May 17 – 20, 2016: Saguaro National Park was formed to protect the giant saguaro cacti. Saguaro cacti are thought to be symbol of the southwest although saguaro cacti are actually only found in the Sonoran desert of Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California.
May 15 – 17, 2016: Our next destination after White Sands National Monument was Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona.
May 14 – 15, 2016: We arrived in Alamogordo, New Mexico in the late afternoon and decided to see if we could catch the sunset in White Sands National Monument.
May 13 – 14, 2016: Roswell, New Mexico has got to be one of the most kitschy places we have ever visited. Every establishment has a random alien figurine outside. They irk me. I could never live here.
May 12 – 13, 2016: We crossed into New Mexico and arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park (also an UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the early afternoon.
May 11 – 12, 2016: After marveling at Prada Marfa, we drove on to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The entire upper portion of the park, Dog Canyon, was closed due to fires but we were still able to camp in the lower, Pine Springs, area.The campsite was really just a parking lot – no hookups,
May 8 – 11, 2016: After our last night in Big Bend National Park at our backcountry campsite, we departed the park to explore more of west Texas.
May 4 – 8, 2016: From Seminole Canyon State Park we made our way to Big Bend National Park.
May 1 – 4, 2016: From our San Antonio accommodation, we were able to take the public bus downtown ($1.30 per person, about a 25 minute ride). We visited The Alamo – it was quite busy (it was Sunday) and it wasn’t really my thing but was a decent lesson on the history of (now) Texas.