Blazing Blue Skies

We finally made it out of Texas. It was close-going there for a while, because in El Paso, we had to stop at the Wal-Mart. There's no Wal-mart near us and we never go (partially by choice) and the joint was hopping on a holiday. We split up for efficiency (our missions: duct tape and bandannas and toothpaste) and almost didn't find each other again. More time than you'd like later, we were finally on our way. The kids liked the fact that driving on I-10 through El Paso, you could see Mexico out the left window.

We headed to our first major destination of the day, Rockhound State Park. I warned the kids that it was going to be hot. "How hot?" they asked. It's 85 degrees now. My son scoffed, "It's way hotter than that in Houston." Now that is true, so on we went. Rockhound State Park is all about its name. There were some folks in RVs there, but mainly it's about hunting for rocks. For your $5 vehicle fee, you can hunt all you like and bring out 15 pounds of whatever you find. My little rockhounders were delighted. You follow the appropriately named Thunderegg trail until you get to a little rise, and then you're free to fan out over the hillside and hunt away. There were people fully decked with shovels, picks and hammers, but we just had our eyes and hands.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun. I would definitely suggest going in the cooler months if you have a choice, but honestly it wasn't that bad.

We found three letterboxes today--Deming by AZRoadie, Fly me to the Moon by AstroD and MarshMellow by Astro D. All of them were high quality boxes in lovely, worthwhile locations with great stamps. We had a lot of fun driving around New Mexico and seeing the sights. After yesterday's hard day in the car, it was great to have a more relaxed time with more time for side trips. Towns we visited included Mesilla, Hatch, Truth or Consequences, and San Antonio. We like getting off the Interstate and seeing more of the towns than rest stops and fast food joints.

All in all it was a great day. If you want a hint of one of the activities on the agenda, google the very large array.