Don't Blame Us, Blame Groupon!

After Big Bend, we made a quick stop on the way to San Antonio to mountain bike the canyon rim trail at the Seminole Canyon state park. It was a worthwhile stop since the mountain biking was right at our level of technicality and the trail granted us great views of Seminole Canyon with its pictographs and black cliffs streaked with white. It was also a great stop because the plant known aptly as the “barometer plant” was flowering from all the recent rain. Desert sage or Texas sage, as it is more formally known, covers the panhandle down by the border, resulting in a mountain bike ride through fields of purple bushes. Most of the drive to San Antonio was the same, with the whole sea of sage turned purple like Lavender. It was absolutely beautiful!

 

Soon enough, we arrived in San Antonio where we accidentally placed ourselves in a situation similar to our experience at Copper Harbor. We were dirty, sweaty, and certainly smelly after our experiences in the Texas desert… when we checked into the Wyndham Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio.

The hotel staff was kind enough, but it quickly became apparent we were not in our element. A bell boy was required to assist us up to our room with our bags, which created an awkward situation since Ryan and I had no small bills to tip him with, and we were given complimentary breakfast buffet tickets when it took longer than usual to check us into our room. (Complimentary breakfast turned into brunch since Ryan and I are that cheap). We had to pay for valet parking too, since the Acura didn’t have the clearance for self-parking, and I’m sure the valet’s were horrified by the state of the car. Woops! We were given lots of curious glances from other guests in the hotel too.

Once we had showered and cleaned ourselves up, we felt a bit more qualified to be in the hotel, but when I asked the concierge for restaurant suggestions we were showered with “free appetizers” to all the most expensive places in town. “Ummm what do you suggest that’s a little more price-friendly?” I asked sheepishly. Luckily those exist too in San Antonio, but then the concierge invited us to a special event at the Wyndham’s new location… “assuming one of you is over 28?” We apologized and said we weren’t, “Oh well do you live together?” “In the car…” I answered, which was clearly the wrong response. She looked at us, trying to figure out the puzzle, “These people are living out of their car… but they can afford the Wyndham?” 

Ryan and I laugh now, but at the time, we just wanted to explain to all the other guests in the hotel who were looking at us like outsiders, and the hotel staff who were trying so hard to help us spend our “money” not to blame us, but blame Groupon. I got a great deal from the discount site before the trip started, which brought the price of this ridiculously nice hotel down to the level of a Holiday Inn Express, our kind of hotel. In any case, we just blushed profusely and told ourselves later that if they don’t want cheap people like us in their hotel, they shouldn’t offer Groupon deals.

Anyway, besides feeling like idiots at the Wyndham, we really enjoyed San Antonio. The river walk area was so much fun to explore and we, (I), loved the history that San Antonio offers on plaques and signs all around the city. Add to that the Hispanic culture and heritage and we were both pretty infatuated with the place.

Then it was off to the state capital!

(Where we stayed at the Courtyard Marriot)

Austin was more a pit stop than anything else. I was able to figure out my computer issues (as in Best Buy upgraded me to a nicer one, hooray!) and Ryan had an informational interview with a company looking to hire actuaries. It was a productive visit, and we even got to see the end of the Cardinal game at a bar downtown while visiting with a friend from home in Colorado.

In San Antonio, we savored Texas beef, yum. In Austin, we had Texas BBQ at Valentina’s (a little food truck attached to a bar) and then Mexican the second night at El Caribe (a little hole in the wall place). The Mexican by far blew our socks off the most, though it was all good. The fajitas that Ryan got especially were beyond awesome and we licked honey off our fingers after scarfing down perfectly puffy sopapillas. In case you haven’t noticed the trend, in cities Ryan and I tend to spend our time walking around and seeing the sights while spending as little money as possible… until dinnertime.

I love cities.

And it didn’t end it Austin. After a couple days respite, we were leaving Texas for more blow-your-mind culinary experiences. The kind you can only have in New Orleans.

Texas Landscapes

The Guadalupe Mountains rise out of the broad plains of Texas rather abruptly. They begin as rolling hills, but then jut upwards suddenly with granite cliff faces earning them the title of mountains. September is monsoon season in Texas, so the mountains were far greener than Ryan and I could have expected.

We chose a campsite among the cacti, yucca, and twisted desert pines then struck out for a quick hike in Devil’s Staircase before dinner. Because of the rains, it’s more like spring in Texas than fall with fragrant blossoms on cacti and trees alike sending Ryan and me into fits of sneezes. The hike was beautiful though, through a wash that water had carved into a mini slot canyon among the mountains.

On the way back however, my worst nightmare came into reality.

Ryan, who was in the lead, completely missed it, and may have even hit the thing with his shoe, but my eyes were too wary to miss the big, hairy body snuggled into the crack of rock. I gasped, stopping in my tracks and immediately started hyperventilating. Of course I knew we were in this horrible creature’s habitat, we had been for a while actually, but I had still lived in hope that we wouldn’t come across a tarantula – the biggest spider that I’ve now had to see in the wild.

This was actually before we saw the tarantula...

Ryan was of course entranced, and was insisting on taking pictures and throwing rocks to make it move and other boy things while I tried to catch my breath. When he was sufficiently satisfied, and I sufficiently disgusted, we continued back to camp while I prayed all the while we wouldn’t come across another one. We didn’t, not that day…

That night however, we faced a different type of obstacle.

Clouds starting to gather beyond the mountains

A second hurricane in the Pacific had sent yet more rain-laden clouds into the southwest, apparently decimating Phoenix and heading towards Texas. I checked with the rangers about flash flood concerns, but there seemed to be no threat in the park. We ate dinner and got ready for bed while the clouds settled in, and sure enough, at about 11 o’clock the rain started.

