Guadalupe Mountains

Our last campground...Guadalupe Mountains National Park. After a full day of driving I-10, we ventured up the Guadalupe Mountains. The evening before, the "check engine" indicator light had come on without any obvious symptoms. All day, the light stayed on, but the truck was driving fine...until...2 miles from the campground, going up the final stretch of mountain pass, the truck gets extremely "jumpy" with a few soft knocking noises. We finally make it to the campground...s...l...o...w...l...y. The fluids are all fine, no other gauges are coming on & our personal mechanic just instructs us to keep it out of overdrive. Since this is our last mountain to climb, hopefully we'll make it home with no further issues.

Anyways, Guadalupe Mt NP was a wonderful conclusion to our trip. We took a 5 mile hike into the mountains through a "wash." There were so many familiar plants and trees that we felt like we were being reintroduced to our homeland. We hiked back to camp at dusk and encountered a Western Blacktail Rattlesnake. The kids were leading the hike, then me and Steve was the sweep. Well, Stephen was the one to spot the snake, so all 3 of us had just trotted by it. When the kids came back to check it out, Sam pointed it out to Maya with his walking stick which the snake did not like! He curled up and rattled his tail & we ran! We then had to hike about .5 mile through tall-ish grasses with every stick and rustle being another potential rattlesnake.

When we returned to camp, the cicadas started making their rattling noise which made us all feel like we were surrounded by rattlesnakes! After a couple of reconnaissance rattlesnake missions, we comfortably stood in the middle of the parking lot to view the spectacular starry sky. We spotted Scorpio and Draco among many other celestial wonders. The 64 degree evening was more humid than Arizona but was pleasant enough.

The morning brought mixed feelings of of happiness and sadness that we would be home in the evening.

Total miles so far...5,532