When I think back on this day, I wondered why we hiked so little....and then I remembered exactly what day it was. It was January 20, or Inauguration Day! I thought that maybe we could skip the inauguration because it started at noon EST, and I didn't really want to lose half the day, but because we were in New Mexico, it started at 10:00 a.m.! Yay! So I turned on the TV in the hotel room, and shoot am I glad we did!
Being a democrat, it's always nice to have a president who reflects some of my beliefs, but I believe the biggest takeaway from the day was relief. Relief seeing Donald Trump leave the office, knowing that he will NOT be my representative or my country's representative anymore. It was a painful four years because of his lack of class and statesmanship, and I look forward to having a person who is a diplomat and a human being.
So as soon as Joe Biden was sworn in as our 46th president, we left the hotel and stared driving towards Guadalupe Mountains. Guadalupe is actually located in Texas, but when the time line was drawn between central time and mountain time, Guadalupe was scooped up to remain in mountain time (the same time as New Mexico where we were staying). It caused a little confusion for me, so I was thankful when the ranger pulled out a map to give me a visual help ;-) We noticed that a lot of the park swag had a stagecoach on it, and there was a mile loop trail off of the visitor center that took us to the ruinous building from the precursor of the Pony Express. Again, it was good to get the information on the surrounding trees and shrubbery, but the building was "meh", so we were ready to see some real stuff.
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| Hannah wondered exactly for whom they built the warm air dryers! Only children? Little people? |
Because it was already in the early afternoon, our options were a bit limited, but the ranger suggested we hike McKittrick Canyon trail because of the high winds that day, a trail that the park actually closes at 4:30. I didn't know why they would close this trail in the evening, but it soon became clear. There was a very cool video at the top of the trail of a man who was born in 1898, and he spoke about when he was first brought to the canyon back in the 1950s. Mr. McKittrick had invited him to come see "the most beautiful spot in Texas". We had three hours to hike almost five miles (and obviously I wasn't the only one confused by the time because there was a HUGE digital clock next to the sign warning everyone that the gate WOULD be locked) so we set off to see what all the hype was about!
The hike was pretty standard for what we had been doing for the last week, but about a mile in, everything started to change. Where we had seen nothing but cacti and sagebrush for days, we were starting to see maple trees. It's only because I've grown up in deciduous heaven could I recognize the leaves, but sure enough, there they were. Turns out, the trees are Bigtooth Maples, which is kind of funny because the leaves are pretty tiny. And here we were in January, and they were RED. And around the roots of the cacti and maple trees? Green grass! I don't know if it's the most beautiful spot in Texas (looking at you San Antonio), but it is certainly a Garden of Eden in Southwest Texas! And Hannah might have discovered what could be her very favorite tree ever (not that she really had a favorite tree before this), but it's the alligator juniper. The bark looks like alligator skin, but it forms like small scabs on the trunk...and scabs mean prime PICKING! And once the bark is peeled off, the bark underneath is red and smooth. It's really beautiful.
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| I'm pretty sure John left this for me too <3 |
The beginning of the hike started out like this....
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| See the madrone tree in the background? |
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| Yep, this is all I got before the ghost showed up... |
We were watching our pedometers pretty closely, looking at both the time and the distance to make sure we would get out in time, and we easily reached the end of the trail where we stumbled upon several buildings. Beautiful buildings made out of stone with nice picnic benches. We were talking about sitting down and having a snacky-snack when I seriously HEARD something. I heard what sounded like bells. Hannah didn't hear them at first, but then she did. And being in the canyon with the "abandoned" buildings with the wind coming through, we kind of freaked out. We didn't know if someone else was there, or if something else was there, but we yeeted out of there as quickly as we could! I snapped one ridiculous picture that barely shows what we saw, and we started back down the trail to get back to the river bed. Once we got to the river, we sat down and took a break....not that we need a break, but it feels like an obligatory moment at the end of any trail ;-) The cool thing about where we were sitting was that the river wash sits down from the canyon (where the river obviously carved the canyon thousands of years ago) so we could hear the wind coming through the canyon 5-7 seconds before it reached us.
In Carlsbad, Hannah had picked up a stuffed animal bat which encouraged purchasers to take photos of the bat at various locations and post the pictures on Instagram with a specific hashtag. Hannah naturally took this very seriously, and Barry the Bat made his first post (thank heavens Hannah has strands of hair ties on her wrists at any given moment....)
We ended up making it out with plenty of time, and I could see why the park closes the gate. Those cool buildings at the end of the trail would be an amazing place to hike to and stay for an evening. Or the park just wants to let the ghosts rest in peace...
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