Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Have you ever heard of Guadalupe Mountains National Park? Yah, me neither. It straddles the border between New Mexico and Texas along that little section that points west. I almost missed it again, but this time as I was plotting our path, this park jumped out at me. We absolutely love national parks, so I couldn't pass this up and I'm so glad we went. The drive there from Monahans Sandhills State Park was really pretty in places.

We stopped at the Pine Springs Visitor Center for Jr Ranger books and to see the displays before driving to the McKittrick Canyon trailhead.

We planned to hike the Nature Trail, but decided we wanted to check out the McKittrick Canyon Trail instead. It's a long one, but we just hiked for a couple hours and returned. 

At one point the trail drops into a wash, where we found lizards hanging out among the rocks.

Southwestern Fence Lizard

Greater Earless Lizard (left)    An unidentified blue-bellied lizard   (right)

After this we spent the night in the Las Cruces Walmart. In the morning the Daddies took all four kids to White Sands National Park while Denali and I did some birding from the RV. A Gambel's Quail was calling just 10 feet from our window, followed by Verdin and a Ladder-backed Woodpecker!

The kids had fun sledding at White Sands. It looks like snow!

Camping on the Sand Dunes {Texas}

Monahans Sandhills State Park is one of our favorite places to camp when we're driving across Texas. This is our third time staying here and this time we brought friends! Back in December, a family from Israel, who had just begun a year-long RVing adventure, came to stay a few days with us in Florida. Before they left, five weeks later, we had made plans to meet up on the other side of the country- California's Yosemite National Park! They called a couple of months later and wanted to meet up sooner, so they waited in Texas for us to meet them. Finally the day arrived and we all pulled into Monahans for a few days of fun and catching up.

This place is full on weekends, but is pretty empty during the week, so it feels like you almost have the place to yourself. Here we are in the middle with our friends parked across from us. We love that the dunes start right outside our door. There's just one paved road running thru so you don't get stuck. 

The girls were so happy to be reunited and began working on their gymnastics skills right away.

After a shared dinner, the adults caught up while the kids played in the dunes behind us, creating some unique photos with their own special effects.

Of course you must sled the dunes. 

It's become a tradition to take family photos here.

Birding the desert is a different experience. It's more about the subtle signs of life. I still managed to find a decent number of species, but I think my favorite find was this Daihiniini (sand colored cricket-like creature). I picked it up, set it on my jeans it began spinning in circles on my leg.

Western Kingbird (above)      Swainson's Hawk (below)

Birding Texas {South Llano River SP}

I met a friend of Nicole's at the Biggest Week in 2017 and have been following her on Facebook ever since. She posts amazing photos of birds with great information attached. I was surprised to see she posted from High Island just days before we arrived. Unfortunately we would just miss her. THEN she posted about her visit to a Texas state park with birding blinds. I looked it up and it happened to be right along our path! Amazingly there was a campsite available so I booked it and we headed to South Llano River State Park in Hill Country. 

We arrived with only an hour of light left. As I was helping Daddy back into the campsite, a Painted Bunting (above) was calling from the tree next to me! Wow! Journey grabbed her borrowed camera, (Thanks Alice!) and the three of us walked to the blind that was closest to us (a 5 minute walk). A blind is like an open room with no door and one side made of glass. This allows you to quietly sit and watch birds, and even photograph them without disturbing them. Food and water are on the other side of the glass to draw the birds in. 

The kids were SO EXCITED to see the birds this close! Hummingbirds were all around and White-winged Doves posed nicely. Asher wanted so badly to take photos, so he borrowed my camera. There was so much excitement in the kids' voices as they would call out, "Hummingbird on the feeder! The Titmouse is on the water feature! Sparrow on the rocks!" My heart was overjoyed!

 

Black-crested Titmouse after a bath.

Summer Tanager

Black-chinned Hummingbird

As the light was fading we went to check out a different area where Asher could fish and saw four armadillos out looking for dinner! They were not shy either!

He caught a nice-sized gar!

We heard some Lark Sparrows in these trees. Journey was able to snap a few photos.

The next morning I woke early to hit the trails and all four blinds. The Golden-cheeked Warbler nests in this area, and only travels between here and Mexico, so this was my best chance of seeing one. After watching from the Agarita Blind for a bit, I started up aptly-named the Golden-cheeked Warbler trail, where I did, in fact, find not one, but two! I also found a rare Golden-winged Warbler which was very exciting. Such a striking bird, but sadly, no photos. It was a longer hike than I had expected. When we left the park at noon, I had walked nearly 9 miles! 

I was delighted to get a photo of this gorgeous Golden-fronted Woodpecker at the blind!

Blue Grosbeak (above)        Black-throated Sparrow (below)

After my hike, I went to find my family at the river where Asher was fishing. The kids were eager to go visit the birding blinds again, so that's where we went. We briefly visited the two closest to the campground, then I took them to the Agarita blind where I had seen the biggest variety and lots of buntings. They were most amused with the cardinal who was molting his head feathers.

Indigo Bunting (above)         Northern Cardinal in molt (below)

 

Yellow-breasted Chat (above)   Woodhouse's Scrub Jay (below)

On our way out of the park, we made a five minute stop to the fourth blind. We didn't see anything new, but glad we had a chance to see it. The birding blinds definitely make this park extra special. We'll definitely return!