After we left San Antonio headed west, there weren't many towns off the freeway to tour so we stopped to drive around in the middle of nowhere. We came across a ranch with some friendly horses so I decided to stop and take a few pictures of them. As I was snapping away, the owner came up behind me and started to chat. First off, he knew I wasn't from the area since I was dressed in flip flops, t-shirt and capri's in 50 degree weather. I asked him if it was ok if I took some pictures and he didn't mind. In fact, he offered for me to snap away across the street or "down there yonder" where he had another ranch.
To me,he was a cowboy in every sense of the word. He was tall, had wranglers on, boots, a nice buttoned down long sleeved shirt and was very polite to me. He asked me if I rode horses. When I said, "not really," he smiled and said, that's ok, nether does my wife. After a long chit chat, he pointed to the horses I was taking pictures of and said they were going to be sent to Mexico to the slaughter house and his wife didn't want that to happen so they adopted them. The unexpected turn led to a heart warming story. They are beautiful creatures.
We continued our journey and saw a sign for cave tours in Sonora, Texas. I thought, it's still early...it might be a fun thing to do. I've never taken a cave tour before. So, off I went. The tour guide was a nice young gentleman. Lucky for me, I was the only one on the tour. I handed him my laminated ticket and into the cave we went...for a few hours.
Yes...hours.
Most of the formations in the cave has a name by the way it looks. So, I was in for a treat! Two hours of...cave bacon, bear hugs, fork, toothbrush, lion tail, rhino, shark tail, fish tail, butterfly, football player, ice cream sundae, leg, baby bottle, lamp, elephant, lion head, dragon tail, look!, more cave bacon...maybe you might get the point?
Don't get me wrong...I love to learn new things but being in a cave for a few hours as a solo guest on a tour wasn't what I expected. It was an interesting time.
The following day, we made the trip to tour the Caverns of Carlsbad and that was worth the stop. It's a pretty amazing find. This time, it was a self guided tour which was more my speed. I was able to power walk the 2 mile tour and that was enough for me. I would recommend the the Caverns if you are in the area. And if you have never taken a cave tour...it's pretty spectacular. These pictures don't do them justice.
