Texas & New Mexico 5 Day Road Trip: Caves, Aliens, Ghost Towns & National Parks

after route 66 and the loneliest road videos were such a hit on the channel my dad and i decided to try to do one road trip a quarter and share it with all of you for this trip we wanted to visit some of the national parks that neither of us had been to so we headed to west texas and southeast new mexico for an epic five-day road trip along the way we saw ghost towns sand dunes caves aliens and the stunning texas landscape here's a full video of that adventure and thanks again for encouraging these trips with the views and subscribes on this channel it's truly been a highlight of the last few years for both my dad and i you guys remember my dad we're starting another road trip this time we're leaving from el paso and we're going to spend five days exploring the western part of texas let's do it to begin this trip we flew into the city of el paso and spent a day and a half exploring it i'm only going to touch on the main things here as you can watch my full video on el paso if you're interested first stop on our trip to el paso chicos i asked some friends about what to do in el paso and one of the first recommendations was chico's this fast food spot is historic and basically an institution in the city i'll let you decide if it's worth a stop though from there we headed over to la casa de asucar also known as the sugar house this beautiful private residence was created by one man and you can walk around the outside be sure to leave a donation if you visit though what do you think pups it's amazing that this man did this all himself over a 24 year period it's just beautiful we even got a chance to chat with the artist who was outside working while we were there and it's definitely a must-see spot in el paso as you no doubt know if you follow this youtube channel we try to cram in as many things as we possibly can on a road trip in any given day so for our third stop we headed over to utep the university of texas el paso i was interested in visiting the bhutanese temple lacong so we walked around the outside even though it wasn't open when we were there after walking around the campus and exploring a little bit more we headed off to downtown el paso downtown el paso is full of history and you definitely want to make sure you walk by the plaza theater and hotel while you're there of course the main spot to visit is san jacinto plaza right in the middle of downtown el paso look what we found in el paso yeah you wouldn't expect to see crocodiles after researching it some more apparently there used to be alligators that lived in this pond in downtown el paso from 1880s to the 1960s they were eventually removed but there's lots of funny stories about the alligators that you can read online such as them visiting local bars and things like that it's great to see this statue embracing the fun part of el paso's history right in the center of downtown if you want to visit more while you're down there you can also visit the museum of art which is right next to the plaza moving on from downtown we drove along the u.s mexico border on our way to lnj cafe for dinner it was a long wait but you could put in your phone number and get a text when your table was ready so we headed out to the scenic drive which is pretty close to lnj cafe the scenic drive was my favorite thing i did in el paso it doesn't take long to do and it brings you up to an amazing overlook for the entire city of el paso there's a small parking lot there but people come and go relatively quickly so it's not too hard to find a spot this is probably the best spot we've been in el paso so far pretty good view of the city and you can see juarez in the background i'm told that this area gets especially popular at sunset though so it may be harder to find a parking spot then the view over the city is pretty incredible and it's cool that you can see all the way into mexico from up here on our way down the other side of scenic drive we also stopped at tom lee upper park which provides a different vantage point of downtown el paso that's also great after that we got a notification that our table was ready and we headed back to lnj cafe ellen j cafe has been in el paso since 1927 and it's the fourth generation of the family that still runs it i'm not even joking when i say it's one of the best meals i've had in recent memory definitely get the green chili chicken enchiladas with onions egg and sour cream you can thank me later yeah that's incredible it's a winner that's fabulous wow amazing my dad and i liked it so much that we ate it again when we came back to el paso to fly home back in the hotel after exploring el paso tomorrow we start the road trip and we head towards las cruces we're starting our second day first stop coffee whenever i travel i always try to find cool coffee shops and this is definitely a good one cool little coffee shop right next to the school now we're heading on to waco tanks waco tanks is a popular park about 45 minutes from downtown el paso i didn't get a pass in advance so we weren't able to visit but we visited at the end of the trip due to coronavirus restrictions we're not actually able to go inside of waco tanks so on to our next stop las cruces leaving el paso we began the drive to las cruces and messiah with the end goal being white sands national park [Music] we're south of las cruces at la posta which is one of the oldest and most recognized mexican restaurants in the southwest la posta is an amazing historic mexican restaurant in messiah that sits in a building that was once a butterfield stagecoach stop the restaurant began in 1939 and to this day it has become a staple for new mexican food that people come from all over to try check it out there's fish and parrots i said hello to you this one hello all right this place is incredible but let's see how the food is okay sounds great i'm glad to say that this is an easy recommendation if you're in the area the mexican food was amazing the historic restaurant was just cool and the servers were happy to tell us all about the history so this is the green enchilada the folded taco and the chili rienna la posto lived up to expectations that was an absolutely awesome restaurant and really good