Today we are on the last leg of the route that takes us to Carlsbad Caverns. We left out of New Mexico this morning, but will pass through Texas on our way back to New Mexico tonight. There are no secondary roads between Deming, NM and El Paso, TX, so our morning began with the first 85 miles heading east on I-10E. Not our favorite road, but the morning weather was cool, and there wasn't much traffic so it went by quickly. After taking Loop-375 around El Paso, we turned east on US-62/US-180. The Garmin showed that our hotel was 147 miles down the road on the left. There were a few hills on the El Paso Loop, but once we got on US-62 it was basically flat and straight. Nothing to see on either side, just desert and scrub grass, not even cactus. So we turned on the cruise control and cranked up the tunes.
      One thing we did notice was that as soon as we crossed into Texas, there seemed to be cops everywhere . We very seldom ever saw a police car on this entire trip. Most states we never saw one at all. But Texas, in the 120 mile stretch between El Paso and the Guadalupe Mountains, we must have seen police cars six different times. We were also stopped by the Border Patrol at a check-point where all cars were being stopped on a routine check. They didn't ask for identification, they just asked us if we were US citizens and after noticing that we were white, just let us proceed.
     Just before we reached the New Mexico border, the Guadalupe Mountains rise right out of the desert. There is one huge stone edifice called El Capitan, and you can see it from miles away. Since this section of mountain is the highest point in Texas, there is a national park called the Guadalupe Mountains National Park located there. We were looking for something interesting to do today, as we weren't planning on visiting Carlsbad Caverns until tomorrow, we though we would stop in to check it out. As we pulled in the parking lot at the visitors center, there was only one other car there and they were leaving . We went inside, and we were the only people other than the park rangers that were there.
     The park rangers were very nice, and showed us what the park had to offer. They didn't have an obligatory 20 minute video, but they did have a narrated 12 minute slide presentation that we watched. It was actually very informative, and I think we learned everything there was to know about Guadalupe Mountains National Park in that 12 minutes. I also managed to get a t-shirt in the bookstore.
     There weren't any scenic drives, but there were lots of hiking trails. There was a 3/4 mile hike behind the Visitors Center that took us to a dry creek bed and the ruins of an old stagecoach station. In all fairness, there were a couple of other hikes that were a little longer and looked interesting, but we would have to drive further down the road to the access roads which were still gravel. Not very good for the motorcycle. It was getting warmer, and as we were going to hike, we decided to put on shorts for the rest of the day . After about an hour, we finished with everything we could at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and it wasn't even 2:00 yet.
     We decided to just go ahead and visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park since it was only about 30 miles up the road. We didn't really want to take the cave tours yet, but at least we could get our passports stamped and get our t-shirts at the gift shop. The rangers were very helpful, and we found out all about the tours. There is also a bat exit at 7:15 at night, where all the bats exit together at dusk. They publish the time, and have an amphitheater set up to watch. But we had already ridden almost 300 miles today, and we just wanted to get to the hotel, so we decided to wait until tomorrow night to see the bats.
    We headed on to the hotel, ate early at a Chili's just up the road, and were hoping to get a little laundry done. But the guest laundry was in heavy use, and there was no way to get access. We'll just have to do it tomorrow after we're done with the cave tours and before the bat exit. We have one ranger guided cave tour already booked, and there are 2 other self guided tours we should be able to do tomorrow. It should be a fun day!

283.7 miles today
15,996.1 miles total

8.172 gallons today
380.171 gallons total