We left Arizona on November 10th with an aggressive plan to visit 5 National Parks on our way to Houston. Mark deserves tremendous ‘kudos’ for pulling this itinerary together as we headed east to be with family for Thanksgiving! We had a few long days of driving; however, we both felt that we fully experienced each park on this leg of our journey.

White Sands National Park, New Mexico

Although we had never visited White Sands National Park, it felt familiar from the moment we saw the gypsum dunes. The vast and unique landscape is instantly recognizable. According to the NPS website, over 20 major movies and several hundred commercials have been filmed here! In fact, the park has designated ‘filming areas’ that are strictly reserved for commercial use!

Aside from the Hollywood aspect to this park, White Sands is the largest gypsum dune field (275 square miles) in the world. It was amazing to see glistening white sand in the middle of New Mexico! The primary way to see this park is to drive along the scenic Dunes Drive. We hiked the Dune Life Nature Trail and part of the Alkali Flat Trail. We also watched both kids and adults enjoy sledding down the sand dunes in rented plastic saucers!

White Sands National Monument was established in 1933 and became our nation’s 62nd National Park in 2019. Furthermore, White Sands NP is the only gypsum sand deposit area listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. Gypsum is an important and lucrative mineral; It was interesting to read the park’s interpretive signs about the protection of this natural resource over the past century.

We allotted an afternoon to explore this park and both felt this was plenty of time to catch the highlights. We spent the night in Oliver Lee State Park in Alamogordo, NM. For $14, we had a camping site, running water bathrooms and showers!

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

It is less than a 4-hour drive from White Sands National Park to Carlsbad Caverns and we reached our destination by early afternoon.

I don’t know where to begin in describing the ‘coolness factor’ of this cave. Because we arrived early and admission is free with our National Parks Pass, we rode the elevator into the cave and then proceeded to spend two hours in awe of the formations. We were up bright and early the following morning and spent another 5 hours meandering in the cave, including a 1.5 mile hike through the Natural Entrance.

We enjoyed strolling the paved floor of the cave and it’s an easy hike to see the ‘coolness’ during a self-guided tour. Pro tip: spending $5 for an audio tour is well worth the cost. The park also offers ranger led tours of different areas of the cave as well as a few backpacking opportunities in above-ground areas of the park.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas

The Guadalupe Mountains are a 20 minute drive from Carlsbad Caverns. It was convenient because we spent 3 nights in a campground that provided easy access to both parks.

We managed to visit the Guadalupe Mountains in peak fall color season and the leaves were stunning in McKittrick Canyon. A volunteer recommended that we continue our hike up to the Notch for an overlook of the valley floor. It was a beautiful hike!

Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at 8,751 feet! The hike to the peak is an 8.5 mile round-trip trek with a 3,000 foot elevation gain. The park calls this hike: ‘climbing to the top of Texas‘. From the peak, you can see the surrounding desert, salt flats, and mountains. We enjoyed lunch at the top before heading back down the mountain.

This park has abundant fossils. It was one of the most amazing features of this park. We spotted several fossils on our hike up Guadalupe Peak. When we return to this park, hiking the Permian Reef trail is at the top of the ‘list of things to do’. The fossils on that trail are supposedly amazing!

The park closes promptly at 4:30 PM and there is a trail ‘sweeper’ volunteer to make sure all visitors are off the trails before the park closes. The penalty for being in the park after the gates lock is a ticket with a hefty fine! Luckily, we completed our hikes with plenty of time to spare and avoided any humiliation from a park ranger!

Big Bend National Park, Texas

Big Bend National Park has been on my ‘to visit’ list for quite a while. The challenge with this large park is that it is remote; however, the park’s remoteness makes it one of the least visited parks in the Lower 48! We took a slight detour in Texas and spent 5 days in this amazing area!

The scenery from the Guadalupe Mountains to Big Bend was desert and ranches for as far as the eye could see. The only sign of life we spotted (other than a million cows) was the Blue Origin launch site.

We were both extremely surprised at the landscape within this diverse park. Big Bend is comprised of the entire Chisos Mountain Range, 118 miles of the Rio Grande River and the northern portion of the Chihuahuan Desert. You can hike in the Chisos mountains one day and raft down the Rio Grande River the next!

We camped in the Chisos Mountains area, which is also the location of the park’s only lodge. Both black bears and mountain lions have recently moved into the area and live in the Chisos Mountains. The air is cooler here and there is great hiking in this area of the park too!

While we didn’t see black bears, we did see other wildlife including coyotes and tarantulas! The tarantulas were so big that we could see them crossing the roads (and we swerved to avoid them)!

Big Bend is a designated dark sky park and is one of the darkest places in the country. We had a full moon and couldn’t see many constellations during our trip; however, we did view the lunar eclipse from our campsite! I can only imagine how dark and beautiful the night sky would be in this remote park.

For the most part, massive canyon walls along the Rio Grande River provide a natural boundary between Mexico and the US. Border Patrol Agents are abundant in this park as well. Visitors have an option to cross the Rio Grande to lunch in Boquillas Del Carmen (with a valid passport). Our passports are in a safe deposit box up north, so we looked at the village from afar but didn’t visit during our trip.

Because of the diverse landscape, the variety of animals and the famed night sky, Big Bend National Park ranks high on our ‘favorite national parks’ list. While we definitely hit the highlights in this park, there is more here that would warrant a return trip!

Missions National Park, San Antonio, Texas

Missions National Park is a chain of five different Spanish missions that were built in the 1700s. These missions are the largest concentration of Catholic Missions in North America! The Mission San Antonio de Valereo (AKA The Alamo) is the most famous of the missions. It was interesting to learn that all of the churches continue to hold services! A bike trail connects all of the missions and we spent a day in San Antonio riding throughout this National Park.

A highlight of our time in this area was a river boat ride through downtown San Antonio. The river was decorated with Christmas lights and we enjoyed this kitschy tourist attraction before continuing our journey east!

It’s hard to believe that this is our final blog post on our 2021 travels. From Houston, we flew to Chicago for Thanksgiving. After returning to Houston, we stopped at several beach towns along the Gulf Coast before flying home to Cleveland for Christmas. We are spending the winter in Florida while planning our 2022 schedule. In the meantime, we plan to publish a post summarizing our 2021 adventure and another post trying to answer the question “How do you live in a van?” Until then, I hope you and your family are healthy and off to a wonderful 2022!