food this building once housed the capital of arizona and new mexico and it's where billy the kid was tried and sentenced to hang less than a block from the restaurant is the historic plaza de macia the billy the kids store on the outskirts is definitely fun to check out but you'll want to spend some time in the historic plaza de masia this central downtown plaza has been a meeting area for centuries and it's a popular spot to this day for farmers markets and for people to hang out from there was only a quick drive to one of the things pops was most excited to see pops it's the largest chili pepper in the world i'm home i want to see the largest chili pepper that is the largest chili pepper that's amazing are you ready for this we are at the largest chili pepper in the world this is the first time i've seen popsa make a selfie video on this entire trip he really likes the chili pepper that is a pretty pretty gigantic chili pepper i'm not really sure the history of this spot but i'm guessing it was designed to be a roadside attraction and to bring people into the motel they told us inside that it was 47 feet long how do you beat this spot in las cruces don't miss it leaving the chili pepper we headed to downtown las cruces but there wasn't really anything going on and everything was pretty much closed so we walked around a little bit and then headed on to white sands national park it's about 45 minutes to get to white sands national park from here this is one of the points of interest in the las cruces area it's where pat garrett was killed so we thought we would stop and take a look at the sign on the way to white sands first view of white sands national park we made it to white sands national park we're going to get a sled and go explore white sands became a national monument in 1933 and then a national park in 2019 it's the most visited national park in new mexico the two top things to do here are to sled and to hike drinks food and sleds you could buy a sled for around twenty dollars when i was there and then they buy it back from you for four dollars thank you i'm sure it's a lot cheaper if you bring your own sled but we didn't think about that before we entered the park we're now waiting to enter the park pops are gonna go sledding nope no problem probably not we'll see i'll check it out the main area of white sands has one road and it's 16 miles round trip there are four major hikes in this park and we did all of them but in this video i'm just covering the basics so watch the full white sands video in the description pups is getting ready for our hikes with his knee braces the first trail we did in the park was the playa trail which is a short half mile round trip to a dry lake bed our second trail was the dune life nature trail which is basically across the street from the playa trail [Music] this is our second trail of the park it's the dune life nature trail it's about one mile round trip this hike begins with a flat walk from the parking area to a relatively steep 20-foot hill that takes you up to the dunes [Music] so it feels like there should be an ocean on the other side of the sand it looks like beach sand so we're just following these markers around the top of the dunes look at how cool the lines on the sand are this trail is a great introduction trail at the national park and it's good for a whole family if you don't want to do anything too intense there's lots of interpretive plaques here and it's easy to follow the trail as you make your way around the dunes that being said if you really want to experience the park and you have time for a longer hike then the alkali flats trail is the best trail in the park [Music] it's only 70 degrees today but it is warm out here they say that the sun reflects off of the sand i can confirm that's true after completing the trail we made our way back to the car and headed on to our next spot in white sands [Music] just the drive out to the next spot is pretty incredible as it takes you right through the dunes we are here halfway this is our third trail of the day the inner dune boardwalk trail the boardwalk trail is less than a half mile round trip and it's an elevated boardwalk that takes you through the dunes with a nice canopy section that's shaded if you need a break there are also mini interpretive plaques on this trail as well to tell you about the surrounding area [Music] this is a really excellent spot for people who use wheelchairs you can get right out in the middle of the dunes and really feel it now it's time to get pops on the sled as you leave this trail the pavement ends and you're driving on sand through the entire back loop we had a low clearance two-wheel drive car and it was no problem to get through the sand in this section it's like a cloud of sand as soon as we got off the road once you get to this back area you'll basically see people everywhere and you just need to find a good hill that you can do some sledding on got our wax he acts like he knows what he's doing he has no idea what he's doing just putting wax on the bottom what else looks pretty waxy here we go first ride i think i might need a little bit more wax he claims his weak run was due to insufficient wax you said he didn't even get it i don't even know if it's even gonna make any difference maybe you need a skill set he doesn't have after figuring out the whack situation dune sledding is absolutely amazing [Music] ah that was better a little faster i thought you just said it didn't need any we'll play the wax this is how you're supposed to do it watch let's see if pops can even make it to the top of the hill the worst part is definitely having to walk back up each time in the sand i missed the bottom where it fell off it's the hardest part [Music] waxing it up for the last run of the day i'm freaking exhausted it's a lot harder to climb that hill than you think it's so fun to see all the people and families around you just enjoying going down the dunes on their sled some of the people we talked to have been here for the entire day and we're only leaving because the park was going to close later it's definitely a very unique experience to have in a national park and one that my dad and i both really enjoyed putting away our sled that was absolutely awesome