Carlsbad to Seminole Canyon TEXAS.

Track. Bob Wills is still the King - Waylon Jennings.
"See the oil fields at first light"......Bono.


Day 27.

Had a nice lazy start to the day and then about 11am drove to Carlsbad and the Living Desert State Park. We were the only people at the place. It resembled a botanical garden, but just with cactuses, and they also had quite a few animals which were injured or rescued and unable to be returned to the wild.

The roadrunner, cougar, and bobcat were highlights. It was really well done again and as state owned and run only cost a couple of bucks for the whole afternoons entertainment. We were encouraged to leave at 5pm and drove back down the hill into Carlsbad.

The RV park had an indoor pool which we enjoyed and then had a quick pasta tea hoping to hit the local drive-in. Unfortunately it was closed but we spent some time looking at the next bit of the road into Texas and concluded that there wasnt much to see for a few hundred miles, so prepared to leave early the next morning.

  Day 28.

We set the alarm for 4am, transferred the slumbering boys into their car seats, and then crossed the state border into Texas. It was lovely having total peace from the back and watching thr sun come up over the Texas oil fields.  Mile upon mile of nodding oil derricks and agricultural windmills, and not much else.

We hardly saw any cars and when there was a gateway to a ranch, the road just disappeared into the dust with no buildings in sight.  We stopped for breakfast and a few otber comfort breaks but by midday had covered 360 miles and reached Seminole Canyon State Park.

Another cracking visitors centre! Displays with cavemen and cowboys. After lunch we went out on the guided tour of the canyon. There were cave paintings from 4000 years ago.

The excitement obviously got to Dylan and a code brown was called at the bottom of the 250ft canyon. Becs was carrying Sol so smuggly passed over the wet wipes and nappy bags to Pete and they disappeared to desicrate the ancient monument.

We really enjoyed the walkand only had a few metres from the visitors centre on return to our spot for the night.  We shared our BBQ dinner with cyclists, Jerry and Peggy from near Sacremento. They were retired but obviously very fit, cycling from San Diego to Florida on folding bikes, and eating dehydrated food most of the time. Another sunset and then a fairly early night, although not really as we had crossed another time zone.