Day 12 - 17 October - Carlsbad Caverns NP and Guadalupe Mountains NP to Las Cruces New Mexico

What a day, what an amazing day.

The Mud Dragons and I had an amazing gig at Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  Who would have guessed that the National Park Service would have ever given us permission to perform at 750' below ground level?  We, of course, had to go in disguise when we went in, instead of our usual leathers, chains, etc., to prevent a screaming mass of humanity.  Ha ha.  

This is the plaque that awaits everyone who is considering hiking into the caverns via the natural entrance and 1+ mile trail, during which you lose 750' in elevation.  Yep, that's the Empire State Building used as a scale for how much you drop in elevation as you go down.  And "That's pretty neat!"

BTW, in order to go into the caverns, you have to have a reservation.  Mine was 9:30-10:30am, and I was headed down the trail into the natural opening just after 9:30am.  You either go down via elevator, down a 750' shaft, or you can walk down a steep switchback trail with slopes of us to 20 degrees.  We, being Dragons chose the hike in, of course.  Plus that way, you get to see twice as much stuff as people who ride the little box down.  

Here are a few shots of the trail on the way down...

You can see the switchback trail in the foreground.  It's actually not that big a deal if you just take your time...oh, and wear shoes with good tread, like hiking boots.  

As you go down, down, down, you start to think, yeah, this is pretty cool, I guess.  But when you enter the main chambers, if you are at all like me you shift from, "Yeah, this is pretty cool," to "Oh my word!  This is amazing!!!"

It's not even possible to convey the experience of all the stalagmites, stalactites, and what it's like walking through galleries where the roof is anywhere from 1inch to 100s of feet above your head.  And in some cases, 100s of feet below your feet!  Here are a few pics to give you an idea of what it's like down there.

It didn't take long at all for the experience to give me a Middle Earth-ian feeling...like being in Moria.  "And they call it a mine.  A MINE!"  (For you fans of The Lord of the Ring saga).  

There was one formation, however that had a distinctive Monty Python and the Holy Grail flavor to it.  Tell me what you think...

Yes, I spotted THE LEGENDARY BLACK BEAST OF ARHG!  Well, sort of...

The Legendary Black Beast of Argh

Image courtesy of:

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Beast_of_Argh

Of course the non-nerds at the National Park Service have some other name for it, but to me it will always be the Legendary Black Beast :-D.

I wasn't rushing to get through the caverns, but I didn't dawdle either, and I was in there for about 2 hours.  By then I was ready to head for the elevator, which I DID ride up.  You can hike out if you want to, OK, so, I REALLY wanted to, but the rest of The Mud Dragons answered a resounding "No" to that, so I begrudgingly went up the elevator.  Yes, I am enough of a nerd that I timed it...it took 1 minute to go up the 750' to the surface.

Once back at ground level, and having looked around the gift shop, I got back on the road.  That was when I realized that there was another national park only 30-40 miles away, so I headed there.  My next stop was Guadalupe Hills National Park.  To get there, though, I had to dip back into Texas.  I mean, I thought that I was done with Texas on this trip, but I guess not!

But scarily, right across the highway from this Welcome to Texas sign was evidence that The Hunger Games was nonfictional.  

Well, since I was already going the other way, I got over that, and headed to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

This, sadly, turned out to be a bust in terms of a visit to a national park, because it was high enough that the visitor's center and the best views were completely socked in by low-hanging clouds.  But I DID IT!  The pic below shows about all I was able to see.

At one point I was going to try and hit a third national park today, White Sands, but that didn't happen.  I just ran out of time.  I stopped in El Paso, looked to the south and saw the hills of northern Mexico and my son Grant's old stomping grounds of Ciudad Juarez from his mission days.  From there, I headed north again, re-entering New Mexico...

To wrap up the day, the Dragons and I grabbed a bite to eat and took it to our motel.  During dinner, I decided to watch something, and, no surprise, I have several DVDs with me...but what to watch!!?  Since I spent part of the afternoon in El Paso, the choice was easy - Glory Road.  If you don't know it, I  recommend it highly.

What the plan for tomorrow?  You'll just have to wait and see.

Stay tuned.  Cheers!