if you have a family you definitely want to plan a half day for doing sledding but we're going to go do a hike from our sledding area we drove around the back loop and made it to the alkali flat trail which was our last trail of the day this trail is not flat you will be hiking hard up and down dunes the entire way sounds like an adventure five mile loop three hours we're heading out on our third and final trail of the day alkali flats trail five miles around trip and then pops is gonna hit that steep hill at the end i'm excited about this yeah you're going to do the top hike in white sands national park yeah i think that we just got to follow those posts it's already beautiful out here i got about an hour and a half till sunset but it's really soft and pretty if you've never hiked in sand before then definitely don't underestimate this trail there's a lot of ups and downs over small hills and it definitely takes a toll on you as you're hiking through the deep sand [Music] we're starting to get away from people so you can see that some of those dunes out there look like they might be a little bit more untouched [Music] even though the elevation profile is relatively flat you can see there's another decent sized uphill right there as we proceeded back and continued to climb the small hills we got away from all other people and it was just my dad and i hiking out in the sand dunes i say i love the shadows out there just so often they definitely are these uphill stretches are no joke at two and a half miles we made it over the last dune and headed to the turnaround point for this hike it's crazy that there's all these dunes right out here and then we've basically reached the end of the dunes right here so we've reached the end of the trail and i think on this side of the sign is the missile testing area way out there you wanna go to the missile testing area i think i'd rather not then it's two and a half miles back in the sand only halfway through the trail all right we are leaving the end of the trail two and a half miles back we got about an hour before the sun goes down and we got to exit the park hopefully we'll get a good sunset on the way back one interesting note about this area is that it's the largest gypsum dune field in the world gypsum normally gets dissolved with water but because of how dry the climate is here it actually stays and is able to collect which forms the dune field check it out me and pops are the only people out here wow it's also completely silent [Music] i try to take as many videos and photos as i can but honestly the only way to experience this sunset is to be here in white sands and to see it for yourself as we continue to make our way back to the trailhead the sun was setting and it was one of the best sunsets i've ever seen in a national park look at the color out here now it's like cotton candy skies there's some pink over there as the sun's going down there's some orange some more pink and orange over there puffs we made it back five miles in the sand parking lot is right over the ridge so that was a tough hike there's no way around it that being said it is an absolutely amazing national park hike especially if you pair it with sunset like we did it's just incredible people walk all the way over the dunes to where they end and then to come back and watch the sun setting on the sand definitely really cool experience to have a national park what do you think pops incredibly beautiful both the sand itself and then if you're able to stay for a sunset the sunset is beyond compare it's a 360 sunset it's amazing after getting back to the trail and removing all the sand from my shoes from the hike i decided i couldn't leave white sands without hitting the big sled hill right next to where we parked all right so we had this epic hill right by our car and we got to get out of here but couldn't resist one more sled night time sledding [Music] all right our time in white's hands is done we're heading back to the hotel that's the end of day two starting the day with plateau coffee and we're heading to roswell with a few stops along the way we spent the night in the town of alamogordo and we saw a sign for the world's largest pistachio so of course that was our first stop the next day world's largest pistachio here we come [Music] that is a very large pistachio the store wasn't open when we went so it was a quick stop unfortunately that's as close to the pistachios we get today on to the next spot our destination was roswell new mexico but we headed up the mountains on highway 82 which is the long way around as there was a bridge i wanted to see in the lincoln national forest it ended up being a beautiful drive and i definitely recommend it so pops doesn't really ever find anything for our trip but he found this thing the mexican canyon trestle and look at that i'd say that's good enough for one for this trip i added the snow too just for photographic effect this trestle was added to the national register of historic places in 1979 and it's one of the best preserved structures from the alamogordo and sacramento mountain railway which ran from 1899 to 1949. this sign shows how dangerous this trestle was because if i go too slow the logs fall off if i go too fast the cars fall off and there's a picture of a car that's falling off and a picture of a train on the actual trestle this path shows the route through the mountains so we are right here at the mexican canyon trestle but there was a lot of other dangerous spots as they made their way down the road to alamogordo where we stayed last night it looks like there's a little path down might be kind of steep but not too bad i love old bridges and this one is pretty amazing the path down here was slippery so do take it slow it was a little bit too sketchy for my dad who stayed at the top i just took a bunch of pictures and then hit it back up that's the way that i came down but there's actually a real path right here saying goodbye to the trestle and we're on our way to roswell [Music] saw a sign for cold apple cider so we had to stop plus they have a camel here so that's cool too runyon farms is a great roadside stop that's a fruit stand and a petting zoo they exist as a rescue zoo that takes animals in and then rehabs them and