Family Fun Fall Activities in The Permian Basin

I think West Texas area is known for being a place, where there is nothing to do. Nobody visits because there isn’t really anything to do, and everybody that lives here is so bored. I mean you look at places like Austin or Dallas, that have events everyday and weekends are filled with tons of fun activities. The Permian Basin isn’t the most fun place to be, especially during holidays.

So when my husband and I moved back to West Texas after leaving for a couple years I decided enough was enough and I was going to find fun things to do in the Permian Basin! Coming from Colorado where fall was the most magical time of year, I had a hard time with the fact that I wasn’t surrounded by beauty and festivals.

Turns out I was surrounded by both of those, I just had to find them! Over the last couple years my kids and I have explored this area so thoroughly and we have a list of the best things to do in fall in the Permian Basin!! Check it out!

Where is the Permian Basin?

For those of you who do not live in the area, the Permian Basin is the majority of West Texas and parts of east New Mexico. Where most people think of Big Bend and Marfa as West Texas, that is just a small part of it! That is the most beautiful part of it, whereas the rest is a giant desert. Just so you know what I am talking about when I mention Permian Basin, here are some of the bigger known towns in the area:

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Festive Fall Activities For The Whole Family In The Permian Basin:

Eat Fall Flavored Ice Cream At The Cream Lab N7

The best part about the hot weather of West Texas is that even in the fall it is still the perfect time of year for ice cream! In Midland, Texas there is a nitrogen ice cream shop that you have to visit during the Halloween season!

First off, I don’t know if you have ever had nitrogen ice cream before, but when they make it the shoot it with freezing cold nitrogen to instantly freeze it. This shoots out a spooky looking fog as they make the ice cream. So surrounded by the monsters and skeletons they have decorated all over and the fog, it kinda gives a really cool spooky vibe.

That is not the main reason you should go though, the main reason is of course is the ice cream!! During this time of year they bring out there pumpkin cheesecake ice cream! Of course what better flavor is there to have during the fall season! Not only do they have a pumpkin ice cream, but they also have a cookie monster ice cream. The ice cream is blue, has eyes, and cookies in his mouth; so cute!!

If you aren’t in an ice cream mood than maybe just go for the cereal balls. They have big fruity cereal balls called Dragon’s Breath, that are dipped in liquid nitrogen causing them to smoke. So while you eat them you are breathing out nitrogen smoke! It is so cool and creepy, your kids will LOVE it!

Location: 3201 Midland Dr #150, Midland, TX 79707

Hours: Sun-Thurs 1pm-9pm, Fri-Sat 1pm-10pm

Hike McKittrick Canyon to see the leaves change colors

So you know how I mentioned I lived in Colorado. Colorado isn’t called colorful Colorado for no reason, fall is nothing but color! The leaves changing colors in Colorado are so beautiful and bright. Now I am not saying West Texas has that majesty of Colorado in fall, BUT we do have McKittrick Canyon that is pretty amazing!

The Permian Basin has 2 National Parks; Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Both of these National Parks are located just south of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Guadalupe is just over the border of New Mexico into Texas and is known for having the highest mountain in Texas!

On the east side of Guadalupe National Park is McKittrick Canyon. This is not the easiest of hikes, but once you get to the grotto, it is BEAUTFIUL with the leaves changing colors! The grotto is where you will see the most color, explore a cool cave, and have a picnic at the picnic tables!

The trail itself is a 21 miles long trail, but before you freak out and think heck no; you don’t have to do the whole trail to see the beautiful leaves! if you just go to the grotto area and back it is about 5.2 miles in total. That is a heck of a lot better than 21 miles, but if you are an awesome backpacker than be my guest and hike the entire thing, I am sure it is beautiful.

Location: 400 Pine Canyon Salt Flat, TX 79847

Hours: Open 24hrs

Admission: $10 per person

Visit A Pumpkin Patch

One thing that the Permian Basin is not lacking in is Pumpkin Patches! There are so many pumpkin patches in the Permian Basin! Some with tons of activities and some with tons of photo ops. There is even one with a baboon! Random, but still fun!

Here are our top 6 favorite pumpkin patches in the Permian Basin, but if you want a complete list of all the pumpkin patches in West Texas click here!

Explore the Punkin Capital of The USA

Did you know that the Permian Basin is home to the Punkin capital of the USA! The small town north of Lubbock supplies a large assortment of pumpkins and gourds to stores, pumpkin patches, and events all over Texas. Thanks to Floydada, we have places like the pumpkin houses at the Dallas Arboretum and Garden!

I will not lie, it doesn’t really seem anymore pumpkin themed than any other town in Texas, but it does have an annual Punkin Festival. The Punkin Fest is a festival where you can purchase pumpkins, pets some animals, grab some yummy food truck food, and shop from local vendors.

Make sure that you also stop by Assiter Pumpkin Ranch to ride in the pumpkin carriages and take some adorable pumpkin pictures!

Assiter Pumpkin Ranch: FREE, open Mon-Sat 8am-6pm & Sun 1pm-6pm, 3451 S Ralls Hwy, Floydada, TX 79235

Punkin’ Days Festival: FREE, Oct 14, 2023, 8am-3pm

Grab Pumpkin Pie At Abilene’s Life Of Pie

One of the absolute best parts of fall is pie!! One of my biggest complaints with life is that there are not more pie shops! We have donut shops, around every corner, but pie shops only once in every couple of towns. Abilene is lucky enough to be one of those towns.

