James Tesmer

When I first made my way into the eastern side of the park  I was extremely excited to be out and active again after receiving a negative COVID test.  I knew the park was extremely close to Tucson, but I was a bit surprised when I first saw it was basically in the town.  But it was a perfect way to get me back outdoors with a causal one way drive around the city followed by a hike around their nature trails.  These cacti were bigger in person than these photos were showing and I think that is cool.

I met two different couples on this outing. The first was a couple from Ohio who bought a van but are waiting for it to be built out!  They got a view from the roof deck of Vincent and seemed even more excited be able to travel with theirs.  I also got to meet a couple who owned a 2018 version of Vincent.  It was a bit unreal seeing both vans parked to each other.

A few days later I decided to check out the western portion of the park since it was describe as being more rustic, which sounded like my style.

The hiking on this side was incredible!  I went on a 7 mile loop up and around one of the hills by piecing together random trails.  I’m still not used to being in mountains (Wisconsin only has a few hills) so when I got to the highest point of the day it felt daunting seeing off in all directions.

Look at that peak!  That there is the highest point in all of Texas and I decided to hike to it for my 36th birthday.

When I first rolled into the park I ran into a some fellow full time nomad travellers and after getting to chat about our in

The hike up to the top of the park was incredibly tough but was made easier by getting to do it with my new ambulance van friends.

Before I left Madison I bought myself a raspberry peach melba pie

This section will be the story of my birthday hike.  Pie stuff, and a really cool couple from the Pacific Northwest who own an ambulance van.

I have such an affinity towards caves with no idea where it comes from.  These caves here definitely won’t be the last time I’ll be gushing about getting to explore underground.

As a National Park, the experience here was different than I was used to. As is typical, my first task was to go talk to a ranger and learn about the must see things during my visit.  The ranger I talked to didn’t seem to like that I didn’t plan ahead and sort of lectured that I was ‘lucky’ that they weren’t sold out of tickets.  Also when I asked about hiking trails his response was “I guess you could go hiking but the cave is the main attraction”.   Really an out of character interaction for me.

Now to the caves.  I completely recommend taking the walking trail down.  Sure there is an elevator you can take to get to the main attraction, but the natural entrance really gives you perspective to how deep underground you get to go.  I got to the entrance early enough that the area was basically empty and I felt like I was descending into nothingness.

While the caves can be completely explored in a day, its an entirely unique experience that I would go do again in a heartbeat.

Wow! The sand here is very white.  And its everywhere.  And it is beautiful. Unless you hate sand.

I somehow woke myself up at 6:30 local time to get the day started off right.  An early one mile nature trail hike in the beginning parts of the park started out the day.  Somehow I had reception in the area so I had a couple of work meetings pulled up at a trailhead.

Once the afternoon rolled around I hit the main event, The Alkaline Flats Trail.  It was a 5 mile loop through the whitest of the white dunes around.  I enjoyed the “Do Not Go Beyond This Point” sign due to its thinly veiled threats of explosions.

Overall a very enjoyable first park to visit on this journey.  Definitely only a day trip for my liking but worth a stop in if you are in the area.