Lightening flashed almost constantly, lighting up the tent so we saw red through our eyelids while we tried to sleep. The thunder was intermittent, but with the largest strikes would come crashing through the mountains to further ensure sleep would be a serious difficulty. 

After about an hour of hard, steady rain, I decided an inspection of the tent was necessary. Dawning my headlamp I started scouring the tent floor, looking for water soaking in. Ryan joined in the assessment, when we discovered his side was showing more wetness than was comfortable. Looking through the screen, we realized the ground was actually water, and that his tennis shoes were floating in the tent vestibule.

Yup, a good inch of water had flooded our tent pad, and the rain was nowhere near letting up it seemed. 

In retrospect, if Ryan and I had just moved everything to the high side of the tent, we may have escaped the situation mostly dry, but as it was, with after all we’d heard about Phoenix, we decided to bail instead. And that’s how we spent the only night of the trip so far in the car – wet, exhausted, and unsure if our tent would be floating or sunk in the morning.

Sure enough, by the time morning came, the tent pad was pretty much dry and the tent itself on track to be dry as well, until another little shower during breakfast guaranteed that everything would be soaking in time to pack it up.

Rain, rain, go away...

Then it was off to Big Bend, with signs of flooding appearing all along the way, though there were nothing but the road to have been affected by it.

Big Bend National Park was genuinely incredible as Ryan and I drove into it. The mountains there are even more dramatic than Guadalupe, and the canyons of the Rio Grande add a neat element to the scenery. Sunset across the Chihuahau desert was really something to behold and the sunrise in the morning lit the canyon walls nearby where we camped.

Our second night in the park was spent in the Chisos Basin portion of the park, which is the most mountainous section. Here, aside from the four types of poisonous snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions, hikers also need to watch out for bears and mountain lions. Fun!

At least it's pretty...

We did two hikes in the area nearby our campground, both leading to incredible vistas of the mountains and the desert below, and on both, we didn’t get to see bears or mountain lions, no no! We got to see more tarantulas! You can just imagine my joy in that.

Having trouble seeing it? Imagine how we felt...

The first one Ryan almost stepped on, (even though it was a the size of our palm), and it reared and hissed at him like no arachnid should ever be capable of, and after that, Ryan and I kept our eyes fixated on the trail. We only stopped to enjoy the scenery after thoroughly surveying the area around us ahead of time.

Aside from just spiders, bugs are also enormous in Texas, which makes me believe the motto “everything is bigger in Texas” was spawned from their insect variety. Fortunately a lot of these bugs also happened to be pretty. Like these grasshoppers:

And these lizards (no, not insects, but still something that crawls on the ground...)

And there were lots of pretty flowers...

But then there were also enormous bees (I was stung on the leg), and centipedes and millipedes that were not quite so beautiful to behold. We even came across some kind of worm creature that was transparent, as in we could see its stomach and kidneys through the thing. Weird.

So basically Big Bend is an amazing landscape, buuuuuuuttttt between the bugs, the spiders, the scorpions, and the snakes, it may not be for everyone. I can’t help but say I was a little relieved to head towards the city after our wet, spider-filled experience in the Texas desert. Hey at least we survived!

It was still pretty...

Psyche!

There was a lot of concern when Ryan and I started our trip that our itinerary would restrict what we were able to do in order to follow our full schedule of locations to see and activities to do. While we wish we could be completely spontaneous, our limited budget doesn’t allow for many deviations, since those tend to rack up our costs.

However, we were able to make one pretty big detour… we went to Colorado!

Yup! We decided to scrap our plans of camping in monument valley and instead camped here:

Ryan had never been to Mesa Verde, or at least that was the excuse, and I have to say I enjoyed being in my home state for a time anyway.

After that we had a second deviation from the plan (whoa, crazy!) where we went to Santa Fe for the night rather than Jemez Springs where we were going to camp. We really needed a pit stop after all the dusty canyons and muddy flood runoff, and so we found a deal online to spend the night in the city. The highlight of our night there was most certainly the Mexican dinner we had, which was at a hole-in-the-wall place clearly owned and run by one very industrious Hispanic family who couldn’t be kinder to us. Tacos, enchiladas, rice and beans was certainly a welcome change from pasta dinners like we normally eat, and Ryan and I practically rolled out of the place.

From there, we had one last stop before heading leaving New Mexico, a different sort of scenery from what we’re used to…

Carlsbad Caverns was a unique stop because it’s one of the few caves that I’ve been to (or remember being to), that allows you to explore the cave without a tour. Of course you have to stay on designated paths and behind railings, but nonetheless descending into the cave from the natural entrance deep into the dark, humid blackness felt sort of like we were discovering it for the first time.

Since we could walk about self-guided, the information plaques and lighting were also very well done, with features like the Lion’s Tails and Fairy Garden well marked and also aptly named. One of my favorites was the “Chandelier” pictured below, which was splendidly illuminated in such a way that made you feel like you were in an art museum as much as a cave.

Another favorite was Mirror Pool, mostly because the clever rangers had posted the sign written upside down and backwards, so that to read what the feature was, you had to look into… Mirror Pool! Haha! It took Ryan far too long to figure it out much to my amusement.

And the final awesome thing about the cave?

Yup! Flush toilets! All the way down there. Mind blown!

In total, from Mesa Verde to Carlsbad, our little deviations ended up being well worth the little extra cost, and we have even more places checked off our list. Now it’s off to the land of Southern hospitality and liquid gold… Texas here we come!