Touring Texas

THREE DAYS OFF

First day we drove to a spring in Texas at the foot of the Apache Mountains. We arrived some time in the middle of the night, so we awoke to the most beautiful an amazing swimming hole I have ever seen. Springing right out of a limestone faultline at 1 million gallons per hour. That’s right, ONE MILLION GALLONS per HOUR, this artesian spring could fill the 3.5 MILLION GALLON POOL in less than four hours! The water was crystal clear, deep blue like the Mediterranean, and there were a few endangered species of fish swimming around in there. This is the only place on the planet where they live, and the locals are trying to secure their habitat. That was a real nice way to start the day.

After a leisurely morning & breakfast by Tallboy & Dick Whiskey, we drove to the Guadalupe Mountains, about 30 miles south of the Carlsbad Caverns. Upon arriving, I started feeling not so good in the belly. Seems the unforeseen self-fulfilling prophecy in the name “Mad Wretching Spam Boat” was about to be fulfilled. Within 30 minutes of starting to feel not so good, I had full blown miserable nausea & the accompanying diarrhea. I thought I could hold in the demon by taking some Chinese pill culing & hiding in one of the bunks, but ultimately, I had to give in to the evacuation process & hit the nearby portalet with the double barrel. NOT SO FUN! Needless to say I didn’t sleep a whole lot that night, didn’t eat anything for a while after, and was perplexed by what the heck could’ve started it.

I felt surprising well the next morning for sustaining such a violent experience for 10-13 hours. I stuck to the liquid diet the next day, water & miso as we toured the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. That place is really indescribably amazing. If you ever have a chance, you have to go there. I have been to almost every single one of this beautiful country’s national parks and those caves may in fact be the best. I took some pics, but they don’t really do it justice. It is like an underground cathedral, sooo haunting & reverent at the same time. Truly a spectacle to be experienced in this lifetime.

Tallboy thought that experiencing the spectacle with a beer in his hand would add to his experience. The rangers, unfortunately, did not. They gave him a slap on the wrist, escorted him out, and then gave him a $150 ticket! WOOPS!

Once we gathered the last stragglers out of the caverns, we hightailed it to our next camping destination, the Bottomless Lake. The locals said that it is so deep & has an underwater river running through it that divers keep getting swept away in, so they had to grate off the entrance through the underwater caves. Luckily for us, none of us had diving equipment. Topher just wanted to jump over it, fortunately, and didn’t get sucked away in the bottomless current.

After a refreshing morning swim & breakfast, we high-tailed it to Santa FE NM & the Santa Fe Brewery for an all ages show. We had a great turn-out, but my newly sickened body was not so ready for the jump in altitude, the adrenaline of performing & I shore didn’t feel so well. BUT, the show must go ON, right, so I bucked Up & played! By the time we were done with the performance, which by the way was great & the audience was a big part of that, Topher had come down with the Mystery Monster!