Texas & New Mexico

This morning we continued driving across northern Texas, stopping at the headquarters of the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Fritch, Texas. Most of the towns we drove through looked like they had seen better days; my guess was that they were oil towns that had expanded in the early 80's and declined in the 90's when the price of oil fell. We were hoping to visit the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, but weren't able to, as it is an archeological site, and there were no tours scheduled for the day. There is a visitor center, but it's closed in the off-season. However, we were able to to pick up a Jr Ranger program for both the Lake Meredith NRA and the Alibates Flint Quarries NM at the headquarters.

Once the kids earned their badges, we drove out to the lake, but there wasn't much to see. The lake was formed when a dam was built on the Canadian River back in the 60's, and it's surroundings are sparsely vegetated.

We left Texas and entered New Mexico, reaching Albuquerque after lunch. We had seen patches of snow on the ground in Oklahoma and Northern Texas, but as we approached Albuquerque, the fields were covered. Petroglyph National Monument is located on the western edge of Albuquerque, and contains the largest concentration of Indian Petroglyphs in the US. Basically it's a bunch of rocky hills that Indians carved symbols on. The visitor center was pretty small, with very few exhibits and no movie, and the Jr Ranger program mostly consisted of word searches and scrambles, that could be completed anywhere.  

After completing the booklets, we drove up to one of the canyons, and took a short hike to see some of the petroglyphs. We then drove to Grants, where we stopped for the night.