Untethered

Looking back, we had a really rough time over Christmas and New Years, y'all.  But the great thing about time, though, is that it just keeps moving on; someday we'll sit down over a campfire and share all that transpired between the last camping trip and the roadtrip RDB and I are on this week, but for now, I think a quote from my favorite Martian is enough to sum it all up:

"Things didn't go exactly as planned, but I'm not dead, 

so I'll take that as a win."

What did go as planned was packing our bags, jumping in JOY and getting the first half of this year's 10th Anniversary PostCARds Across Texas Miata Challenge completed along the way to a destination RDB and I have been wanting to visit for years now: Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

We left out Saturday morning and got #3 on the list - Brenham - and opted to grab the "choose your own adventure" #10 - Austin - before stopping for dinner at Salt Traders in Zilker Park. If you find yourself in south Austin hankering for a REALLY good fish dinner, this is your place.  And for someone who doesn't normally like fish to say it was comfort food is saying something! (Click here for my full review)

Sunday morning we pointed the car towards Odessa to spend the afternoon with L&M and grabbed #2 - Oatmeal - along the way. Not exactly a postcard, but I didn't design the list, so I'm not complaining... well, not too much at least!

Y'all know I have a thing for courthouses, so I couldn't help but ask RDB to stop whenever we passed thru a county seat.  Especially on this trip where we were going to hit so many out west in Texas, knowing that we might not be camping in those parts of the state anytime soon.

San Saba County

Sterling County

Glasscock County

Monday mid-day we made it into Carlsbad, New Mexico.  With a few hours of daylight left we made our way up to the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. 

It's a neat facility in that all the creatures there were either injured and rescued, unable to be rehabilitated, or were born in captivity and wouldn't survive in the wild.

We didn't stay too long, as the weather was turning cold and really windy.  Even the Bald Eagle was fluffing himself up to try to get some warmth!

Before we left, though, we did find one other fun thing - a geocache! Completely unexpected, I just happened to see the ammo box out of the corner of my eye and thought: I'd bet that's a cache. Sure enough, checked the app, and it was!

Tuesday, Valentine's Day, we made our way over to our main attraction: Carlsbad Caverns.  RDB and I have loved the other caves we've had a chance to explore on our camping trips, and a few that we've seen while not camping, but we always had Carlsbad on our list of must-dos. 

I'll tell you one thing - it takes the better part of a full day to really enjoy and explore the cave. From the mile-plus walk down the natural entrance, to the guided tour we took of the King's Palace, to the Big Room which is larger than SIX football fields(!) be prepared to stay a while.

The Natural Entrance and Main Corridor:

King's Palace Ranger Guided Tour:

The Big Room (Shortcut Version):

I have to give a BIG shout out to our tour guide for the King's Palace portion - Ranger Devan not only had technical knowledgable (a geology major in college) but he put an interesting spin on things (he also studied philosophy).  So, he took us on an adventure to look at rocks, and think things.  His story telling, and near theatrical performance at times, pulled us in and got us emotionally involved in the history of the cave, that destruction and beauty can occupy the same space, and the imagery of "water as paint, the rock as canvas, and Mother Nature and Time as the artists." 

Wednesday morning we started our trip back home, taking a longer northern route to get a few more of the postCARds for the Miata challenge.  This meant we had the chance to drive thru Roswell - and couldn't help but stop for a quick picture and lunch; the Mexican food place we found was out of this world! ;-)

Traveling along the dusty (and windy!) roads in eastern New Mexico was both beautiful and treacherous - you haven't lived until you've been in a tiny Miata trying to dodge tumble weeds the size of your car!

We happened along a two-fer when we drove thru the tiny town of Dimmit, Tx.  Both a beautiful postcard, AND the Castro County courthouse!

One more courthouse in Briscoe County before we settled in for the night at Hotel Turkey, a tiny Air B&B style hotel (we let ourselves in and found our key on the front desk) that boasts being nearly 100 years old (and being the only hotel even remotely close to our next postCARd in Quitaque.)

Thursday morning we got up and drove back over to Quitaque to grab a photo of the "welcome to" postcard. I'm telling y'all, at 35* and really strong wind, it was a COLD week to decide to take this road trip for these fun pictures!

Along the country roads heading towards our next stop, we passed another courthouse  - Childress County - right along the side of the road.  

We continued on down towards our last postCARd for this trip, in Decatur, Texas, and realized it was going to be another two-fer, too!  Both the mural AND the Wise County Courthouse!

Thursday evening found us in north Dallas at Ran-D's house for the night, along with a celebratory dinner at KAI for some excellent sushi.  The meal was outstanding and the service was second to none!

You might be wondering, What are we celebrating?  Well, last week I resigned from my job after 18 years with the company; it was an incredible journey and I know I made significant contributions to the business and to the people I had the privilege to work with.  And those of you following my blog for a while know that these last few months were some of the hardest with the restructuring of our business unit and the elimination of my leadership role; which lead me to looking for other opportunities...

Next week, I start a new position in leadership at another financial firm; I’ll have a physical office location to go to and coworkers to work alongside for the benefit of the clients we’ll serve.  I can't begin to say how excited I am to have this opportunity to continue to grow and to mentor and coach others again - something I absolutely fell in love with these past few years. 

This week, and this incredible roadtrip that RDB and I were able to take, was the in-between; I've felt untethered, mid-stride between my past and my future.

And it’s been ridiculously awesome.