#vanlife; Western Texas & Southern New Mexico
{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...