Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas

We Leave Van Horn on the low lands and drive thru pastures, if you can call them that, doesn't look like much can survive well on that scrub brush, but as you can see I guess they do.

Not sure which one is a Texas Long Horn, but it is some type of Long horn cattle.

Humm a water line gauge, wonder why, well flash floods occur in a regular basis when it rains, and rain it does, clay earth, so nothing sinks in right away, and there are these dips in the road that fill up with water.

And then flow over the road and wash anything and everything along with them. Never cross water on a roadway!

Off in the distance we see where we are going, hope the road is not too steep.

So up we go

Higher and Higher, the road looks very small.

But finally we land at our destination

5000 feet + is our altitude.

The mountain is beautiful.

We stop at the Visitor Center and their is a nice walk we can take with Gremlin.

The Pinery Trail, where stage coaches stopped, for food and water while carrying the mail. The buildings were made of local stone, but all gone now just a couple of walls standing. The buildings are gone but the memories of a by gone era are not.

So on the trail we go!

Here is Gremlin, he got tired and it was warm, so he got to be carried!

Signs helped with identification of plants, this is a Banana Yucca.

These signs always reminded us of where we were, not in New England for sure, always on the look out for many different species of creatures that can really be dangerous!

This is Mountain Mahogany

The ranger told us of this homestead that we should see, so we did. The Frijole Homestead.

This Plaque explains most of the history, the setting was amazing. House surrounded by wonderful shade trees.

The Smith Family was the second tenents, and they had a very large family. He raised vegtables there, and fruits, amazing crops, and would leave in the evening, with his wagon filled with fresh veggies, fruit, covered with wet cloths to keep them fresh, pulled by a team of donkeys, and would be in the town of Van Horn for the morning delivery.


He was able to do this in such barren land because of this spring which just came out of the ground, 6 gallons of water an hour would flow from it, and he made trenches to his fields, keeping everything well watered.

This is one of his trenches coming from the spring


A friendly mole lives in the front yard.

This is the school house, where the teacher resided beside the house.
It is being repaired at this point to preserve it.

A view from the back yard

A view from the back of the house facing the hillside, there was a path leading to the pond, and of course we had to walk to see for ourselves what it was like.

Marsh grass surrounds the pond, the water was crystal clear.

This is a picture of the Smith family, could you survive there??

So after all the walking we decided to stay and get a camp site in the park. No Electricity or water hook ups, just a site with a picnic table and the opportunity to enjoy the open sky at night. They had special lights in the Rest Rooms so not to interfere with the night sky....It was really dark...

So here is Paul at our table enjoying the setting sun!