We’d longed for a return to Big Bend National Park this spring (Colima warbler, woo hoo!), and had reservations at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in the park for this month made waaaaay back in February 2020 (if you want to stay *in* the park, in April, you have to reserve over a year in advance). We were vaccinated and ready to do anything that didn’t involve being around lots of people! The plan was to meet our Brooklyn friends Mark and Joanne in El Paso, continue onto Big Bend for three nights, then drive back north through Carlsbad and Ruidoso and onto Las Cruces. They’d fly home from El Paso and we’d drive home.
Another day trip! Feels so good to be out and about. The target of this trip was Fort Bowie National Historic Site, ruins of the Army fort that existed for 20+ years in the late 1800s. First stops included birding at the Benson sewage ponds (birders go to all the best places!) and the Twin Lakes Golf Course in Willcox. Then it was onto Fort Bowie, on probably the hottest day of the year. From the trailhead it’s a 1.5 mile hike to the ruins of the fort, with interpretive signs along the way. The visitors’ center was closed, but we were able to refill bottles there, and relax on their porch with our picnic lunch.
2020 has been a challenging year so far. We did enjoy a wonderful trip to Chile and Argentina in January, but then COVID-19 upended everyone’s existence. Planned trips to Portugal and Spain (April) and Colombia (June) were rescheduled to 2021, and staying home became the norm. And while we’re luckier than most, in that we live in a rural area and it’s easy to enjoy outdoor activities such as biking and hiking while social distancing, by June we were getting pretty antsy and just wanting to go *somewhere*. So, off we drove to the Chiricahua National Monument, a couple of hours away, on a much-needed day trip. Somehow, going to a national park just says “vacation”!
October we were on the road, once again with Brooklyn friends Mark and Joanne Guralnick, for more national and state parks, national monuments, etc. The main goal on this trip was to get to three in southern Utah that have long been on the bucket list, and somehow we’d never gotten there: Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands. But as always seems to happen on a driving trip, we tried to cram as many other locations in as we could! And we did much better on this trip understanding the geology along the way.
We finally managed a trip back to Arkansas in coordination with Liza’s mother Alpha, to spend some time with family, but also to see some sights that had escaped us on many prior visits. We met up with Alpha in Dallas (thank you American Airlines for neither flight being late) and continued on to Little Rock. After telling the rental car company no, we don’t really want the behemoth SUV to drive down the road (seriously, a choice between an Expedition and an Armada … what are we, the Spanish off in search of gold?) we stopped in for “dinner” at the Flyway Brewing Company in Little Rock before continuing on to Hot Springs.
We decided this year to spend the Christmas holiday in New Mexico, to do some birding (sandhill cranes, rosy finches, etc.), see friends, and enjoy the cuisine (“red or green?” being the standard “which chile sauce do you like” question). We packed quite a lot into a one week trip!
In October we were delighted to attend the wedding of Richard Wanerman and Cindy Drakeman in Princeton NJ. (Richard’s father Rob is Robert’s second cousin.) And since we were “in the area”, it was a perfect chance to get to another national park (Valley Forge National Historical Park) and to go birding down in Cape May, at the very southern tip of New Jersey, home to the famous Hawk Watch.
As part of our continuing mission of “let’s see all the national parks” (must use Robert’s volunteer park pass, after all!), in August and September we visited three more biggies: Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Teton National Park, finishing off in Wyoming with a national monument (Fossil Butte) and in Utah, a national historic site (Golden Spike).
It probably would surprise nobody that we could turn a four-day cycling trip into a month-long grand driving tour of the western US. 🙂 That’s exactly what we did, driving to and from a Bicycle Adventures cycling “Bend Breakaway” tour, and seeing lots of things along the way. Continue reading Cycling, Birds, Eclipse, and More! – Aug/Sep 2017→
Last year on a driving trip to Dallas, we made a whirlwind visit of Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Carlsbad Caverns National Park…and knew we had to return. This May we did, spending a few days in each place so we could truly enjoy the natural beauty, not to mention the birds and wildlife. (And the food, and the beer, and…) Read about the landscapes, birds and other wildlife.
