Desert beauty

The sun is blazing and this desert part of West Texas has gotten even less than its average 2 inches of rain in the first five months of this year, but there's still plenty of green.

The first shot is from Oma and Opa's neighborhood on the west side of El Paso, the second a leftover from our stop at Guadalupe Mountains National Park about 100 miles northeast of town.

And then there's one of our own natural beauties. Buddy shed any and all roller coaster-related inhibitions this trip. He went from being as reluctant as his dad the morning of our time at Six Flags to being the only one in our group who wanted another crack at The Rattler, an all-wood monster that gave everyone else the jitters and achy joints the rest of the day.

He also lost another front tooth this trip - woke up early our first morning in San Antonio and just tugged at it until it came out. We'll have photographic evidence soon enough.

It's a Sea World after all

Day one was such a good time and the weather cooperated so nicely – it was 'only' 95 and there was a nice cloud cover – that we had to go back a second time to catch the water park and the coasters.

We fed and petted the dolphins, saw a couple of shows (Shamu being one of them, of course), romped in a vast playground, climbed the 70-odd steps to the top of the water slide five times and cruised in the lazy river for the better part of an hour. The brave ones among us – you know who you are – also rode the Steel Eel coaster twice and endured the insane drop of the Journey to Atlantis ride.

Throughout, we downed ungodly amounts of water and soda to stay somewhat hydrated. A very nice time, even if it wore us all out.

Into the darkness

After a very smooth trip from Nashville to El Paso through Dallas – chalk up a small victory for beleaguered American Airlines – we settled in for a few days of pure R&R by the pool at Oma and Opa's house. Nice.

Now we're in San Antonio, where we'll take in Sea World, Six Flags and the Alamo, among other things. But first, a few pics from southeastern New Mexico, where we stopped off first at Guadalupe Mountains National Park – photo at left – and then the Carlsbad Caverns.

The latter was well worth the trip: Water and sulfides have over the years mixed to hollow out a ridge about 25 miles south of Carlsbad, creating a network of caves as deep as 1,000 feet under the surface. In many places, the water is still dripping down and mixing with the limestone and other minerals to create stalactites, stalagmites and other rock features. Very cool.

At sundown, we gathered with a few hundred of our not-at-all-close friends at the entrance to the cave complex to observe the emergence of the thousands of bats who live underground. They came out in dozens of waves of about 300 each, circling upward counterclockwise before heading off in search of water to the south. Also sweet.