Austin Trip

Abbe had a conference in Austin, Texas in the Spring of 2018.  The question was, do we drive with the camper, or fly?.  We drove.

Points of interest.

1. Southern Wyoming but freezing and snow and beautiful, but no photo’s.
2. The Sandhills and Platte River of Nebraska. The Sandhills are a geologic phenomenon to drive through, but tough to photograph.  The Platte River had the Sandhill Crane migration.  Should be on all birders bucket list because we saw thousands of birds.
3. From Nebraska, we drove through the western high plain prairie states of Kansas and Oklahoma into West Texas. All flat, with corn, cattle, and cold.   West Texas brought us oil wells of the Permian Basin, dust storms from drilling for oil and gas.
4. White Sands of New Mexico. I want to return to visit the Trinity Site where the first nuclear bomb was exploded.
5. Big Bend, long drive, beautiful, and worth it but I’d recommend the mountain islands that are not as busy, which BB is, but BB has the Rio Grande.
6. Then onto Austin for the conference. Bars and BBQ.
7. Chiricahua’s, one of many mountain ranges in Southern Arizona (including Mexico and New Mexico) that are surrounded by desert. A faunal and flora Sky Island.
8. North to a place where a meteor hit the earth 50,000 years ago.
9. Northwest to the Grand Canyon (another bucket list to raft it with Abbe).
10. Northwest to Bryce Canyon, then home.

Too little time, too many miles, too many sites to see.