tries to re-home them pretty epic bathrooms for a road trip right next to all these animals in that lake down there sorry guys i don't have anything to feed you guys [Music] such a fun little road trip spot plus they make their own apple cider here it's really good that looks like one wise goat right there i can't tell which one's pops [Music] one of my favorite things to do on road trips with pops is make him stick his head in the cardboard cutouts pops this one look exactly like you [Applause] awesome road trip stop if you find yourself driving through the area definitely check it out from there was another 45 minutes or so to roswell new mexico we have made it to roswell first stop the welcome to roswell sign and uh this poor alien spacecraft that needs a jump start i love that people are giving them a pie showing the nice hospitality that we have what's wrong with this lady's pie pups is helping to uh jump start the alien spacecraft welcome to roswell i'm not gonna lie i'm pretty excited to explore roswell i love this type of gimmicky stuff are you excited about roswell are you gonna be lame like you were in uh your uranus missouri this is different than that this is different than uranus this is actually very cool i'm not sure i'm a believer but this is really fun and they have my truck i have that truck you could be helping the aliens that's right as you enter roswell you'll be greeted with the welcome to roswell sign and aliens outside of basically every storefront in downtown [Music] upon arriving in downtown roswell we parked by the international ufo museum and research center which is the main spot that people visit when they come to the city from there we explored the alien street lights and the different shops that were around the museum [Music] since i'm making a video during the times of covid i feel like i had to go big alien face mask following the alien prince to the space walk after visiting a few shops we headed over to the ufo spacewalk adventure which ended up being my favorite place in roswell they even offered us blasters to take with us through the experience and protect ourselves from aliens oh i'll do this one yeah what you got pups does yours work or no nice all right pops you got your gun let's go they're welcoming that's it you don't want to shoot those guys [Music] i here got you [Music] so crazy [Music] boss did you get the aliens i'm getting them this gun is epic this place is really a lot of fun they do a beautiful job with black lighting and everything is just really fun oh no they got one of us it's pops pops has been turned into a cocoon needless to say based on these clips but the ufo spacewalk is a great family-friendly attraction in the roswell area pops and i had a blast exploring it i'm getting a new piece of alien memorabilia at each place we go to heading on only a block away brought us to our next extraterrestrial exhibit alien zone [Music] all right this is the main attraction of the store right here we're walking in to the alien photo area this entire back area are all little set pieces that you can stand in to take your photos it's an amazing experience for the whole family look you can cook a burger for an alien right here if i had to guess i'd say there's probably 20 or so of these individual set pieces that you can insert yourself into for photos this is just the type of goofy stuff that pops and i like to find when we're on road trips and we definitely spent time with each one of the exhibits taking photos motorcycle here with my buddy [Music] that's a system you know this is kind of not the typical bar i mean pops had a blast doing that definitely a good family-friendly thing to do in roswell pops was the one that left the store with something this time the space cowboy don't call me a space cowboy some call you a gangster of love yes from alien zone the last major thing we had to do in downtown roswell was to visit the international ufo museum and research center this is the main spot that tourists visit as we didn't see anyone at the space walk or alien zone but we saw dozens of people at this museum it's a great place to learn about the roswell incident and other ufo sightings around the united states photographic evidence of ufos [Music] this shows pictures of all of the faked sightings this one lampshade reflection through a window all of the different alien movies i would probably say my favorite is independence day was your favorite i think my favorite would be the first war of the worlds back from the 60s let us know what your favorite is in the comments this museum took over a movie theater so it's one big room with exhibits all around the sides it's actually pretty amazing to see how they put all these exhibits together and they trace some of the history that they say points to extraterrestrial life i'm not sure if they're saying all these guys are aliens or not every 30 minutes the exhibit in the middle has lights and smoke and all sorts of stuff and it's definitely worth sticking around to check it out while you're there after leaving the museum we explore the downtown area a little bit more before heading on to a few more stops in roswell the first being the ufo mcdonald's [Music] we don't usually eat mcdonald's on a road trip but when it's inside of a ufo we figured we had to do it for lunch [Music] heck yes the mcdonald's ufo they even have fries riding a spaceship this is by far the coolest mcdonald's i've ever been in we can't eat in here because of cobit but they let us come in and take some pictures really fun spot after exploring the inside be sure to go outside and see the mural as well so this mural on the outside of mcdonald's starts here and goes all the way down to the end when you leave the mcdonald's walk right next door to the dunkin donuts which also has a large alien holding up a sign right here we have dunkin alien and right here we have ufo mcdonald's pretty strong spot in roswell after leaving the duncan we went to a few more shops because i was trying to find a wooden carved alien to take home with me oh no pops is boarding the alien spacecraft where are you off to pops uranus we've made it to the invasion station they had them at this small shop on the outskirts of town and it's a great souvenir for my desk