Camping Trip Part 2

We left Balmorhea State Park (see post HERE) on Tuesday morning. Our original plan was to go to White Sands, New Mexico for a couple of hours before making our way to our next campsite near Carlsbad, New Mexico. We decided to shave off a couple of hours of driving by experiencing the sand dunes at Monahans Sandhills State Park in Texas instead of driving out of our way to White Sands, New Mexico. We figured the kids would still get to experience sliding down giant sand dunes and enjoy less time in the car.

We were fortunate to have a cloudy day with temperatures in the low 90s. The sand was hot, but not unbearably so.

I love this pic of Boogs falling out of his sled. It looks like something I would do.

The sleds didn't work all that well. Sometimes you had to hop them a bit to keep sliding.

Here's Daphne on her first run down the dune.

We took a water break and several of the boys decided they were too tired to go back out on the dunes for more sliding. So I took Boogs and J2 for a couple more slides. It wore them out. Everyone took quick showers and tried to shake all of the sand off their clothing before we got back in the car for the next leg of our journey.

Brantley Lake State Park, New Mexico
I loved this campground! Brantley State Park made you really feel like you were out in the wilderness. It was about 30 miles from Carlsbad and there was nothing close to it. The area we camped in only had 3 campsites in use out of 25. The boys loved the shaded playground. We kept busy playing Frisbee, badminton, Trouble, hiking, and exploring the area around our campsite.

A thunderstorm with lightning and high winds started during the middle of the night. We stayed dry and the sun was shining in the morning. Boogs and I went for a sunrise walk on the trail before anyone else woke up.

 

New Mexico is full of "cute" little creatures. I have no idea what the bug on the left is, it looked creepy.

 

I found a free printable scavenger hunt list with pictures on The Creative Homemaker. I attached a copy of the list to a bag for each of the boys. The boys enjoyed searching for the items on the list. They searched around our campsite, took the bags to the playground, and then took them on our Lake Loop Trail hike.

The boys were a little disappointed that the Lake Loop Trail did not actually go to the lake. It was a pretty walk. If we wanted to go to the lake, we would have had to drive to the beach area.

We packed up and left Brantley Lake State Park a little before lunch time to go to Carlsbad Caverns. I will write about that part of our trip tomorrow.

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