7 December 2019 Kerrville to Spring TX

The drive from Kerrville to Spring took us through downtown San Antonio and Houston. The traffic was horrific. What should have been a four hour drive took over six. We were so happy to pull into Rayford RV Resort ($778 per month). It feels like home! We have a nicer site this year, that we reserved before we left last year, on the end of a row, which gives us more room and privacy. After getting set up we plopped down in our love seat and just were happy to be able to sit still for a few weeks. It has been a busy year and the last few weeks really were a whirlwind. Of course we will not be sitting still, we have repairs to make to the Wanderer, maintenance to get done on the Behemoth, friends and family to visit, and of course the holidays to celebrate. We need to get new hiking boots and walking shoes since we wore our current ones out. 

We can summarize our travels in 2019 with:

1.    Drove over 33,000 Miles in the Behemoth (Our F-350). 

2.    Visited 22 National Parks (total so far of 29 out of 61).

3.    Visited 25 NPS National Monuments (total so far of 31 out of 84).

4.    Visited 5 National Monuments run by BLM/NFS/FWL

5.    Visited 14 other interesting places (Scenic Byways, castles, NRA/NHS/NHR, state parks).

6.    Hiked over 500 miles gaining over 38,000 feet of elevation.

7.    Visited friends and family along the way.

8.    Met lots of interesting people.

9.    Learned a lot about our magnificent country and our national parks.

10. Posted over 205 entries to our Blog (We have had over 3000 views of our blog this year alone from all over the world).

We probably will not be making any posts until we prepare for next years travel season the end of January. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

Norman in his Christmas Decorations

4 December 2019 El Paso to Kerrville TX

The drive from El Paso to Kerrville, was a “butt numbing cannon ball” run for 478 miles across West Texas. The desert mountains along the way provided nice scenery but the long stretches of straight roads still made it mind numbing. We started the audio book of Season 3 of Dear Bob and Sue, which provided many laughs that made the ride tolerable. It was fun to listen to their descriptions of their experiences of some of the parks we had just visited. We pulled into Buckhorn Lake RV resort just after dark, happy to be able to sit still for a couple of days. We will visit some winerys while we are here and have dinner with David’s nephew.   

2 December 2019 Tucson AZ to El Paso TX

This was another long driving day. The drive across the Sonora Desert of southern Arizona and New Mexico on I-10 was both scenic, with majestic mountain ranges, and bleak due to lack of vegetation. The weather was clear with some strong cross winds for the first couple of hours, which turned into a tail wind as we went along. The traffic through El Paso was very hectic so it was with relief we pulled into the Mission RV Park ($40 per night with no discounts) on the eastern edge of El Paso. It’s a fairly large park, in an industrial area, with a fair amount of traffic noise from I-10. But it will do for a couple of nights. The sites is gravel, fairly level, good water pressure, 50 amp, and good (but slow) WiFi. We will be back to visit Tucson sometime in the future since there are so many things we did not get to do, like Pima Air Museum, the Desert Museum, Tombstone, the scenic drive in Chiricahua NM to name a few. But we were very happy to drive across the border into Texas after 11 months on the road and 8 months since we were last in Texas (April). Its good to be back in our home state!

Welcome Home Sign

1 December 2019 Saguaro National Park

With this being our last day in Tucson, we decided to visit Saguaro National Park. Saguaro NP is split in two sections, a western and eastern park. The western park is only a few miles from where we are staying, so we decided to visit it first. After exploring the exhibits in the visitor center, we watched the park film, visited the shop and collected our 67th Passport Stamp. We toured the 6 mile scenic drive in the western portion of the park, then headed over to the eastern portion. Along the way we stopped for a Mexican Sunday fix for lunch. In the eastern portion park we drove the 9 mile scenic drive and then hiked up the Tanque Verde Ridge Trail for a mile before the fading daylight made us turn back (2.1 miles, 459 Feet of elevation gain, 677 calories burned). The western portion of the park is more lush and rugged than the eastern potion. But the eastern portion of the park is larger and has taller mountains (including some alpine areas), but the majority is set aside as a wilderness area with limited access. This is the last national park unit we expect to visit this year. It has been a busy and fun year. At the end of this year, we have visited 60 out of the145 National Parks and National Monuments. To celebrate, we went to a brewery and enjoyed a couple of good craft beers!

Saguaro NP Entrance Sign

Rugged terrain of the western sector

Saguaro Row

Behemoth in the desert

Cactus Cross

Cactus Hill

Desert Stream

Tucson Valley

30 November 2019 Chiricahua NM

After two days of weather, we were anxious to get out for a hike. We headed out early to Chiricahua National Monument in the south eastern portion of Arizona. Chiricahua became a national monument in 1924. It protects a rhyolite rock formation. We arrived at the visitor center to find that the scenic drive was closed due to rock slides, caused by the previous days storms, as well as snow and ice. We explored the exhibits, watched the park film and collected our 66th Passport Stamp. The hike we intended to do, the Echo Canyon loop, starts at the end of the closed scenic drive. So after talking with the ranger about our options, we hiked up the Lower Rhyolite Canyon to the junction and took the Sarah Deming Canyon trial until we could just see Balanced Rock in the distance (4 miles, 719 feet of elevation gain and 1163 calories burned). As we climbed up the trail the snow and slush became deeper and the trail more slippery. With our boots worn from over 500 miles of hiking this year and not a lot of tread left, we decided to turn back rather than risk a fall. After hiking back to the visitor center, we checked back in and were told the scenic road was still closed and they had not estimate for when or if it would be opened again today. So we headed back to Tucson. 

Entrance Sign

Rhyolite Rock Formations

Rhyolite Rock Formations

Rhyolite Rock Formations

Rhyolite Rock Formations and a Yucca stalk

David on the snowy trail

Frozen Bushes on the ridge

Yucca in the snow

Rhyolite Rock Formations

Leslie on the snowy trail

Rhyolite Rock Formations

28 November 2019 Happy Thanksgiving

This is our first Thanksgiving away from family. So we cooked up a smaller RV version of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We don’t have much in the way of fancy dishes, due to the space limits, but it tasted just as good out of the pot! We had a wonderful meal and reflected on the many blessings the good Lord has bestowed on us for us to be thankful for. 

Thanksgiving Feast RV style

27 November 2019 Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Today we took the farthest NM away, Organ Pipe Cactus NM, which is in the southwestern corner of Arizona. The NM protects the only stands of Organ Pipe Cactus in the US. The park is at the very northern edge of the cactuses range. There are also a large number of Saguaro Cactus in the park. After exploring the exhibits in the visitor center, we watched the park film and collected our 65th Passport Stamp. After talking to the Ranger, due to our limited time, we decided to take the Ajo Mountain Loop Scenic drive. Leslie drove us around this rustic gravel and dirt road. The terrain was beautiful with the double arch being the highlight. The desert in this area is lush due to the winter and summer rain season rains. There were plenty of Organ Pipe and Saguaro cactus, along with yucca, prickle pear, multiple types of cholla and of course creosote. The weather was moving in so we decided to head back to the Wanderer rather than risk getting caught in the expected flash flooding. We beat the rain to Tucson and took the opportunity to go to the grocery store to pick up some Items for tomorrows feast. 

Critter sighting: We saw a wild burro on the drive to the park and a coyote on the way back.  

Entrance Sign

Organ Pipe Cactus

David by a Saguaro Cactus

The Behemoth in the back country

Double Arch in Arch Canyon