Connie and Big Bend National Park March 1 -5, 2018

Dottie Jean with Uncle Randy & Aunt Joyce

We had decided to meet Connie & Dottie Jean (who was driving in from Arizona) at Monahans Sandhills State Park. Amazing to go along Texas flatland and then to find these huge sand dunes. We were only able to get one night for the 2 campers, as it was a popular place for kids to take disks or sleds and slide down the dunes like it was snow. So it was decided we'd head down to Big Bend National Park so Randy could get another stamp for his parks book.

Our campsites.
Connie was smart and avoided our rv as Randy valiantly got the 5th wheel backed in. The road & campsite was narrow and if you dropped off... 4-wheel drive came in handy!

As we were driving out you could see the height of the sand dunes and these weren't the tallest ones.

Wait, is that Dottie Jean driving back there!?!

Amazing how far you can see down the road!

We got a late start as we'd driven to pick up our mail that we had forwarded to Midland, Texas. By the time got close to Maverick Ranch RV Park in Lajitas, we were tired and hoping daylight held till we got there. It didn't, but luckily one of the campground hosts guided us to our sites and was helpful getting us set up.

The next morning we loaded up and started our driving tour of the park. The temps climbed to 96 degrees down by the Rio in the afternoon. Yet as we climbed in altitude at the Chisos Basin around 5000 feet, the temperature would be 20 degrees cooler.

The siblings had fun together! Joyce claimed her ears hurt being around the two of them!🙉

As we drove thru the Rio Grande Village campground inside the park, we kept noticig these steel boxes. It was for campers to store their foodstuffs in, as to keep it from the bears and javelinas.

The town of Boquillas Del Carmen, Mexico.

We drove down one road that showed Port of Entry. The road dead-ended and did not go across the Rio Grande into Mexico. There was a building so Joyce hopped out and went in and asked border guard how it worked. He said "show me your passport & ID, then you walk thru those doors and you can take a ferry, or wade across to Boquillas. The entry building here closes at 5pm so you either are back before then or you spend the night there." When I asked "ferry?" he chuckled and said "it's a rowboat and it costs $5.00 for round trip". It was late afternoon and we didn't have passports with us, so decided we'd just take pictures of Mexico.

As we drove to the Boquillas Canyon overlook, we noticed horses and people on the Mexico side seeming to have a picnic. Hmm, we were amazed no border patrol or fence here?

We're always amazed at Randy's wildlife spotting but this jackrabbit was unbelievable! He was down in a wash, quite a distance from road, taking in the shade in the hot afternoon sun. As we were zipping down road Randy said "look a jackrabbit". Joyce didn't believe him and made him turn and go back.
Yep, there he sat!

The sunset colors were gorgous from our campground!

Panoramic from Sotol Vista on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive

Bright sun & wind with beautiful views

This pic gives you an idea of the vastness of the 801,163 acres  in the park.

Dottie Jean's nose started twitchin' when we saw this bear sign. Uncle Randy said he was going to use her to track bear! LOL

Of course Joyce had to stick her toes in the Rio Grande!

Connie even stuck Dottie Jean's toes in the Rio Grande. The wall of rock at Santa Elena Canyon was so imposing!

As we headed out for Ft. Davis, we drove along the Rio Grande on Highway 170 thru the Big Bend Ranch State Park.

You can see the highway climbing up on left side of pic to the Fandango Dom Rock. That's the Rio Grande at bottom.

The view going down the other side of Fandango.

As we drove towards Presidio it was amazing to see irrigated farm land along the Rio Grande.

We all enjoyed our days in the Big Bend National Park. No matter how much trouble Randy gives his sister, we were blessed to share it with family! The various rock formations were fascinating, along with the view of the river separating Mexico from the US. 

Palo Duro Canyon Texas February 25 thru March 1, 2018

Warm Again!

When we decided to leave Kansas and head south, we had talked of going down thru Ft. Worth. Since the forecast there called for rain most of week we headed towards Amarillo. Our friend Dale said if we went that way to be sure and stop at the "little Grand Canyon... Palo Duro Canyon". We were able to stay down in one of the canyon campgrounds. Down, as about a 1 & 1/2 mile DOWN. No internet or cellphone reception, and few tv stations but gorgeous views!

Yes, that is our RV down there! And that's the road going down on right side of photo.

The zoom works great on the camera.

We had a beautiful view from our campsite in the Sagebrush Camp area down in the canyon.

The welcoming committee!

Once we started setting up the RV Joyce had a roadrunner walk right up to her. She figured he'd been fed by previous campers. Then a couple of hours later, Joyce stepped around RV to take pics of view and could see something coming down the road into the campground. WHAT, a bobcat at 5 pm in the evening on the road?? After the initial shock, from both Joyce & the bobcat, he calmly walked into the weeds and took trail behind RV. We loved that we got to see wildlife everyday while in the canyon. 

