South Texas travels, Mid December 2019 - Mid January 2019

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Santa Elena Canyon

After our last road trip we promised ourselves to limit our daily travel to 300ish miles.  400+ miles a day is not fun when you pull into a campground, set up, then prepare dinner.  Long travel days do not leave much time to enjoy the afternoon or relax in front of a roaring fire cooking S’Mores.

Our itinerary includes visiting friends and family.  Destinations are: South Padre Island; Houston; Georgetown, Texas; San Antonio; Big Bend National Park and Albuquerque.  I’m pretty certain I will like the Houston weather more than when we were there this past August.

South America adventure Oct/Nov 2018 part 6 - end

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Patagonia

Torres del Paine

It is about a 3 hour drive from Mount Fitz Roy near El Chalten to the Perito Moreno Glacier, outside of El Calafate.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the few advancing glaciers in the world.  It directly feeds Lago Argentino.  A thirty minute drive from El Calafate, then walking the scaffolding to the glacier is worth the trip.  Getting up close you sense the size of the glacier, but I don't fully realize it until I spot a tour boat cruising alongside.  If I didn’t look close I would not have seen it.

South America adventure Oct/Nov 2018 part 5

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Patagonia

Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse
in the Beagle strait

I always thought we were pretty remote driving through NM, AZ and UT.  We are not even close to remote compared to Patagonia.  It makes up the southern portion of Chile and Argentina.  It is huge; over 400,000 square miles, slightly larger than Texas and New Mexico combined.  It is also empty, averaging 5 people per square mile; imagine only 2 million people living in Texas and New Mexico.

We put on over 1,800 miles driving from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia, then El Chalten, El Calafate, Puerto Natales finally returning to Punta Arenas.  This is just driving from point to point, I haven’t included the miles going to the sites we visited, easily another few hundred.

South America adventure Oct/Nov 2018 part 4

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Mendoza, Argentina

Aconcagua

During our initial trip planning we researched to see how long it takes to get to Mendoza from Santiago.  By plane it is in the neighborhood of 12 hours; flying to Buenos Aires on the Atlantic coast then back to Mendoza, connections are poor at best which is the reason for the 12 hours.  Google maps says it can be driven in 5.

Road trip.

South American adventure Oct/Nov 2018 part 3

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Santiago, Chile

Cerro Santa Lucia statue

We fly from Cuzco to Lima then on to Santiago Chile, this is a travel day; ending at 430 AM the next day in Santiago.  Santiago is another 3.5 hours south of Lima by plane.  The size of this continent is becoming very apparent to me with our flying times adding up as we continue south.

This portion of our adventure is where we will get to know the customs officials between Chile and Argentina.  We will be renting cars on and off during the remainder of the trip negotiating the borders several times.

South American adventure Oct/Nov 2018 part 2

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Cuzco, Peru

Machu Picchu

To our surprise the van taking us to the airport is on time.  Here is where I find out not all airport security is the same; we are allowed to bring water through the TSA line.  Once through that, and at the appropriate time, we all got up to stand in line to board the plane, no ‘zones’ or ‘groups’ for boarding.  Once we are all in place, seat belts clicked, an announcement is made; we get wait another 45 minutes before departing.

Our South American adventure Oct/Nov 2018 - part 1

Basilica Cathedral

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We are riding to the house, the terminal ride of our five week adventure to South America.  Nicida and I look at each other smiling, for two reasons; it was a very successful trip, all our hours of researching, planning and more research paid off.  We are also smiling because we are glad to be home.  We have been on the road for over a month.  We enjoyed our time in South America; we saw and did all that we had planned to see and do.  Somewhere during our trip, I don’t know when, it became an adventure.  We didn’t plan for the excessive Lima traffic resulting in multiple buses and a taxi to get to our destination; the multiple; not one, not two, but three flat tires driving across Patagonia; protests in Santiago; the vastness of Patagonia – a two lane ribbon of road which we drove over 2,000 miles seeing other vehicles only occasionally, and many other stories.  We remember, are able to talk about, smile and laugh about all these experiences – making it an adventure.

Houston - WI - SD - CO trip, Sept. 2018, part 3

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This is part three of our trip.  Go to The Thursday September 27 posting for the first part of the trip.

Leaving Mount Rushmore we drive to our campsite at the Sylvan Lake campground in Custer State Park.  The campground is on the Needles Highway.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Needles Highway it is a mostly two lane road winding over, around, and literally through some of the rock formations making up part of Custer State Park.

Houston - WI - SD - CO trip Sept, 2018, part 2

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This is the second part of our trip.  You can go to the start by going to the Thursday Sept 27, 2018 posting.

We enjoy the next several days at my mom’s house visiting, cooking, going out to eat and touring the area.  The fall colors are just coming in so the occasional red, yellow or orange covered tree is a treat.  Each night as we walk through and around town we spot several deer; some of them bounding off at their first sight of us, others watching from a safe distance.

Houston - WI - SD - CO trip Sept 2018, part 1

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Our three week trip is here.  This has been on our calendar for the past few months.  Even with that in mind it still snuck up on us.  The initial route; go to northern WI to visit family, dashing west to SD to see the Badlands, Mount Rushmore and Wind Cave NP then home.  About three weeks prior to the trip Nicida asked me if we could visit WI by way of Houston to visit her family and her 102 year old relative leaving for CA in the near future.  I could not say no.

This trip will be split into three postings.