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 cont'd} With mixed emotions, it was time to say my goodbyes in Houston and continue on with my trip.  I spent Friday night in Katy with Caitlyn & her family, where we stayed up wayyy too late sewing and chatting!  The next morning we all went out for brunch at a local cafe.  Through the course of conversation I mentioned that if Caitlyn wasn't up to anything she should just come to San Antonio with me.. so she did!  We went back to her place to quickly get her packed, then hit the road! We got into San Antonio mid-afternoon and went directly to the riverwalk to explore that area.  It's very quaint with lots of pretty little details; it was a busy day along the river but we enjoyed the sights regardless.  After a bit of a walk around, we decided to do the river cruise, which was a narrated half-hour ride along the canals. San Antonio Riverwalk Caitlyn made arrangements to meet some friends of hers for dinner, so after our river cruise we...

{texas cont'd} After two weeks in Mission, I headed to Houston to spend 'a couple' weeks with Dustin & Laura, and their housemate Alex.  I went with the intention of only staying a couple of weeks and allowing my bank account to recuperate a little from the expense of the power system installation, but I loved it so much I ended up staying for 5 weeks!  Thankfully they were happy to have me, and we had a lot of fun together.. Laura & I squeezing in as many girls-days as possible! My first weekend in Houston, we headed down to Galveston for a beach day!  We met a few others at the beach and had a fun day reading & playing frisbee, and had a delicious picnic lunch.  Unfortunately mother nature didn't get the memo and it was quite windy, but we went home in varying shades of red regardless and were glad for the fresh air! Galveston Beach My second weekend in Houston was a long weekend, so I headed off to Austin to explore there.  It was a g...

{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...