4.5 days of rain. A lot of rain. Now on to the desert.
Day 7, June 3, 2016 – Leg 1: Dallas, TX to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM – 463 Miles
We had a bright and early start to the morning with yet another day of driving in the pouring rain. The morning was pretty uneventful aside from me cursing the rain gods. We finally saw the sun somewhere in west Texas.
We were stupidly amazed by the windmills. It may have just been the tediousness of being in the car all morning – not real sure. But we took about 50 pictures of the windmills and all three of us were way too excited about seeing them. Therefore, I must share our excitement in the form of multiple windmill pictures. For your viewing pleasure below is a sample…
After what felt like an eternity, we finally arrived in New Mexico! As I was trying to capture the perfect picture in front of the New Mexico sign with my selfie stick (on a pretty much empty road), Gillian exclaimed how embarrassing we were. Another point for my mom scorebook!
Gillian, Melisa, & David crossing the New Mexico border
Our next stop was at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We had an amazing ride going in to the park, enjoyed a picnic lunch, and hiked down into the cave. It was breathtaking.
After a quick purchase in the gift shop it was time to hop back into the Explorer.
Day 7, June 3, 2016 – Leg 2: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM to Roswell, NM – 107 Miles
We didn’t have too bad of a drive for our second leg of the day. We made a quick stop for silly pictures at a trading post along the way.
As we were driving along, out of the corner of my eye I saw this:
For some of you, this is probably insignificant. So, let me explain. David and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon and had a stop in Mexico. After a GREAT time on an open bar boat excursion, with multiple conga lines with tequila at the end, we went shopping. Long story short, we came home with a gorgeous, hand painted Mexican sink! Yes, we are the only people on Earth that go on a honeymoon and come back with a sink.
Unfortunately, when we got home, we realized we had nowhere to put the sink. It sat in a box for eight long years until we were finally doing some home remodeling. Just so happens, at the point when our contractors were about ready to work on our master bathroom, we were going on a another cruise with a stop in Mexico… Yes, we bought a second sink so we each had one.
We were so excited about our sinks, but when we got home we realized they did not match AT ALL – when we were purchasing the second sink, we swore we remembered what the original looked like. We went with it anyway and installed both sinks (and a couple of lizards) in our new master bath. Unfortunately, during installation, the contractors cracked the original we bought on our honeymoon. David was able to make it work, but to this day it is still cracked.
Enter today, June 3, 2016 – we drove by this little store, I spotted out of the corner of my eye, and I said something along the lines of, “Aww that store has sinks like ours.” David literally did a u-turn in the middle of the street and went back to the store. Needless to say, we are now the proud owners of THREE hand-painted, Mexican sinks! All from various vacations over a 13 year period of time.
David & Melisa – so proud of the new sink
Onward to the home of aliens and UFOs.
We finally made it to our hotel in Roswell and were starving. After some quick pics with aliens, we walked next door to a Mexican restaurant. We did a little birthday celebration at dinner for Gillian since my baby girl turns 13 tomorrow!!
Another adventurous day for the Griswolds… oops, I mean Fuhrmeisters.
therealmissmel 
Absolutely LOVE this blog!! Stacy askes me to read it to him every time you post. Thanks for sharing this journey!! Safe travels friends!! And Happy Birthday to Miss Gillian!!
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