Buffalo Gap, Texas

Buffalo Gap, Texas is somewhat of a ghost town.  At one point in the 1800's it had a population of about 1,000.  The population is now 453.  They have taken the old buildings that have stayed as is and fenced them all in so visitors could see what it was like at different periods.  I'm sure some of the buildings have been moved to keep them together, there were 18 buildings.

This is the house of a family who lived there in the late 1800's.  It was neat because you could go into the buildings too.

This is the back porch of the house.

This is one of the original log cabins, average size, really small.

This is a dentist office from the 1920's.  My mouth hurt just looking at the instruments.

The barber shop was interesting.

Here is the train station.

I think I'll buy a ticket and leave town.

This one is kind of self explanatory.  The tools and furniture they had in these buildings were awesome.  It really reminds us of how far we've come and how differently people lived then.

There was a carriage barn with several carriages and an old car.

.

The farm equipment was interesting, especially for a farmer's daughter like me.

This cat came from nowhere.  She let me pet her, then started following Don everywhere.

The school house, I remember these seats when I was in grade school, scary.

An old gas station, you should see the pumps.  Note the cat following Don.

This was the Post Office, remember these signs noting that a telephone booth was inside?

Look at that old telephone in the booth with the old bi-fold door.

This was the court house which also housed a jail upstairs.  At one point Buffalo Gap was the county seat.

These are some little know facts about goats, if you enlarge it you can read it.

I took this picture for you Paul, look at the chicken next to the baby goat.

When I got out of the car the goats came right up to the fence.

When we got back, we were just in time so Don could watch the race.

Back in Texas

After going through the Guadalupe Mountains, we stayed on 180 right back into Texas.

We saw a bunch of these oil well pumps.

I almost missed that one.  Sometimes there were a bunch of them in a row.

We saw many in plowed fields.  The fields were all different shades of red.  Some were plowed and others were ready to be plowed.  You could see dried stalks, some still had some cotton left on them.  This is to show the color of the soil.

Then we started seeing a bunch of these wind turbines.

There were so many of them for so many miles.  See the cotton left in the field?

Last month we saw someone transporting a piece going to a wind turbine, one third of the base, and it was some long.

They were awesome to see.

Then we started seeing cattle, bunches of them.  I even saw some long horns but didn't see them quick enough to snap a picture.

New Mexico

Here we are in New Mexico

At the base of this mountain you can see the city of Las Cruces.

Here is a pecan farm.

We crossed into Texas at El Passo but took Route 180 back into New Mexico so we could go through Guadalupe Mountains.  This looks like the road goes right over this mountain, but it really doesn't.  That's a dirt road.

The road just twists and turns around the mountains.

We reached flat land and we can see the road ahead for miles.  See the prarie dotted with houses here and there.

We drove through Salt Flat, Texas.  Here's a picture of the salt deposits from a dried salt lake.

This is where we started seeing the most interesting peak of the Guadalupe Mountains.  We were trying to decide if that bottom white cloud at the top of the mountain range was actually a cloud or the top of the mountain.

As we got closer, we could see it was the top of the mountain, it's so white compared to the rest of the mountain range.

As we got to the other side, as any mountain does, it took on a different shape.

This is just incredible, pictures do not do it justice.

And again, another view.

As we're traveling through this beauty (for the past 2 months) I remind myself of how incredibly lucky we are to be able to do this.  This has been the dream we have worked for for years, and here we are.

There are 2 motorcycle riders to help you put the size into perspective.

Wilcox, AZ

We went exploring today, I'm really obsessed with the beautiful skies our here.

So call me crazy.

I was facinated with the sky, but I still noticed this sign.  Guess where we headed.

I was surprised to see a vineyard in Arizona.

What a neat find this was.  They had a large room with tables, a large bar and a gift shop.  I guess they have weddings there.  That was taken from the bar looking into the gift shop.  And of course I had to try a few wines.  They had me taste one that goes great with dark chocolate.  That was a "gotta have", along with the chocolate.

The entrance almost looked like a wine cellar.

We also found a local place to have some B-B-Q briskett and spare ribs.  Very big down here.

That red part is an old railroad car.  It looked like an actual old dining car on the inside. Quite quaint.