Ridgecrest Resort and PEAR park, Leesburg, Fl

Lew and I are still sick.  Lew is on this third day of antibiotics.  Now I'm the one with renewed fevers. On Edit, I went to urgent care the evening of the 4th with a temp of 102.9 and tested + for flu.

Ridgecrest Resort campground has  a bike path adjacent to the campground. I figured we would be able to leave when we both feel well enough to ride the trail.  It's also a Passport America campground which for us means two nights at 15.00 a night.  Any additional nights cost $29.00 a night.  It is about an hour northwest of Disneyworld near Leesburg, Fl.

The bathrooms are spotless.  The laundryroom is also very clean.  The pool and spa like extremely well care for.  We don't much care for our spot but we asked to be where the wifi worked well so this is it.

The P.E.A.R (Palatlakaha Environmental & Agricultural Reserve) park is within biking range.  This park used to be owned by the University of Florida agriculture department.  A map of the park shows various paths.

To get to the path one bikes through the RV park to a trail that connects to a little road.

Its a short half mile on the road to the "back" park entrance.

The path that includes biking isn't very nice.  Its sand which makes it hard to bike.

I went on this path before I started getting more fevers and chillls.  Now we are just hanging and watching TV over netflix.  Hopefully by tomorrow we will feel a bit better.  Lew will be on day four of drugs.

Some days go on and on

Travel day.  We left the Cypress Tree land rather late around 9 AM.  We had to wait around to pay for our site.  Maybe that is why the day just dragged and we drove and drove and drove.

I had picked a city park in Gadsden, AL for our destination.  We finally arrived around 5 PM. 

When setting up Camp Johns, I do the checking while Lew backs up the trailer.  I do the jacks while Lew connects the electric,  water and sewer.  Then I open the door and Katz leaps out.  Normally she rolls on the cement as we finish connection and leveling.   

When we finished it all we went inside Marco so that Katz would follow.  Then I suggested a quick walk, knowing a surprise was in store for Lew: a lovely waterfall and a great hiking trail.

 So we went for a walk on it.

The leaves are turning here and just starting to fall.  It made us both smile to walk in Fall woods!  Its also a bike trail.
It was nearly dark when we got back to Marco&Katz.  We made a quick meal of eggs and Donna's farewell package of raisin bread.  Yum....

A long day with a good ending.


Jan

Old Friends and Dinosaur Tracks

Here is a picture of me hiking when I was 15.  I'm with Donna (who took the pic) in the woods behind our houses.

We spent much of the last three days hiking and biking with Donna and Jim.
One of the places we went was Dinosaur Valley State Park.  We hiked between 2 and 3 miles around the park.

Some cool trees on the trail...

...and of course some Dinosaur footprint fossils!

We biked over 25 miles together on two different trails...

...and ate some good meals together.  Donna is a great cook so we had all kinds of good food and great desserts.  Here we ate at CiCi's pizza.

Tomorrow Jim goes off to work and we go on to more adventures.  It sure is great to adventure with old friends.

Jan

Galaxie Classic and Lake Mineral Wells State Park

Donna and I met when we were teenagers.  She moved into the housing development where I lived.  We've watched our kids grow up together.  We've traveled to and fro sometimes meeting in a National Forest for a vacation together. I've never seen their house in Weatherford since Texas is too hot in the summer.  We arrived and took a tour of their lovely, lovely house.  Then it was off to see a state park.  Here is our travel vehicle.

We went to Lake Mineral Wells state park for a quick walk.

Nice rocks!

Later we biked 10 miles.  I'll post more on that another day!


Jan

So glad we are Early Birds

Sometimes getting up early is a good thing! We set our form of alarm clock for 5:30 AM (our coffee pot).  We were at the visitors center at 8 AM when they opened.  We bought our tickets and waited for the first elevator down to the cavern. We were the only ones on the elevator and the park person told us to enjoy the quiet.  Here is a map of the cavern.

 We walked at least half of it before we saw another person.  It was so quiet we could hear water dripping everywhere.  We had purchased the 5 dollar audio tour guide.  It was full of history and some about the geology. The Big Room is HUGE.  You have to see it to get a feel for its largeness.

The lighting was done by a Broadway specialist.  Which is great in the cavern but hard to take photos of to show you.  We spent well over two hours in the Big Room on the path that circles it and takes you to various features. Then we went back to the campground for a quick check on Katz and paying for another day at this campground which is the closest to the Park.

Then back for a guided tour of the "King's Palace".  First a visit to the neatest looking restroom I've ever seen. 

Then on to the tour.

It was all really interesting and well done.

