We traded in our month of winter in December for Texas sunshine and warmth in January. The weather here is beautiful, warm, windy, and sunny. The sun sets later, around 6:30, because we crossed the time zone over to Central Time. And the sunsets are gorgeous!

We went to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico before crossing into Texas and loved it. It’s a beautiful drive into the park, but the real magic is underground. The area we explored is the size of 14 football fields and we could walk through at our own pace.

We followed that up with Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, the same mountain range as the caverns we saw the day before, this time above ground. We didn’t do any hiking here and instead drove through after a stop at the visitor’s center.

From the Guadalupe Mountains, we went south to Big Bend National Park where our goal was to see a bear. We heard people had been seeing bears on a particular trail, so we set out. A couple miles in, we came across a mama and her cubs! It was well worth the hike! On the way back to our RV park, on a road as smooth as a bowling alley, I’m not sure how, but I got a flat tire. Thanks to the generous hospitality of the Texas people, that was quickly changed and we were on our way again. Now I officially have all new tires since the popped tire was the last of the originals on the car. I also watched the process carefully and I’m pretty confident that I could change a tire on my own if I had to. This is not a challenge and I’m perfectly okay with never getting that opportunity.

Texas is big. Real big. We drove 150 without seeing a single building. We drove all day and could count the cars we passed. We saw a ton of deer, cacti, yucca plants, road runners, foxes, tumbleweed, and even an armadillo. We’re all loving it so far.

*pic- Big Bend National Park. Chisos Basin Window Trail on our way to see the bears.