at home we figured since we were already here we might as well pop in the visitor center and make sure there was nothing that we missed in the visitor center they have a photo area and it prints out where you have to take a picture check it out so awesome on that note our time in roswell is done we are heading on to carlsbad for the night made it back to our hotel in carlsbad that's the end of day three leaving our hotel in carlsbad day four heading to carlsbad national park leave a vote in the comments if you think pops is going to go in the cave to start our adventure we left from the town of carlsbad which is about 25 minutes from carlsbad national park i plan to get there before they opened as i wanted to be on the first tour into the cave all right we made it at 7 45 there's already a pretty significant line so hopefully it doesn't take us too long to get on the tour because of covid regulations they were limiting the amount of people in the cave we were able to get the first time slot to enter [Music] so this is what we do we walk down the natural entrance and then you come into the cave all the way through the main corridor down into the big room down here and that is where you can take the elevator back up since we had a little bit of time to wait before we were able to enter the cave we walked around the visitor center and read about the exhibits on the cave itself and the bats that live in it so during the summer the bats fly out of the cave every night this photo i don't know if you can see it but look at all those bats coming out of the cave all right so it's about a five minute walk to the natural entrance this direction i'm gonna walk down there and then i'm able to go in at 8 30. after listening to a talk from the ranger about safety bats and the cave we were able to begin our journey into carlsbad caverns [Music] 66 switchbacks and 750 feet down into the cave below us check out all these bats i had seen photos of this area before and the long switchbacks to get down to the cave but there's something incredible about being able to walk down into this impressive cave yourself this is especially true as you get closer to the bottom and the light starts to fade from that single hole that it's coming in on [Music] i've officially made it into the cave [Music] we are now entering the dark zone since we're going away from the natural light of the cave and into the darkness [Music] a little bit of water in here and you can hear the drips during this part of the adventure i was basically just by myself walking down into the cave and looking at all the formations that kept popping out in front of me all that water down there this one is known as whale's mouth do you see it there's a lot of downhill you got a little switchback still even though i looked at the map before i came down here to see all the switchbacks and all the descent that we had to do to get to the cave i was still shocked by the fact that we just kept going down the cave never really felt claustrophobic because it's pretty much always big and open [Music] i'm sure the videos in this section don't really do it justice but you'll be blown away dozens of times when you're walking through the caverns since it's relatively dark most of the time i found it really cool to be able to see people in front of you using their flashlight as it helped you to understand the scale of the caverns [Music] man every turn it just keeps getting better this is incredible i don't know if you can see that but we are still going downhill during this part of the hike you're in a large main corridor as you continue to make your way farther down into the caverns i should note that i spent about three hours underground to do this entire thing we are here by iceberg rock the elevators are over here so we're actually pretty close to elevators i guess this rock right here is called iceberg rock iceberg rock actually fell into this area and they dated these things and think that it's over a half million years old that's iceberg rock right there that fell and then there's those things we're looking at after passing this area you'll cross about a mile and a quarter that you've already walked in the cave [Music] this is easily one of the most amazing national park experiences i've ever had because of covid there's no tour so you get to go by yourself and i basically have had this cave to myself the entire time they did let a group in about every 30 minutes but the cave's so big it never felt like there were any people who is this that we found pops i did not think he was coming in the cave good job pops wow it's worth it though right it's pretty amazing all right so we made it to the big room and then it's another mile and a quarter to get back to the elevator or you can just leave from here and you can go back up but we're gonna do the whole tour so 1.2 miles left to end of tour pops is just hanging out in the big room but he conquered one of his fears today so props we're going this way though 1.2 miles once you make it to the big room you're about halfway through your hike and you're about to experience what i thought was the most amazing part of the national park also if you don't feel like doing the hike to get here you can always just take the elevator down and just experience this section this video is never going to do justice to how amazing this area is but this is the big room that we're in crazy how massive it is and how many formations there are everywhere you look check it out that's the lag titans like might are almost connected wow look at what we're heading into oh my gosh i had no idea what to expect when i came into the big room i thought what i had seen already was impressive but this blew everything i had seen before it away i've been in a lot of caves in the united states and nothing even remotely compares to the big room i feel like when i'm in this cave i'm in like the lord of the rings this is just absolutely insane this next area of the big room we entered into was one of the best and it was called the hall of the giants this area is called fairyland and it definitely looks like fairyland with all this crazy stuff on the ground and then check out what's on the ceiling i had another place i was heading to in the afternoon so i