Guadalupe Mountains

We took a long drive to California for Spring Break, but before we got there we had to make the really long drive out of Texas. Along the way I wanted to stop a few places I'd been wanting to see (and a few I didn't even know I wanted to see). First on my list was Guadalupe Mountains National Park, way up on the New Mexico border. We cut across the state on I-10 and broke off at Fort Stockton to go north. Problem was, the roads up there are heavily used by heavy oil trucks, and they were torn up with massive deadly potholes. I hit one of them going about 65 mph and destroyed the rear wheel of the van... great times! Thankfully I had changed a tire on the van a year earlier, so I knew how to do it without having to watch a YouTube video again (it's more complicated that it should be). So that cost us half a day to drive up to Carlsbad to get a new tire. But after all that, we headed back to the park. Surprisingly, it was overcrowded and there weren't any parking spots at the visitor's center. But we found another place to park down the road and hiked back along a nice path on a beautiful spring day.

The mountain in the background is Signal Peak, the highest point in Texas at 8,751 feet above sea level. It's a full day's hike to reach the top and back, so we didn't have time this trip, but we'll be back at some point!

 

They love long car rides.

We didn't have time to see much, but it was nice stop in northern Texas! Now onward down the path...