Roswell, New Mexico - Home of the Aliens!

We left the great state of Texas and went west into New Mexico. This all of our first time in this state. First stop was Roswell, NM, home of the alien sightings! The people of Roswell love their claim to fame. The theme on every store front, every mailbox, every trinket and water tower were the aliens. 

We stayed at an amazing state park called Hidden Lakes. A little gem of a spring-fed lake in the middle of the desert. And what a welcome break from the dryness! A little too cold for Kathryn mind you and the kids were literally shivering, but they enjoyed making friends and swimming for the afternoons.

The family also celebrated my 39th birthday with a grilled steak and a delicious chocolate cake that after cutting the initial slice slipped right off of the counter and landed top down onto the floor of our camper. Thank you gravity (and a poor decision on the placement) for removing the temptation to eat the entire cake.

This little pic of Caroline is a great representation of not only what the inside of our camper (Elizabeth) looks like day-to-day from the perspective of the kiddos' beds, but also the many clothing choices of my daughter. Bathing suit, jeans (rolled up) and water shoes. Notice she's brushing her teeth. She's getting ready for bed. She wore to bed so that she would be ready for the next day. :)

Alfred, the goat, sits on the dash of our truck as a way to express frustration with traffic and anything else on the drive without screaming ourselves. My good friend, Amy, gave to me for work purposes, but as you can see, he's become a part of lives in every aspect now.

Proud to say that after a year of waiting (Caroline had already lost 8 baby teeth), Gray lost his first tooth! He was one excited boy as you can see from the picture below. Mind you, that tooth wiggled in there for days, but when he got to the point that he was unable to eat his bologna sandwich he was fed up. He asked me pull it. So right from the front seat of the truck I pulled that little thing out. Tooth fairy came that night and he could not have been more thrilled! Here's to awkward smiles!

 

Last Texas Stop - Guadalupe Mountains

 Our last and final stop in the beautiful state of Texas were the Guadalupe Mountains.

Another beautiful hike to experience these mountains and one incredible sunset behind them.

Big Bend National Park

We headed to Marathon, TX in west Texas to see Big Bend National Park. Our first experience on this trip with some serious desert. The sunsets were amazing, as you can see. Interestingly enough we found that these small towns are only open partial weeks. All restaurants and stores close down Monday-Thursday so we found ourselves wandering about. 

We were able to do a great hike Santa Elena gorge where the Rio Grande runs through. 

In order to be able to go on this hike, we needed someone to watch Titus. It was too hot to leave him in the camper all day and pets are not welcome in Big Bend due to the risk to them with rattlesnakes. (Interestingly enough though, minimal risk to humans? Hmmm...) I found an app called Rover where you can find a dog sitter wherever you are in the country. There was one in Marathon so I scheduled and took Titus there for the day. You should have seen the look on his face. He stood there like "What? What are you doing? You're leaving me here?" You have to understand that Titus has been with us every second of every day for the last two months so to drop him somewhere was a complete shock. Below is what happened when Beau picked him up. He said in the child's seat and wouldn't even look at Beau. He was mad as a hornet.

Just some camper fun in the mornings with wrestling daddy.
 

Gray and Caroline really enjoy become Junior Rangers at each of the National Parks. It's a great way to understand the history around the park, the species that live in them and how to recognize the plants and animals that we'll see and experience.

Mustang Island/South Llano River

 

From San Antonio, we headed to the coast, specifically Mustang Island at the recommendation of my customer (University of Texas Systems). It was a nice change going from the dry hill country to the humid beach. Us Charlestonians are really missing some humidity in our lives! We enjoyed a few walks on the beach, a glimpse of the sunrise and some great locally caught fried seafood.

 

After a couple of nights at the beach we went back inland to South Llano State Park. This place was quite a surprise. Imagine a park full of trails with a river intertwined throughout. We spent days walking trails, bird-watching, playing in the river (not Kathryn – too cold!) and spotting armadillos for the first time in our lives. Those armadillos were everywhere! We would be within inches of them. Our last night at the state park we befriended a great family that was camping next door. We were all sitting around the fire making s’mores when Titus sprints off chasing after an armadillo. Titus and the armadillo collided and both rolled into a ball in separate directions. Titus looked completely baffled as to what had just happened. I can only imagine what the armadillo was thinking.