Last night we went up to the Cavern to see the Bat Flight.  We arrived around 5:30.  The program was to start at 6:00.  You are not allowed to use cameras once the bats start to fly.  But here is the amphitheater where you wait.

The cave exit for the bats, is the natural entrance for people who want a longer walk than me with my foot. It was cool to watch the bats.  Not as many as I expected.  But still fun.  We got buzzed by bats, by the way!

Butterfield Station and Smith Springs Ranch

We woke up to watch the sun hit the mountains but it was cloudy!  All the more reason to get ready and be on the trail early.  The Butterfield Overland Mail and Stagecoach route summit was here at Guadalupe.  This was the first transcontinental communications system.

The Pinery Station ruins are easily accessible from the main road as well as the visitor's center.  Its a .3 mile trail from the VC.

After viewing the ruins we decided to go to a historical ranch location Called Frijole Ranch House.

From the spring there is an irrigation channel that is still running today.

We also went on a hike to another spring from this location.  Its the Smith Springs Trail.  Here are a few pictures of it.

It was a rough trail that seems much longer than the stated 2.3 mile loop.  It took us two hours to complete.

Now we are back in civilization and have the Internet.  Tonight we will see the bats leave the cave at Carlsbad and tomorrow visit the caves!

Guadalupe National Park

We left Hueco Tanks State Park late in the morning with the morning tour not only full, but full of archeologists who planned on a four hour hike!   Onward to the next stop of Guadalupe National Park!

It was a very slow haul, up up up the mountains with a head wind.  We got 10 MPG and it took nearly 2 hours to go 90 miles.  We arrived at the campground and set up.  It sure was an out of the way place.  Seems Guadalupe National Park is one of the least visited National Parks  The campground was snuggled up against El Capitan and the high point for Texas. See Marco down there?

We decided to take a walk up the mountain!  Which way to go?

I wanted El Capitan but Lew wanted Devils Hall so we went with Devils Hall.  Just a bit up the canyon one could see the pollution in the sky.  The visitor's center is monitoring it daily.  We have been astonished with the pollution in the West.  Its everywhere we go.  We think we should see clear crisp mountains, but instead its hazy and not very nice. See where the pink ends?  It changes and that along with the thickness is what the visitor's center monitors.

Along the way we see a tree with red leaves!  Lew swears they are berries.  I had to scramble around until I could see that they were berries.  He is right.  Its a Texas Malone tree and has fall red berries.  Very pretty.

The walk took us up a canyon. It was a great way to end our day.  We hurried it a bit so that we were back before the sun went behind a mountain.

We took Adam to the airport and sent him back to his girls.  Then onward to new adventures for us.  We decided to camp outside El Paso at a state park called Hueco Tanks State Park.  It 35 miles from El Paso up Rt. 180.  This is the approach

On arrival at the Check-in desk, we pay our 30 dollars to the State of Texas.  We need to attend an orientation to the historical site.  So we go and listen to the video of the area.  We are allowed in a small area that is for unguided use.  Lots of people rock climb in the unguided area.  The entire 400+ acres has over 2000 pictographs.  

We want to get a tour so we go back to the admissions area and ask about the tours.  Seems there are two tomorrow but they are both full.  Seems we did it a bit backwards.  First get on the tour, then get the campsite.  We could chance one of the tours having some drop outs but I don't think that is likely.  We decide to take some walks in the area that does not require guides.

We hike the trails to No. 17 pictographs.  We see this sign and think Yeh!

We shortly arrive at the cave to see this:

We quickly figure out what the unguided area looks like.  Under all the marks are pictographs.  They are faint and hard to see...but there. 

We also learned that the Butterfield Stage Route went through this area.  Seems the station was around No. 17 but no remains can be seen.  Instead the marker is at another location where the rancher moved the stone used for the station to his area and made it a animal shelter.  Here are the moved remains.

And here is the sign that talks about the station like this is the right location. 

We were told only one Hueco Tank had water and the mosquitoes would take you away this time of year if you got close.   We decided this was a nice area if you make reservations for the tour in advance.

City of Rocks

We spent the morning working with Wade on several adaptions that he wanted.  I'll post them tomorrow.  After Lunch Adam, Lew and I drove to the City of Rocks.  You just drive along and wow all at once the rocks appear.

 Sometimes a snake appears on the road that fast too.  Yes, it is a rattlesnake.

We decided to pay the five dollar day use fee and take the 3.5 mile walk.

Lots of fall flowers.

And a nice path through the Chihuahuan Desert.

Notice the Yucca forest in this desert.

The grasshoppers like it here.

 Wonder what lives in this hole?