didn't get to spend as much time in this area as i would like but honestly you could spend days down here and still not see everything it's absolutely overwhelming in a good way how much there is to experience all right we made it to the cut off area still have to go back to the bottomless pit and the top of the cross then out the elevator if you're on a time constraint from here you can actually cut across and head back to the elevator without doing the rest of the loop a little bit more water in the cave down here check out that old ladder they used to use i like caves but i don't think i would have gone in if it looked like that [Music] most of the big room area is wheelchair accessible there are a few sections you can't use a wheelchair in but the rangers in the visitor center can tell you all about that if you're coming with a wheelchair we have made it to the top of the cross and then the big room goes that way the top of the cross is a great area to just sit and relax and take in the cave there's lots of seating here and supposedly the area was named after the rock formations in the ceiling that the original discoverers thought looked like angels from here the next major point of interest was the bottomless pit you can't really see this it's way too dark but it is a crazy dark pit down there says these are massive blocks of gypsum which is the sand for white sands national park while this second portion of the big room after the bottomless pit is still cool it pales in comparison to the first section of the big room [Music] as you get closer to the elevator it opens back up again and you get to see some of the best formations from the other side it's crazy how many of these amazing formations they have in this cave as each of these by themselves could be a highlight in some of the other caves in the united states also just to state again this video will never do it justice you have to experience it for yourself i soaked in the last 10 minutes of my journey before getting in line and waiting for my turn to take the elevator back to the surface there's the route we just took absolutely awesome made it out of carlsbad caverns probably one of my top five if not top three national parks i've ever been to that was incredible definitely check it out now we're doing the four and a half five mile drive down towards big bend on the drive down towards big bend we passed guadalupe mountains national park i knew we weren't going to have much time to see it but we decided to stop off for one of the shorter trails just to spend a little time there the area we decided to explore was the historic frijole ranch bob's there's a natural spring here that does six gallons a minute it's kind of cool it comes right out in front of the house none of the buildings were actually open to go in but we stuck our head in a few windows and walked around the property this little tiny building right here was the school house we were heading out on the less than half mile manzanita springs trail we walked around a little bit on the manzanita springs trail and it definitely let me know that i need to come back to this national park in the future the main hike here takes you to the high point for the state of texas which is pretty cool as well that was a nice little half mile trail beautiful area to walk through i can't wait to come back here and explore some more of the national park but since we're heading to big bend that's about all we can see for this trip as we left the national park the drive was absolutely beautiful through the sparse texas landscape with different mountains sticking out in the distance after about an hour and a half we made it to our next destination in the prada marfa this is a prada store in the middle of nowhere supposedly those are real products in there and the glass is bulletproof to keep people from uh trying to break in and steal them yeah random roadside stop also it looks like people leave uh locks along the back as well this installation was installed in 2005 and believe it or not it was probably one of the busiest things we saw on our road trip both times we drove by tons of people were waiting to take photos pops you didn't even get out of the car for your favorite store prada yeah i got so much product i don't need any more we didn't need anymore from there was a long drive with basically no cell reception to our hotel interlingua we've made it to this is our hotel right here built in the early 1900s we're on the upstairs let's go check it out so we're on the upstairs of this hotel and this is our room mr perry's room the perry mansion was built by the owner of the nearby chisos mining company in 1909. this is his actual room that he stayed in while he was at the mansion thing is awesome looking out over the ghost town check it out pops this is pretty amazing now look out the window though do you approve i approve this is really fun this is a cool second building from the outside too it's set up on the hill so he could oversee everything going on around plus there's an awesome outdoor patio area that looks out over the historic mining district out there this is a really fun old spot we're gonna go explore the town a little bit more before grabbing dinner at the starlight theater hopefully it looked pretty busy when we walked by that's our room right there you can see how this area is a ghost town there's an abandoned building just right there and then that is the main downtown kind of area with the restaurant that everybody likes it was about a two hour wait for dinner so we put our name in that we took the time to explore the ghost town if you want to explore it be sure to grab a ghost town self-guided walking tour from one of the main downtown buildings this town was once home to over 2 000 people during the mining boom but it was abandoned in the 40s and then repopulated again in the 1970s it was actually one of the highlights for my dad and i it was a really cool town to explore the first spot we stopped at was the cemetery it has over 400 graves and the oldest is from 1903 [Music] as we continued to walk around we saw a property that was for sale and that had a boat and what looked like a submerged submarine yep this town has a boat this is our last stop in our little tour of the