Luckenbach/Bankersmith, TX

After leaving San Antonio we did quite a bit of a round-a-bout way through Texas, but enjoyable. When you only plan out a couple weeks in advance you’re not always the most efficient with your travel. 😊

From San Antonio we headed up to a very small town called Bankersmith. It’s near Luckenbach, which was the whole reason we went to that part of the state. Ever heard the song, Luckenbach Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) by Waylon Jennings? This is the town. So yes, we set our itinerary around going to this very place, but were surprised to find an even greater town than Luckenbach!

We stayed in a Harvest Host in Bankersmith, TX. We drove into this no stop light, no stop sign town and what we found was a huge farm and a saloon/dance hall that also served as the church on Sunday, the wedding venue, the graduation venue, the playground and the general hang out for the people in nearby ranches. It was quite a tight-knit community of people that welcomed us with open arms. [The picture above is an example of what is happening to the oak trees in the hill country of Texas. It's a disease coming up from Mexico and it's killing all of them. Hoping the disease doesn't make it to South Carolina!]

As part of Harvest Host (which allows you to stay on their land for free) you are to patronize their business. So we parked Elizabeth (our travel trailer) and headed up to the saloon to see what they were offering. We found a live band, small dogs, children playing outside in the pretend town build behind the saloon, a small store of wares and a lot of happy people. After hanging out for just a bit we decided we’d stay for dinner. We learned that the owner of this establishment was also the owner of the ranch, was 40 years old, an Air Force Academy grad and simply moved out there to provide the area with a more family-friendly establishment than what was offered by Luckenbach, which had become a place with too much money and fame and thereby attracted some “habits” that you don’t want to bring your children around in the evenings.

We did go into Luckenbach on Saturday for the lunch hour to watch a live band and experience what the song mentioned earlier was talking about. You can see that we clearly had a good time and enjoyed it.

But Bankersmith was the highlight. The ranch owners picked us up in their side-by-side (remember that term?) and took us to feed the camel, the goats and the bison. Caroline experienced her first “shock” when she touched the electric fence keeping the horses in. Needless-to-say, her response was more of surprise than pain. Don’t worry; she’s fine.

We attended “cowboy church” on Sunday back down at the saloon we ate at on Friday and Saturday night. The guest “preacher” was a country singer who actually left the professional country music business to travel around the country and share about how God had changed his life. It was a very personal morning with the people in the church sharing about their own heartache in life and how God had worked in the midst of it. A beautiful reminder of God’s faithfulness.

Texas - San Antonio

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, more on San Antonio…

There was certainly more than Rancho Cortez. The Alamo? The Riverwalk? The Tex-Mex? The Barbecue? The caterpillars? The incredibly complex grid of interstates? Yes, we experienced all of that and the latter having to experience it three times.

We spent a week at Canyon Lakes as a central hub to explore San Antonio.  What a great spot! Plenty of area to walk and explore, see the lake and splash around in the water.

We ventured into San Antonio one to see The Alamo and the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk itself was beautiful with the flowers, patio dining, running water and birds. I’m not sure exactly how far the entire Riverwalk is, but we walked about 4-5 miles of it with Titus in tow.

Our stop at The Alamo was really neat and quite pretty. Of course, there was a lot of history to be read about, but the courtyard of trees within was my favorite part. If you’ve never been, it is a must see, but don’t bother with the city of San Antonio surrounding The Alamo. We called it the “Myrtle Beach” of San Antonio. The highlight of this day for me was to see a live performance from a mariachi band, which has been a dream of mine. I might have gotten a little emotional about it…

This finished up with four hungry humans who were exhausted and looking for some Mexican food. After missing our opportunity on the River Walk, we set out for one on the drive back. You can imagine this because you’ve all been here before, but we’re hot, sweaty, hangry and tired and just want to find a place to get a cup of ice water, a margarita and some tacos. I find the place. We put the address into Google Maps. It’s only 15 minutes away! We arrive to find an empty parking lot. Head in hands. We try again by entering the name of the restaurant rather than the address. It’s only 15 minutes away! We arrive. We get all five of us out of the truck. We go inside. And we hear “It will be an hour wait!” Ugh. We load back up in the truck. We find another place. It’s only 15 minutes away! (My math skills learned in elementary school tell me 45 minutes have already passed just in the drive time.) We arrive. We get out of the truck. Yay! We can sit and order immediately! We ordered their famous fish tacos and shrimp tacos. Quite good actually. But we had to sit outside due to Titus. And…it’s a very rare year of an incredible amount of caterpillars. No kidding. They were literally dropping into my hair, on my lap, all over the table while we were eating. We got out of there as quickly as we could.