chihuahuan desert

I, of course love deserts. The gravel with native plants and the rocks and hills and mesas all run up or down as you follow the paths. You can see for miles. The sun is warm. The heat when it comes is from the ground. Because of the volcanic nature this desert has some bands of colors and white that come from pumice and other subsurface rocks rather than minerals from tectonic faulting and erosion.

This desert cannot be seen in one day. There is too much of it and many of the back roads are primitive. It is a wonderful place to spend some time and clear your head.

Visited the desert by the dinosaur fossil exhibit and the north entrance @ Persimmon Gap (the desert is really the park with rocks, geological formations and mountains in it). We had a great time, not at all hot (picked a good time of the year) and the wide expanse is just amazing because the park just seems to go on forever - so much to see!

OMG! The desert was a mass of diverse flowers. We took so many photos! I've never seen such an amazing desert...a very special place.

North of Alpine, TX in the Chihuahua Desert is a wonderful Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center, another excellent exhibit that included several trails, an excellent mining mock-up, a natural botanical walk and a cactus “warehouse” in a greenhouse. There literally were hundreds of cacti in the greenhouse. We followed up with a 3-mile hike that took us to the bottom of the Modesta Spring Canyon, then an outside loop trail up to an excellent geological outdoor exhibit that explained the geological wonders surrounding us. The valleys in this mixture of inland sea and volcanic activity are covered with grass, beautiful in the spring, gleaming like gold on the hills, too. Now, we can really understand why the ranchers really fell in love with the region.

Made a trip up Old Ore Road to Ernst Tanaja... highly recommend hiring a guide or at the very least, have a high clearance vehicle with 4 wheel drive. Beautiful!