Tumbleweed

We returned to the US with the intentions of only visiting Big Bend National Park and then got hooked in by all the other national parks nearby. Thank goodness that happened as we've been having lots of fun exploring the national parks of Texas and New Mexico. Many of these parks are not that well known which keeps them under the radar and fairly lightly visited by tourists.  Guadalupe Mountains National Park was our first stop late last week and had been told by a fellow camper that the mountains were an ancient reef from millions of years ago when the continent was beneath the ocean. The headline act and main attraction to this park is to hike Guadalupe Peak which at 8,751 feet above sea level makes it the highest point in Texas. We enjoyed the hike, the view and were a little surprised that it wasn't harder. We had read that it takes most people 6-8 hours to complete the round trip hike and we were up and down in about 4 hours. Ginny was the one pushing the pace too because ...

Howdy, y'all! Greetings from West Texas! We've been back in the US about a week now and we definitely miss Mexico quite a bit. I miss speaking Spanish so much (although I still subject Ginny to Spanish nearly every morning!). We also miss Mexico's vibrant and diverse culture, incredible food and the overall adventure of traveling through Mexico in our van. I also want to note that in our more than three months of travel, we always felt welcome in Mexico and it makes me sad that we do not reciprocate that welcome to many Mexicans living or visiting our country. I know that many Mexicans who come to America are seeking better opportunities than exist in their home country which is totally understandable. During our travels, most Mexicans that we met seemed to really love their country and had no interest in moving to the US and I don't blame them!    West Texas is big, dusty and HOT! In fact, it's hotter here than most of the places we visited in Mexico as we were oft...

We are back in the USA! We crossed the border two days ago and are spending some time now in our new home state of Texas. We're headed to Big Bend National Park which we've heard great things about and are excited to explore in the coming days. See photo below of our border crossing and our campsite in Marathon, TX. We were planning to spend at least another week in Mexico and even had Airbnb reservations in Zacatecas for four nights starting today. But a bartender in Aguascalientes strongly advised us not to go to Zacatecas on account of the rampant cartel violence in the city and region. There are two different drug cartels battling over turf in Zacatecas and many non-cartel people have unfortunately gotten caught in the crossfire. I also spoke with police in Aguascalientes to confirm this and they also told me that it would be best to avoid the whole region until things calm down with the current cartel violence. There's so much media attention on the Mexican drug violen...