Sunday - onto Hueco Tanks

Warning: This post talks about food - quite a bit!

Sunday morning, we walked to breakfast (I really like walking to breakfast!) to a nearby park with an attached cafe. Very nice atmosphere! Great temps - a great morning. Had an egg white omelette with guacamole. Good, but not quite as good as the day before. The fruit salad we all shared was really good though!

Walked back to the house, hung out a bit more, and then I headed off - but with a stop first. Decided to go to Mass at a nearby church - St Odilia. Not familiar with her - will need to look it up. Palm sunday services were nice and the lighting in the church - mismatched hanging lights near the front was cool.

Started the 310 miles drive to El Paso - felt a bit longer than some of the other drives I've done. Drove into New Mexico (first time there) and then into Texas where I got in touch with Brian, a cousin of Ann Marie's who she arranged for me to meet up with. Brian's wife wasn't able to join us, but I had a good time chatting with him about all sort of things at a restaurant called 'The State Line' the name of which comes from the fact that the parking lot is in Texas and the restaurant in New Mexico. The vegetarian's among you will cringe, but yes I had the meat special - 5 types. The sausage was weird, the ribs okay but the brisket was excellent! And the bread was very good as well.

Sated (a little too full actually), I headed off to Hueco Tanks.

I'm really glad I decided to pull over to read that map as I got onto Montana Ave - as I was pulling out a cop and then a second decided to pull over two separate vehicles. Whee. Drove in the dark up to Hueco and wound up having to turn around a couple times to read street signs - its dark out there in the hinterlands! Actually, the directdions turned out to be very straight forward.

Made it into camp, opened the door to 'the barn' and found some climbers there - including one I've met before - Chris from the climbing store in New Paltz. Didn't know him well, but he and the others made me feel quite welcome, and soon enough I found myself invited on a 'volunteer tour' into the East Area of Hueco Tanks. The restriction system there is a bit of a pain in the pass. You can only get into the E/W/S areas on a guided tour - either commerical ($20) or led by a volunteer guide (regular entrance fee of $4 but a pain to get into).

Played quite a bit of foozball, did pretty bad and headed off to bed.