WDW September 2026

We took a quick weekend trip to WDW and had the best time! We not only made it over to Disney Springs, we also went to all four parks, and even though we admittedly did not spend much time in any one place, it's pretty rare for us to get to so many places on such a short trip! We flew down on Southwest, ate at two of our favorite places (Via Napoli and Beaches and Cream), enjoyed our stay at Dolphin (I still stand by my review from last May - it's a really beautiful hotel with a hard-to-beat location, though I wish there were more Disney details!), and lucked out with lovely weather! We also experienced two new attractions: Soarin' Across America (I already wasn't a fan of Soarin' Around the World and this new version is even worse than that...the original will never be beat!) and Zootopia: Better Zoogether! (a pretty cute show!).

Compared to some trips where I've taken hundreds of photos, I have a mere 33 this time, mainly due to trying to cram as much fun as possible into a such period of time!

Happy Tails to you!

Texas & New Mexico September 2026

Last weekend, we took advantage of me having a three-day weekend and took a quick trip to Texas and New Mexico to visit a few National Parks! The purpose of the trip was to go to Carlsbad Caverns NP and see the nightly spectacle of the bats emerging from the cave, but since White Sands NP and Guadalupe Mountains NP were within driving distance, we decided to make those part of the trip, too!

We flew to El Paso through Dallas on Saturday morning, picked up our rental car, and drove to White Sands NP. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was blown away by how unique and tranquil it was. Certainly one of the coolest places we've been!

White Sands NP:

We drove back to El Paso for the night and then got up early on Sunday so we could get to Guadalupe Mountains NP in the morning and as you can see, we lucked out with the most perfect weather! The drive itself was absolutely lovely, and the park was wonderful, with an impressive visitor center and stunning scenery everywhere we looked!

Guadalupe NP:

The highlight of the trip was definitely Carlsbad Caverns NP. We spent several hours hiking down into the cave and exploring its incredible interior structures, and then as dusk approached, we attended the Bat Flight program where a park ranger gave a talk about the bats and the park in general and answered questions while we waited for the bats to emerge. When they did, it was amazing! Tens of thousands of bats! I was already a fan of bats before this experience, but now I absolutely love them! I don't have any photos or videos of this, as there were no electronics allowed, and it was so great to sit with a hundred other park visitors in complete silence for about 45 minutes while we were transfixed by the bats and the acrobatics.

Carlsbad Caverns NP:

This is not the sun - it's the moon!
I don't know how the pic turned out like this,
but I love it!

We made the 2.5-hour drive back to El Paso on Sunday night and then flew home on Monday. We had a great time and we love any chance we get to visit our National Parks! This trip brings our total to 40 out of the 63 National Parks and we have a couple of trips planned to visit others in the near future!

Happy Tails to you!