the turquoise trail

{texas} After my refreshing visit to Balhormea State Park I continued north through Pecos, which is very much an oil & gas town - I saw nothing but transports and pickup trucks for miles!  There were lots of oil wells and little camps along the way north, where I crossed the New Mexico state line.. {new mexico} Welcome to New Mexico! ...and spent the night in Carlsbad.  I didn't take the time to explore too much of Carlsbad, but I enjoyed a relaxing evening catching up on emails etc., then got an early start to Carlsbad Caverns.  I was undecided over whether I should take an organized tour or just explore the 'big room' & main cave on my own, so I wanted to be there at 8am to get some more information.  When I arrived I realized that the self-guided cave tour covers quite a lot of area and takes about 2.5 hrs, so I decided that would be enough. The trail to the natural entrance opened shortly afterwards, so I headed off on the 2km hike descendin...

{texas} Once again, I started off my time in the state of Texas with a stop at the visitor's welcome centre.  The gentleman at the desk had more suggestions of things to see than I could possibly retain, and I left with plenty of reading material.  Behind the welcome centre they had a boardwalk over the swamp, so I went for a quick walk along & spotted an alligator!  I was glad to be up on the walkway out of his way... Welcome to Texas! I made it across I-10 to Houston in time for the evening with Dustin & Laura; we decided to go out to top golf which was a great first experience at a driving range!  We met Caitlyn & Chris at the driving range and had a really fun evening together.  The next morning, Laura and I went to explore George Ranch and saw the 4 historical homes there all from different time periods; 1830's, 1860's, 1890's & 1930's.  It was very interesting to see the transformation and progression of quality of life over t...