town it's uh the ruins on the other side of the cemetery exploring these ruins was pretty crazy to see and the walking tour said that this town used to have a butcher shop and an ice cream parlor and all sorts of other stuff when it was in its mining heyday i love that the town seemed like it was coming back to life but it still had all these ghost town elements right outside the main downtown area pretty crazy this is just like a preserved decay [Music] pops even found the remains of an old car out there awesome if you make it all the way to big bend this is definitely a fun spot to at least come for dinner explore the ruins and kind of just check out this old ghost town after exploring the ruins we walked back to the downtown area with a quick stop at the terra lingua jail about an hour and a half wait but that's where we're eating at the starlight theater it's the best spot in town and one of the only spots in town right next door to the starlight theater is the terlingua trading company and it's a great place to see old maps and learn about the area's history as well as picking up a few souvenirs from your time in the town we're waiting for our table but check out the epic sunset behind our hotel out there we're still exploring some more because we're waiting for the restaurant but this is the actual mine shaft and that's one of the carts that they used to use to go into the mine way down there [Music] this town is just crazy unique all sorts of stuff to look at while you're walking around [Music] the starlight theater has a storied past in the city this adobe building was built in the 1930s for entertainment and eventually a movie theater when the town was abandoned in the 40s the roof was sold off the building and it was left to deteriorate it wasn't until the 1990s that the building was bought rehabbed and turned into the starlight theater restaurant and bar that it is today now it's an amazing spot for food and live entertainment if you come on the right night all right so they say that they have award-winning chili here world famous chili right here they haven't they said that they started the chili cook-off so they started the chili cook-off here and this is a world-famous chili so we'll see here very meaty really nice really nice not too spicy very delicious all right this is what pops got which is chicken fried antelope like chicken fried steak on amazon interesting and i got brisket we stayed a lot longer at dinner than we were anticipating as it's just a fun place to hang out plus it's cool to see the building lit up at night as well [Music] made it back to our hotel took the chocolate bourbon pecan pie to go and i think we're gonna call it a night because we got a long day tomorrow in big bend that is the end of day four [Music] leaving our hotel before the sunrise to get into the park and do some hiking heading into big bend national park early in the morning no one is even manning the entrance station at this time of the morning our first destination was the lost mine trail which is a favorite trail for park visitors also they were doing construction when we went so you were only able to enter at certain hours which is why we got up so early to make sure we could get a parking spot stop number one in big bend national park lost mine trail it's about four and a half mile trail and it's one of the most popular in the park this is 7 15 on a wednesday we got the very last parking spot so come here early if you want to do this hike the lost mine trail starts gradual as you make your way up through the sparse trees towards the mountains ahead of you [Music] already taking a break as you make your way up there's some beautiful views through these little windows in the rocks out towards the landscape in front of you [Music] continuing on we saw a few deer right next to the trail and big bend is actually home to over 75 different mammals pretty awesome to see some deer on the trail like that in the morning they didn't even care that we were there at all i guess they're used to people and we're not bears or mountain lions so was there to worry about at a little over a mile into the trail you reach a saddle area with amazing views in both directions [Music] this was basically the first experience we got to have with how vast and stunning big bend is it's crazy windy up here as we cross this saddle behind us amazing views though almost lost my hat as you leave this section look behind you as it's an amazing vista point for casa grande one of big ben's most prominent peaks [Music] most of the elevation was pretty gradual on the way up but this last section we got about 10 switchbacks to get to the top shout out to the trail crew on this one this trail is incredibly well maintained as we continue to climb we got attacked by the wind but the trail started to give way to the amazing scenery of the big bend landscape we made it to the summit it is crazy windy up here but look at these views even though we didn't have a really clear day it was still impressive with how far you could see across the landscape from up here look at the colors out on the mountain right there like blue and yellow this i think is the best spot right here with this rock what do you think pops incredible payoff at the end and not a hard hike particularly a few up tails but incredible payoff at the end after walking all the way to the end of the trail to see all the different views from up here we just sat and soaked it all in before heading back down finishing up our snacks and taking in the view going on to our next spot in big bend national park we had planned to go to the chisos lodge but because of construction we weren't able to get there so instead we headed down to panther junction visitor center to see what they recommended we do so we're gonna hit up the hot springs but they're closed for covid so we're going to balanced rock and then we're doing the drive out to the canyon the food is a little hard to come by in big bend right now the gas station was the only thing that was open i had a lunchable i've got a tuna salad sandwich so bring your own food or plan to the gas station for our next stop in the park we decided to head to balanced rock to get to the trailhead you have to drive a seven mile rough dirt road