Coronado

Today we continue our learning about the explorers and the age of exploration.

One thing they forgot in their explanation of "life on the border" is the fact that when you are near the border your cell phone will switch to a Mexican cell company and repeatedly ask if you want to turn on data roaming - while you are still in the U.S.! (Sy below expresses how that felt.)

 Coronado and De Soto dressed similarly, explored around the same time, and had the same goal - gold. 

However, the de Soto memorial left me thinking de Soto was a total failure, while this memorial left me thinking Coronado was a decent guy. Both didn't find gold, but mapped the areas they explored and met many native tribes.  

I think the Coronado memorial just had other subjects to focus on (nature, ecology, etc) because they had more land than the smaller de Soto memorial. 

Time for speleology! Unlike Carlsbad Caverns, this is a wild cave.

We climbed down in and explored all the way to the end - about 1/2 mile back with a few offshoots along the way. 

The thin black line (below) is the border wall. It is so interesting to see that the landscape is  the same on either side. In other locations, we've seen a vast difference between the two sides but it was usually due to infrastructure and build up. 

While in the park there was a bit of border patrol activity, so we limited our time and skipped the hike to the peak. If we ever make it back here, I'd like to do a bit more hiking. 

Since we were finally near enough to civilization, we had Ky's birthday dinner - at Golden Corral, her choice. (:

Sadly, at teeth brushing time before bed, we realized Sy's retainer was left in the table. ): bummer. We'll call tomorrow.  Perhaps they found it. (Hoping!)