Day 11 - 16 Oct - Leander TX to Carlsbad NM and everything in between

Yep!  The Mud Dragons tour continued today after several sweet days of R&R in the Austin, TX, area.  It was amazingly generous of my sister Amy and brother-in-law Randy to host the entire band (er, me) for nearly a week.

So, this morning, after catching an early Church meeting, we piled into the tour bus (er...I got in my car) and headed west. 

The last time I traveled east-west across Texas was back in the 1960s when my family lived in Metairie, Louisiana, (just outside of New Orleans - we lived there for 9 years) until I was in 5th grade.  Every summer but one, we drove from Louisiana to southern Utah to see grandparents and other relations.  Yes, Texas is HUGE!  This time I started in the Austin area, which is almost halfway across the state, and it still took me nearly 7 hours to get to New Mexico!  

The drive was super interesting, from an ecological point of view.  When I started, I was in the heart of the Texas hill country.  The low rolling hills around Austin are beautiful and tree-covered.  A few hours outside of Austin, the hill country started to level out and I noticed that I'd reached one (of many) of the oil field regions of the state.

And the landscape transitioned from trees everywhere to scattered scrub trees and flattened out considerably...it looked to me a lot like African savanna.  Well, without the giraffes, wildebeests, and lions, anyway.  But there were also oil wells scattered across the landscape - active wells have the pumpers like the one in the photo above on them.  And when they are pumping, the head goes up and down.  It makes total sense that this would be oil country, because it used to the the floor of a large arm of the ocean that extended all the way up into Wyoming.  And the plankton that lived and died and immediately got covered up by sediment, year after year, is the stuff that over time and under intense pressure, became petroleum.

This region is also a domain of long straight-shot driving.

If you click on the photo above and zoom in, you'll see that the highway simply keeps going straight as far as the eye can see.  

And, eventually, of course, I reached the edge of the world, er, Texas, and fell off, um, entered New Mexico - Land of Enchantment.  Sadly, I left my wizard's wand at home, so I'll have to keep on imitating all the muggles around here.

Once I got about halfway to the Texas-New Mexico border, the sky became completely overcast, with a smattering of sprinkles here and there, until it was legitimately raining on me when I pulled into Carlsbad, NM.  

If you're wondering what Carlsbad is like, well, here's a pic of the more or less upscale, inviting part of town (from my 4th floor motel room window).

Yep, tour is once again on the move.  We added another state to the list so far, and if all goes according to plan, I'll visit two national parks tomorrow.  Stay tuned for what will, I hope, be some AWESOME photos.

And sometime today, I officially passed the halfway point (in terms of driving miles) for this entire trip.  Here's the tour trail so far.

Thanks for checking in!  Cheers!!

Day 6 - Oct 11 - Day 1 in Leander and how to get from here to there

UPDATED 10-12-2022

Driving solo has its ups and downs.  The upside is that you have exclusive control over music selection AND volume.  So, most of the time I've been driving down the road, the volume has been loud enough to let me sing along in full voice without drowning out the music.  While I can't keep up with every song, it's fun to try.  The down side?  Well, you're solo.  But if that's the case, focus on the up side!

Just in case you are wondering which bands influence The Mud Dragons...there is list of artists below that appear in playlists on my devices.  Be advised that my musical tastes are all over the place, including classic rock, folk, MoTown, pop, disco, stadium rock, and even a smattering of country - see Kat did have an affect on me!  

FYI, I deliberately chose the first song I played when I pulled out of Rexburg at the start of this trip.  It's my absolute favorite trip-launching song when I head out on motorcycle rides: 

The Who - Eminence Front

Check it out!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx6Zgz0TZuA 

Here's the (incomplete) list of artists: 

Kansas, Boston, Bill Withers, The Blues Brothers, Howard Jones, David Bowie, OAR, CCR, KT Tunstall, BTO, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, Paul Simon, Doobie Brothers, Sheryl Crow, Moby, Huey Lewis and the News, The Association, Dr. John, Steve Miller Band, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Van Halen, Blue Oyster Cult, AC/DC, Eagles, Queen, Chicago, Bruno Mars, Alanis Morissette, Sting, America, Katy Perry, INXS, They Might Be Giants, The Guess Who, Alan Parsons Project, Weird Al Yankovic, Fleetwood Mac, Hootie and the Blowfish, War, The Maggies, Gerry Rafferty, Haircut 100, Supertramp, Billy Idol, Smash Mouth, James Taylor, Moody Blues, Elton John, Al Stewart, ELO, Elvis Costello, Eddie Money, MIKA, Level 42, Bread, Green Day, Lee Ann Womack, Trace Adkins, Counting Crows, Coldplay, The Human League, The Clash...and many, many more.

