I caught one!

After several days of trying...I finally caught a king salmon!  Yeah!!

Signing the king stamp...

 Family picture...

Summer 2011 Kickoff

It's summer and I now have ample time and a little more motivation to keep up with the blog:-)

Greg and I kicked off summer with a little trip through southern New Mexico.  We left on last Thursday morning and drove down to the Carlsbad Caverns which were pretty cool.  Who knew that stuff could be hiding underground?

Then we set up camp at Pine Springs campground for the night in the Guadalupe mountains which are on the southern border of New Mexico and Texas.  With all the fire danger, there were no campfires or charcoal fires allowed.  The sign said you were allowed to use contained fuel camping burners, but we failed to read the additional notice posted that there were two designated picnic tables to use them at.  Needless to say, we got a little lecture from one of the rangers for cooking at our campsite.  She was nice enough not to fine us...next time we will read more closely:-)

I slammed my finger in the door...it was a bit painful...

The following morning we made breakfast (at the designated picnic tables of course) and then loaded up on all of the water needed for the overnight backpacking trip through McKittrick Ridge.  There are no water sources along the way and temperatures were around 98 degrees.  The recommendation was to carry at least one gallon per person per day...so that's what we did.  It definitely made for heavy packs.

"Pratt's Cabin" was along the way...

 Taking a break from our packs, we hiked a bit off the trail to see the "hunter's cabin"

 In this hike you gain 1600 feet of elevation in 1.2 miles...they were probably the most grueling 1.2 miles of my life!  It was basically just a bunch of steep switchbacks.  The hike was a little over 6 miles in, and we hiked back out the same trail the following morning.  The way in took us 6 hours while the hike out took us a bit over 3 hours.

 Finally there!!!

 The next morning was beautiful at the top of the ridge.

Once we got back from the hike, we stopped for some delicious BBQ in Carlsbad then made our way west going through Lincoln National forest which is where the town of Cloudcroft can be found.  The elevation was high enough that it certainly was no desert like a lot of New Mexico.  In actuality, it was a dense forest and was a really cute town.  I wouldn't mind going back there one day.  Our drive then took us through the White Sands National Monument.  These are really just a bunch of white sand dunes. but they look out of place in the middle of New Mexico.  Pretty cool to see.

The original plan had us driving all the way to Silver City to spend our final night and to explore the Gila wilderness before we headed home.  Unfortunately, there was some bad planning on our part and when we called EVERY place in Silver City to book a room, there were no vacancies.  Turns out Silver City is a hoppin place Memorial day weekend, so we stayed in Las Cruces instead.  I must say it was amazing staying in a hotel after you haven't showered for a couple days:-) 

After staying in Las Cruces, we made the two hour trek to Silver City to find a Blues Festival going on!  We walked around town looking at all the art stores and then ate some really unhealthy food and sat in our camping chairs listening to the festival for awhile.  There was certainly some really good people watching at the festival...mainly all the people dancing...they were really getting into it!!

After the blues festival, we headed up into the Gila wilderness to see the cliff dwellings. We also a lot of burnt forest from the Miller Fire which is still burning. It was kinda cool to see all the fire fighters and all of the equipment. One camp we went through had 5 helicopters!

After the Cliff Dwellings, we headed home.  It was an awesome trip!