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Carlsbad Caverns NP & Guadalupe Mountains NP
Our next planned stop for the first week of April was going to be boondocking in southeast New Mexico, right between Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks. But, a couple of days beforehand we saw that temperatures were going to be ~10 degrees higher than we expected. Being in the desert in the high 80s didn’t sound fun so we scrambled to find an alternative spot. We ended up at Brantley Lake State Park. I hope we aren’t getting weak at boondocking. Brantley Lake was our first New Mexico State Park and we loved it. We had water and electric hookups for $14/day and the desert was blooming. It…
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Austin & San Antonio, TX
Michael’s sister told us about the Texas bluebonnets years ago and we timed our visit to Austin to see them! We stayed at McKinney Falls State Park, just 15 minutes from downtown Austin. The campsites were large and had water/electric hookups. We were at McKinney Falls the second half of March and over those two weeks watched the bluebonnets bloom to peak, followed by the appearance of Indian paintbrush. These fields were inside the state park, so we got to see them on our daily walks. In addition to all the wildflowers, there were also trails around the falls. We noticed right away that Austin seemed like a very nice…
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Heading East: Palo Duro Canyon, TX & Oklahoma City, OK
After digging out of our muddy Santa Fe boondocking spot 2 days late, we had a 325-mile drive to our next destination in the Texas Panhandle. Perfectly doable for a one-day weekend drive but way too far to attempt during the week. We stopped for a night/work day at Blaze in Saddle RV park in Tucumcari, NM, a Route 66 town that still appears to be a popular one-night stopover for cross-country travelers. We finally got to Palo Duro Canyon State Park on Wednesday evening, stopping at Cadillac Ranch along the way. We ended up being glad that our week-long reservation at Palo Duro Canyon State Park was cut short.…
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Big Bend National Park
It was nothing short of a miracle that we left NC “on time” in a new tow vehicle and with the same 14-year-old adventure cat, Lynx. The cat had been minutes away from surgery to remove bladder stones before it was determined that the surgery would not have been successful. For now, she will just live with her stones until her behavior indicates that she is too uncomfortable. Also, after finding out that our Ford needed its second expensive repair (both recall items on other models), we decided to buy a new truck. We were happy to find a RAM, during the national truck shortage, that had several features we…