When music no longer cuts it and I still have a long way to go, I'll either play a movie downloaded to my phone or I'll connect my computer to the car audio system.  This way I can listen to the audio track and watch the movie in my mind.  So far, music has been my main go-to, but I did listen to one movie while on the road - TRON (1982).  There will be more to come, I'm sure, since I will still need to drive across the rest of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah before I arrive back home.

So, what happened today?

First of all, my niece, Emlynn, is running a business "Milky Tomato" out of my sister and bro-in-law's home.  And business is BOOMING!  She makes all of her own designs and sells stickers, buttons, key chains, etc.  From what I gather, she's also a true influencer on TikTok (I guess you qualify if you have 250k+ followers).  This is her store's online URL:  https://www.milkytomato.com/

And, lastly, because Big Al and the Mud Dragons were on the horizon, my sister and bro-in-law picked up a new piece of IKEA furniture for me to assemble.  We may not be able to sing, but we sure can assemble IKEA furniture.  I was happy to do it, and it was fun...I enjoy doing this kind of thing.

We wrapped up the day by attending a performance of the Leander High School marching band.  Another niece, Brynn, is in the percussion section.  They did a wonderful job, and it was fun to be there on a beautiful early Fall Texas night...where the stars at night are big and bright!  Clap, clap, clap, clap, "Deep in the Heart of Texas!" :-D

I also had a great day with my Mom.  She turns 90 next month, and it's been so good to see her.

That is the scoop for one more day.

Stay tuned for next time!

Day 5 - Oct 10 - Norman OK to Leander TX - Hi Mom!

Just because there were no National Parks to visit doesn't mean that there was nothing to see!

First of all, a few hours after today's launch, I made to the state where "The Stars At Night Are Big And Bright"!

And, I have to say that all in all, TX drivers truly are quite friendly.  Thanks, TX!!

Yep...add another state to the list...this makes #7.

And I was driving along, listening to music, having a nice calm time and all of a sudden, I noticed something looming in the distance...it was:

And the way to get there is Dale Earnhardt drive.  Cool!!  When you see this, you KNOW you are in Ft. Worth.

And guess what else I saw in the Fort Worth area?  Now, I've heard of these mega-gas stop places before, but they are MUCH more than that.  They have the largest, cleanest restrooms on the highway, amazing grab and go or order up BBQ and other food, and the cutest mascot around!

Yes...it's BUC-EES!  The "you can hold it" destination (Haha).

And here I am with Buc-ee himself!

Wait, I forgot my hat!!!

Here's a shot in a random direction inside the store.  Well, this actually shows about half of the store.  There is this much more of Buc-ees in the other direction as well.  

I happened to be there around noon, so of course I grabbed a BBQ pulled-pork sandwich and a bag of Buc-ees chips.  Yum and yum!!

This was also a place for gaining inspiration:  a tour t-shirt!!

I probably spent close to an hour roaming around this place...it's a truly great time.  But I had to keep on rolling.

The next iconic stop was in Waco, TX.  Yep, you know where I'm going with this...well, at least the fans of the HGTV show "Fixer Upper" do...it's Chip and Joanna Gaines' place - the Magnolia Farms complex.

I stopped to pay homage to them and the show that Kat and I watched faithfully.  And so I paid homage, but that's all.  I'm not a shopper, so I didn't leave even a nickel behind in a till when I left.  

Wait a minute, I didn't do even a little looking at Magnolia Farms stores and shops, but I ended up spending over $50 at Buc-ees!?  Yeah, this tells you pretty much what you need to know about me.  HA!

My final destination today was Leander, TX, outside of Austin, where my sister, her family, and my mother live.  Seeing my mother was one of my highest priorities for this trip.  She turns 90 next month, and she is doing extremely well.  My mom, sister, her family and I had a joyful reunion.  I'm so glad to be here for a few days.  

Stay tuned.

Cheers!