Our last day through Big Bent. Early start today to avoid the heath of the dessert. We rode via the Terlingua Ranch dirt road to the Ranch. We enjoyed a well-deserved lunch and continued our way to Terlingua, the ghost town. When we stopped at the gas station to search for a campsite, we met Jay, a very pleasant fellow biker. It was his first ride after revalidation from a severe motor accident. It was amazing to see how Jay enjoyed his ride. While we didn’t know eachother he recognized us via a meeting the Bumbling Norwegian with whom he had lunch earlier that day. Again… what a coincidence!
He asked if it was OK if he could take pictures when we left and of course David had to put on a little show! After we left, it took some time to find a campspot, because the advised campground was full. We ended up at a hill of stones where we had a good night after all.
At 8.30am we hit the road again through the Big Bend Ranch Park. A complete other scenery. Very beautiful road along the canyon. The road led us to a fantastic bakery in Presidio, Don José panaderia, were we bought real Mexican beef burritos which we ate at the roadside. We camped and spent the afternoon in the Fort Davis State Park. We did a hike of 2hours to the top of the Davis Mountain with a superb view on the prairie. The day after we continued the 118 & 54 towards the Carlsbad Caverns. Via the Guadeloupe Mountains we entered New Mexico. We camped at the White’s City.
We had a great evening with Dana and Wayne, a lovely Canadian couple who travel without an end date.
On Tuesday, we visited the Carlsbad Caverns as surely mentioned by other visitors, this is a must do and see. We will not try to describe this wonder of nature, words cannot reflect the reality. We did our best to take some nice pictures. Thanks to the non-functional elevators, the visit became a true hike. A descend and ascend of 244 altimeters. After 3 hours spent in the cave, we headed to Carlsbad city with lots of gusty winds. We could hardly keep Jaak and Mieke on the road. Carlsbad wasn’t that sexy so we spent the night outside of the city at Bradley Lake State Park ( a primitive site at the border of the lake).
Today we wanted to meet the aliens in Roswell. Saw a lot of them, however not sure if it were the real ones. But after the visit at the UFO museum we know finally the truth and we also know you can handle the truth, but she’s out there!! After a ride through the typical landscape of New Mexico (how vast and beautiful it is, it is getting boring after a few miles), we started unexpectedly to climb into the Sacramento mountains (Lincoln National Forrest) via the highway 82. Temperature was fast decreasing, the beautifulness of the mountains was fast increasing. We even drove along a ski resort. After we fueled up in Cloudcroft at an attitude of 8650ft, we started the descent to Oliver Lee State Park. Because there was no free spot anymore, we had to look for an alternative which we found via IOverlander, the app that Wayne provided us, the Holloman Lake free campsite.
Tomorrow we will continue our way to White Sands.
