa splashed across the New York Times as the Coolest Art Town in America. It was the story of Shangri-La in the middle of west Texas nowhere. A place where celebrities can disappear and artists can stay true. We swung through Marfa in November 2018. Now, we returned to see what all…
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The Gambler (Lost)
A wise gambler once said, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” After two nights of holding an off-suit 2-7 in Big Bend’s Cottonwood campground, we mucked our hand and ran for our Iives to the western exit in search of cooler temps and plug in options. As much…
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Castolon Castaways
On the southeastern border of the park lies the last wilderness. There is no gas. No potable water. No border point of entry. No electricity. The facilities are vault toilets. The visitor center has burned down. This is Castolon. Chisos Basin is the crown jewel of the park. The lodge, high-altitude climate, 4 bars of…
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The Ballad of Scurry and Plod
The last time we met up with Scurry and Plod, they were in Glacier National Park hiking Mt. Brown. They missed the summit, both banged up their bodies and they vowed to thoroughly evaluate vertical hike adventures before embarking on them in the future. If you don’t remember them, Eric is Scurry, the marmot that…
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Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!
The last time we were at a hot springs, it was St. Patrick’s Day 2020 and COVID had just shut down Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. A ginger bearded leprechaun in a kilt poured us a Guiness and played us a sad bagpipes tune explaining that the tourist season was over before it had…
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Village People
It is Easter Sunday in the Chihuahuan desert. While cool, even cold temperatures blanket our mid-atlantic home, and pickelball-perfect mid-80’s surround the Florida place, we bake in the desert. We have been pushing hard exploring the region and in the effort have run out of things to wear, things to eat, and available morning hours…
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Window to Your Soul
If eyes are the windows to the soul then legs are the transportation that get the eyes to where they need to be to see that soul. And after the 6 mile hike today, our legs are sore down to our soles. We had 5 hours to wax philosophical and ponder questions like Why do…