it was passable with a two-wheel drive car when we came but i imagine there's certain times of the year where it isn't [Music] heading out on our second trail of the day this time to balanced rock [Music] the road out here was a little bit rough but this is a good family-friendly hike as it's flat most the whole way and just uphill right at the end the terrain out here is pretty crazy it reminds me a lot of joshua tree back in southern california 75 of this trail is just walking through a wash in the sand back towards the rocks [Music] i see people coming down right there so i think we are almost at the rock balance draw a quarter of a mile save your energy for the end as it's a little bit of a scramble to get up to the top and with all the people there's balancing rock right there pops making it to balance rock [Music] pops is six seven so that's a pretty big space do note that this is a pretty popular spot for pictures in the park so you're definitely going to have to wait a little bit if you want to take a picture with the rock all right we're starting the walk back to the car and then on to the scenic drive and the santa lena portion of big bend that'll be it for our day josh has said how this is one of the least traveled national parks but it is absolutely incredibly beautiful it's definitely worth time coming out here pops gives it two thumbs up [Music] it took us a little while to get back out to the main road on the seven mile dirt stretch but eventually we're headed on towards santalena canyon this is our last stop and our day in big bend we're going to go on the drive to santa lena canyon with lots of pull outs along the way for viewpoints [Music] this scenic drive is probably the best thing you can do with one day in the park it's 30 miles each way to the road's end but along the way you get great scenic views out towards the vast landscape of big bend and it's a fantastic introduction to the park this is one of the best viewpoints on the drive i think it's called sodal viewpoint but hopefully i'm pronouncing that correctly definitely stop here after doing the entire drive soto viewpoint was by far the best view on the scenic drive so there's our destination right there that's the walls of santa lena canyon that we're hiking into once we get there pretty crazy because those are 1500 feet tall but it doesn't look that tall when you're way out here from there we continued our drive to another overlook this time for a rock formation called mule ears i'd say it looks like mule ears what do you guys think let me know in the comments before reaching the canyon we had one more stop and that was at the cast alone visitor center while some of the visitor center was closed because of covid you could still look around and see a lot of information plaques about the area's history there was also a store here as well but it was closed when we got there [Music] before you leave be sure to check out the historic magdalena house which is behind the store this is where we were hiking earlier this morning and then out there is where the rock was and then we came all the way in and right now we're here at the visitor center and we're making our way to the mouth of the canyon as you leave the visitor center and head on towards the canyon there are a few other opportunities to stop and see ruins of some of the homesteads from the area's history if that's something you're interested in then keep your eyes peeled as you're driving there's also another viewpoint on the right that looks back the way you came towards the chisos mountains this is our last viewpoint it's the viewpoint for santa alina canyon and we're going over here to park and then walk in there you definitely don't want to miss this one as it's a great way to understand the scale of the canyon before you go hike into it [Music] heading out on our last trail for our one day in big bend national park santa alina canyon is incredibly popular and for good reason it's hard to beat the beauty of this section of the park [Music] you guys look at this incredible view and we still get to go hike this trail up here as well the rio grande river here creates a natural border between the us and mexico this river basically serves as the border for 118 miles throughout big bend national park if you want to hike back into the canyon it's about a mile and a half round trip with 600 feet of elevation gain up on switchbacks even though this trail has a decent amount of uphill i would definitely recommend it as the views of the river and into the canyon are incredible i've heard from a lot of people though that it's pretty brutal to do in the heat of the summer also note that the trail doesn't really lead anywhere it just kind of ends at the river so we made it up the switchbacks and now we're just walking down into the canyon it is absolutely incredible much like what i noted in the carlsbad caverns video this is another one of those places that you can never do justice with video footage even with my wide-angle lens it was hard to capture the entire canyon so definitely come see this for yourself check out this massive rock right here i think the end of the trail is on the other side of that after passing that big rock we reached the end of the trail which is where everybody was just hanging out and sitting in the water pop says that it's not worth coming all the way out here you could just see it from the back there just fun to be at the rio grande though that is true and you're going to put your feet in my feet are going in baby not the rest of me but my feet i got to get my feet the rio grande for sure like a true cowboy [Music] all right so pop's final request for this road trip video was to put his feet or our feet into the rio grande here we go without hurting himself [Music] it's chilly yeah [Music] my feet haven't seen the sun in a long time dirty feet and the rio grande that's it for this road trip video hopefully you enjoyed exploring the western part of texas with us over the last five days be sure to like and subscribe and we'll see you on the next video

Channel: Through My Lens

Views: 675,251

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Id: bRPOAtHq5kU

Length: 63min 42sec (3822 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021