Roadrunner

Bobcat

Whitetail Deer

Mule Deer

Wild Turkeys

Coyote

Barbary Sheep

Golden-fronted Woodpecker

The rocks just seemed to glow in the sunset.

The layers of rocks had such different colors and textures.

There are a lot of hiking trails in the canyon. Including this one that takes you to this cavern cut in the rock.

The 26th we drove back into Amarillo as it was chilly and windy. We found the Big Texan Steakhouse to eat.

At the Big Texan if you take the challenge and eat a 72oz steak PLUS a shrimp cocktail, side salad, roll and the baked potato you can have it for free. NO neither of us were up to the challenge.

We stopped at the tourist attraction called "The Cadillac Ranch". It's Cadillacs planted in a field. The kids have started spray painting the cars. The disappointing part is they just toss the spray cans in the field and have trashed the area, even tho there are dumpsters right at the road. Sad!

On the 27th, we drove back up to Amarillo to tour the Quarter Horse Museum. You learned how they started the Quarter Horse Association and all the breeding that went into it. Joyce's cousin had one of the first Quarter Horse studs in Bourbon County Kansas. So we asked about getting the lineage of  June Bug Bailey aka "Bugs". They sent us over to the Association Building next door, and the workers there were thrilled that we actually had his assoc. number (Joyce had called Norman to get it) and printed off all the info they had. Norman's paper had shown sire & grandsire but theirs went back another generation and they also gave us all the names of foals Bugs sired that had been registered. The woman helping us even explained how they now use DNA to verify registrations. A fun and facinating day!

They had several amazing bronze statues in front of museum.

The names in the floor traces the foundation bloodlines of the Quarter Horse.

Not far from Palo Duro in the town of Canyon was the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society Museum. Wow! For a small town museum it really contained lots of history of the area. Of course since you're in oil country there was a lot of information on the drilling for oil. They also had vehicles, firearms, art gallery, a small town display of what stores would look like in early 1900s, info on the formation of the Palo Duro canyon and even several dinosaur displays. There was much more and we were exhausted by the time we'd toured the 3 floors!

An actual drilling rig (1925) sets in the front window of museum.

This wall showed the progression of skulls and horns to the modern day Bison from it's prehistoric ancestors.

We loved the Palo Duro Canyon and God showing us all its natural beauty! Now it was time to meet up with Randy's sister Connie who'd been staying in Arizona visiting family & friends. So we drove south to meet her west of Midland Texas at the Monahans Sandhills State Park. 

Tahquamenon Falls, Michigan July 27th, 2017

Mackinac Bridge from the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse

Randy shared some pics on Facebook of Tahquamenon Falls but it was so beautiful we wanted to share more photos of that day on our blog. We started the day going south across the magnificent Mackinac Bridge that spans the Straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. We also had our first pasty (pronounced pass-tee or who knows what you might get. LOL). It is meat & vegetables baked in a crust usually forming a half moon shape. 

They were doing repair work on bridge, so down to one lane each way over part of bridge.

We are over half way across main bridge & look how far it still is to land!

Traffic jam on bridge as truckers speed limit is 20 mph. So on one lane each way that means EVERY vehicle is doing 20 mph!

Looking towards St. Ignace. Those are semis that you can see crossing the bridge!

Beef Pasty from Mackinaw Pastie & Cookie Co.

Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse

After leaving Mackinaw City we drove back north to Tahquamenon (rhymes with phenomenon) Falls State Park on northern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Debbie & Len had told us how much they had enjoyed the Falls on a previous trip. It was well worth the drive!  

Natural beauty in the Lower Falls.

Lower Falls are a series of 5 smaller falls cascading around an island.

Gorgeous!

Even trails back to falls were amazing.

The Upper Falls is one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, with a drop of 50 feet & 200 feet across & 
52,228 gallons per SECOND!

Lots of steps but the falls were so worth it!

Ok we both did the first 94 steps down easily. Hard part is the 94 back UP!

We spent a long time just marveling at the falls.

The water looked like liquid amber. 
The color comes from the tannins leached from the cedar, spruce & hemlock in the swamps drained by the river.

More steps from a different viewing platform.

Joyce was smiling as she went down the steps. Randy decided he didn't need a different view of the falls.

The viewing platform that we had been on for our picture above, is just to right above falls, over the mist. Joyce thought the different view was worth the work.

She was a little flushed after she returned!

Joyce had to get her toes back in Lake Michigan 
on the way back to RV.

With the zoom on Joyce's camera we were able to see a couple of the lighthouses in the distance. This was White Shoals.

A sunset on Lake Michigan.

Wow we were truly blessed to see so much 

of the Lord's beauty in one day!