Eclipse Road Trip, 2024
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This road trip would end out taking us 6,082 miles across the USA and back! We did so much on this trip, could never list everything below but here are some highlights.. mostly in order |
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| Our first night was spent in Tucson. Jack found a really fun hike in Sabino Canyon called the Seven Waterfalls Hike which was about 5-6 miles round trip. Fortunately, it had been raining recently and the waterfalls were happening. There were multiple river crossings on this hike and it was a challenge to keep the feet dry!. The trail goes no further than the falls. Following this hike, we drove to Las Cruces, NM and then into Texas. | |||
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We visited the towns of Marpha and Alpine, TX on the 27th, cute places, lots of art galeries and old historical buildings. |
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And, after some very long driving through Texas we reached Big Bend National Park. We stayed in the town of Terlingua and because there were no high capacity car chargers in the area, we chose to stay at the Paisano RV Park. We had Tessie all set up for car camping and each evening, we would plug into the RV power post and easily top off the car with electricity. The RV park had restrooms, showers and the manager had no issue with us sucking tons of juice from the grid each evening. Since the car uses a heat pump for heating and cooling, we could set it in "Camping Mode" at a certain temperature and would be comfortable all night! |
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One very fun and short (2 mile) hike is called Santa Elena Canyon. Here, you hike right along the Rio Grande river into the Santa Elena canyon. View below was taken looking out of the canyon where the trail starts |
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On the right of this image below, you will see Barb at the end of the trail. Wanna go further?, put on your swim suit. The Rio Grande is the border line between the US and Mexico. The center of the river is the true border. |
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As you may have noted above, the canyon opens up and not much further down, the river is only a stream. We found a rock crossing to take us into Mexico! No customs stations, no big wall, no drones overhead, and no park rangers blowing whistles at us. Just hopped across the rocks and we didn't even get our feet wet. Returning back to the US was also uneventful, with no passport required and no long lines to get across. In fact, we were the only ones who crossed, ha ha. |
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We were in Big Bend NP for three full days, hiking each day and even then, we only got a taste of this huge park. It covers 1,252 square miles of land, larger than the state of Rhode Island. And, there are not a lot of roads but there are many trailheads! Some of our hikes were to Tuff Canyon Overlook, Burro Spring Trail, the popular Lost Mine trail, and one really big loop trail called the South Rim trail. It took us from the visitors center and back covering 12 miles with many sights along the way and a beautiful vista about halfway (shown below). |
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Presidential Libraries: Time to move on. We drove through Big Spring TX and hiked around their really cool park where the big spring is, drove through Dallas where we visited the G.W. Bush Library, checked out the little town of Paris, TX where we planned to be for the eclipse. Then headed further East to Little Rock, AR and visited the Clinton Library. |
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Barbs cousin Paul and his husband Jim live in Memphis, TN, and hey, we were already in Arkansas so why not shoot over for a quick visit. Only 150 miles away. Memphis has a lot to offer. Of course there is the Elvis property but also some good suburban hiking, a tour of Sun Records (which we did) and a huge pyramid shaped building that sells sporting goods (Bass Pro Shops). We mean, really huge with hotel rooms, restaurants and lots of shopping. It has pools and aquariums with fish and even a pool with live crocodiles! That evening we had dinner at a fun retro restaurant called The Beauty Shop. It conjures up images of a ‘50s-style beauty shop and was formerly Priscilla Presley's curl-and-dye spot. |
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It was now April 4th, four days before the eclipse. Unfortunately, along most of the entire path of totality the weather looked sucky, with lots of cloud cover. It would be a big disappointment to drive all this way and only see it get dark for 4 minutes with the sun behind thick clouds. By studying a number of weather forecast sites, we decided to drop the plan for Paris Texas and head North toward Columbus, Ohio. There should be a small area of clear skies up there. We "All Shook Up"! |
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By April 6th, we decided the best place to be for the eclipse would be the small city of Vincennes, IN., about 300 miles SW of Columbus. It was founded in 1732 as a French fur trading post and is the oldest city in the state. It is the home of Vincennes University. We chose it because of the weather outlook, the fact that it was right on the center line of totality, and it was not too large of a city. Also, it was well distanced from population centers and had decent roads in and out (post eclipse traffic can be really ugly). It turned out to be an excellent choice! The eclipse movie is special in itself. It is 9 minutes long. This was our third total solar eclipse and everything was perfect. The 4 minute+ eclipse was spectacular and at the end of totality, we jumped in the car and headed toward Kentucky. |
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You could see the prominence with the naked eye (at 6:30 in the image below)! |
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Why go to Kentucky? Well, we can't resist doing cave tours and Kentucky has one of the most famous cave systems in the US, Mammoth Cave National Park. Plus, from Vincennes to Mammoth Caverns was only 170 miles. The following day, we toured two other private cave systems in the area, Diamond Caverns and Crystal Onyx Caverns. Mammoth is well, mammoth! Different tours take you to different parts and if you go, reserve your tours in advance and expect lots of people. |
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........................................................................................Phone Home |
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April 10th and we were now heading home. We crossed the mighty Mississippi and followed a good stretch of the historic route 66. Two really great stops were #1 the Museum of Osteology (bones) in Oaklahoma City, OK and #2 Peterfied Forest National Park in Arizona, west of Gallup, NM. The bone museum had skeletons of just about every animal you could imagine: Bats, sea otters, whales, monkeys, snakes and even humans. Well worth a visit if you pass through OK City. |
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| Here you see the bones of Toucans and the world's largest bat, with a wingspan up to 5 feet, the Giant Flying Fox. A very fascinating place! | |||
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The Peterfied Forest National Park is on route 40, between Gallup and Flagstaff. It was simply awesome. We stayed in the nearby town of Holbrook, AZ, and spent two days here. We could have spent more. |
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Years in the past, this area (then called Pangea) was at 10 degrees North Latitude, similar to where Costa Rica is today. It was a lush forest. The trees were washed down rivers and created log jams then covered with volcanic ash and silt. Over the years, like 200 million years, minerals like quartz replaced the cell structures and turned them into these rock like mineralized trees. |
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Unlike most of the visitors, we did some deep hikes into the park and marvelled at both the geology and the ancient fallen trees that are now "agatized" |
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As you might imagine, this park has a problem with visitors taking souvineers. You can purchase real petrified forest / rocks at a big store not far from the park in Holbrook. These rocks are harvested nearby on private lands. Of course, we bought some! This was a really fun trip. We arrived home the next day, April 17th after 24 days "on the road". You still here? |
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Links: Main Page, , Eclipse Movie, Oregon Road Trip, Bear Movie |
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