There are several National Parks you can easily reach off of I-10, which runs coast to coast to coast — Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific.
This trip, I visited three of these parks that I had never seen before. They were Saguaro, Guadalupe Mountain, and Carlsbad Caverns.
Saguaro is a desert environment with the prototypical cactus. A unique plant, of course, but I found a better representation of this type of forest along I-93 in Arizona. Traveling north from Wickenburg to Las Vegas, you not only drive through, first, a huge Joshua Tree forest. (The Joshua tree is another plant that has a National Park devoted to it in California.) But, the landscape then turns to Saguaro cacti desert. You actually see the change in deserts as easily as a line drawn in the sand (pardon the desert reference pun.) I know of no other place in the Southwest where the differences in desert-scape are so evident.
Guadalupe Mountain is a fairly new National Park. Due to extreme temperatures, I chose not to hike its trails this trip, but checked out the visitor center, the RV sites (first-come, first-served, 21 space parking lot without hookups,) and talked to the rangers. This park is one of the few that you have to hike into to enjoy; there are few roadways into the park.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a one-of-a-kind experience. At first sight at ground level, it doesn’t look like much more than a barren desert. Descending 800 feet into the cave, through the 1.25 downhill trail into the Natural Entrance, your viewpoint changes. After your eyes accustom to the dim and dark light, wonderous forms take shape within the walls. Stalagmites (formed from the surface upwards,) stalagtites (roof down,) drapes (sheet formations,) totem poles (single drop formation,) columns (where stalagtites and stalagmites combine,) and soda straw formations are some of the sites. There are pictures on the accompanying page “Carlsbad Caverns” (see Menu.) They give you some idea, but never do perfect justice to what you will see if you tour it yourself.
To conclude this brief overview of flora and fauna found on I-10 side trips, let us not forget the “wild”life you will see in Mobile, AL, and New Orleans, LA, during Mardi Gras.
Mobile (AL) Carnival Museum
To my krew, I will be on the road next week to seek more sights in national parks in the Southwest — Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Arches.