Guadalupe Mountains National Park

     This morning I had to travel to Dell City to do some work for the newspaper so I planned a trip for all of us. Once we got to Dell City we went to get gas at the Napa. Stephen went in to pay and the man inside came out and pumped our gas for us... When was the last time you got that kind of treatment?
     I went to the school to interview the seniors for the Senior Yearbook portion of the newspaper. As soon as I finished we headed up to the highest point in Texas, the Guadalupe Mountains. On the way there we came to an area called Salt Flats. We discovered what could possibly be the last working payphone. Bruce had to check it out...

         We continued on our trip and came to the bottom of El Capitan, the highest point in the state. This was one trip Bruce and Virginia would never forget. We were creating memories together. I was surprised when we stopped to view the valley below and Bruce took off on his own hike to a nearby canyon. The exercise he has gotten from the past few trips has been good for him and he says that after days like that he sleeps all night long. Stephen and I are hoping that living his life like this will really help him get better and have more memories since he really has not done much since he retired.
It was a cool day and with wind in the mountain pass everyone had to thow on  long sleeved shirts and sweaters. Stephen got really cold before he realized that it wasn't going to get warmer.

    

         We traveled all through the Guadalupe Mountains National Park so that Bruce and Virginia could see the beauty of Texas. Even in areas that I thought Bruce could not go, he surprised me. He wants to see the world and the way he is going I think he will. We hiked in so he could see the old stage coach ruins...

                                
         After that hike we traveled a bit further down the road so we could see the old Frijole Ranch. It's natural spring ran through a building where it was used to cool a room for storing food and dairy products. The place was very pretty, a home I would have liked to live in while I was growing up. There was also an old school house where they paid teachers $30.00 per month to teach about 6 students. Can you imagine?
                   

     

     Bruce said his leg was starting to hurt him. He has a lot of scar tissue from when he had to be treated for cancer. Stephen, Virginia and I decided to give him a break and we headed off on a hike of our own. We went into McKintrick Canyon and hiked through an old river bed. Virginia had a great time and I was surprised at how far she hiked. We got some more great pictures and funny memories of her silly mood. When we returned we watched a video with Bruce about the area and learned alot about the things growing in the canyon as well as the geology of it all. It was a great experience.  

       After all of that we had a picnic. The food was very refreshing and energizing. We had bananas, carrot sticks, celery, mexican squash, diced ham, homemade corn/bean dip, totilla chips, boiled eggs, garlic crackers with cream cheese, and the guys had sardines. Blah!

       We took another tour of the mountains by taking the long way home once more so we could capture the amazing views. Here are a few more pictures from the trip.