Life of Pie is my favorite pie shop in West Texas, of course there are other pie shops:

• Buttermilk Sky Pie In Midland, TX
• Whip’d Pie In Lubbock, TX
• The Honeycomb Pie Shoppe In Lubbock, TX
• The Barn Door In Odessa, TX

While these other pie shops are so good, Life of Pie is AMAZING! My personal favorite was their banana crème pie! So good! But tis the season, be sure to try a pumpkin or apple! If you don’t want to wait in line or you just want to grab some pie to go, you can order from their pie vending machine!

Location: 3386 Rebecca Ln, Abilene, TX 79606

Hours: Tues-Thurs, Sat 10am-3pm, Fri 10am-6pm, CLOSED SUN-MON

Go To The Scarecrow Festival in Buffalo Gap

Each year in the little town of Buffalo Gap, just south of Abilene, there is a scarecrow festival! Buffalo Gap has a small historic village and each year around the end of October/beginning of November they set up a ton of decorated scarecrows!

The fun part is, is each year they pick a theme, like story book characters and Alice and Wonderland. The scarecrows homemade by locals of the area and are so cute! During the festival you can walk around and look at all of the scarecrows, play some games, there is a petting zoo, photo ops, and so much more!

Location: 133 William St, Buffalo Gap, TX 79508

Date: Nov 4th, 2023

Visit Carlsbad Caverns and watch the bats fly out

If you are looking for a spooky activity that your kids will love then hike down into the deep, dark cave of Carlsbad Caverns National Park! These caves are dark and huge! My kids thought they were so cool and so spooky!

When you enter the caverns you will take a zig zag trail down through a huge opening! That’s when you will travel down, and down, and down farther and farther! The entire trail down is a 1.25 mile trail almost entirely down hill and is 750 ft underground to the Big Room which is another 1.25 mile trail around the Room.

Throughout the trail you will see amazing cave formations, giant stalactites, and stalagmites. It is a really cool place, and to a kid it is a perfect spooky activity. But the best part is in the evenings when you can sit and watch the bats fly out of the caves. Around sunset you can watch as hundreds of bats take flight out of the caves. The perfect Halloween activity!

Location: 727 Carlsbad Caverns Highway Carlsbad, NM 88220

Hours: everyday 8am-5pm

Admission: $15 adult, 15 and under FREE

Try a Creepy Treat at Chuck E Cheese

Chuck E Cheese may be the Disneyland of the Permian Basin according to my kids! I mean what’s not to love!? Arcade games, pizza, a giant mouse, dancing! Now I am sure you are wondering why I would suggest Chuck E Cheese as a Halloween activity.

Well each year, Chuck E Cheese has a Halloween selection of spooky treats!! Creepy cupcakes covered in green slime, Dippin’ Dots ‘Eye’ Scream, slime cookies, and pumpkin pepperoni pizzas. So purchase a card of all you can play (for the time you paid for), order a creepy treat, and have some fun! Your kids will love it!

Locations:

• Lubbock- 5612 W Loop 289 Acc Rd, Lubbock, TX 79401
• Midland- 4703 W Loop 250 N, Midland, TX 79707
• Abilene- 4310 Buffalo Gap Rd, Abilene, TX 79606

Boo at the Zoo in Abilene, Texas

Walking through the zoo is fun for sure, but imagine walking through the zoo when it is decorated for Halloween!! Not only will you find animals, but dinosaurs, pirates, and festive dancers. Interact with all sorts of creatures and critters!

There is such a huge assortment of activities offered from live shows, hay-bale maze, trick or treating, a costume dance party, pumpkin chuckin, animals encounters, pumpkin houses, and so much more.  Definitely a great way to spend the holidays!

Now if you are like me and not a huge fan of crowds, than you can still see all the spooky set ups during just a regular weekday at the zoo! Still fun photo ops and creepy places without the crowds of people!

Location: 2070 Zoo Ln, Abilene, TX 79602

Hours: everyday 9am-5pm

Dates: Boo at the Zoo: Oct 14, 21-22, 28-29

Admission: Boo at the Zoo: $13 adult, $7 for members, regular admission: $10 adult, $7 kids (ages 3-12), 2 and under FREE

Try some alien activities in Roswell, New Mexico

Halloween is about monsters and spooky things and nothing screams spooky like tiny green bug-eyed aliens! Roswell, New Mexico has been invaded! Throughout the entire time there are aliens! Aliens holding up signs, alien murals, alien looking restaurants, and all the alien souvenirs you could think of!

For a complete list of family friendly alien activities in Roswell, click here. Here are our 2 favorite spooky alien activities:

Buy A Pumpkin Pizza At Papa Murphys

If I have an excuse to eat pizza, you bet I will take it! Especially if it is Papa Murphy’s pizza! Each October, Papa Murphys makes a pumpkin shaped pepperoni pizza! So if you want to have a festive meal with your kids, that takes no prep at all, then these Jack O Lantern pizzas are perfect!

Locations:

• Midland- 4416 Briarwood Ave Suite 113, Midland, TX 79707
• Lubbock- 6319 82nd St, Lubbock, TX 79424
• Lubbock- 8205 Indiana Ave, Lubbock, TX 79423
• Abilene- 1441 Barrow St, Abilene, TX 79605
• Roswell- 3116 N Main St, Roswell, NM 88201

Hours: everyday 11am-8pm

Artesia Balloon Festival

Eastern New Mexico is part of the Permian Basin and you can’t visit New Mexico and not visit a hot air balloon festival! While Albuquerque is obviously the most known balloon festival of New Mexico, the little town of Artesia has its very own Balloon Festival!

Come and shop at local vendors, try delicious food truck meals, listen to live music, and watch the sky get decorated with hot air balloons of all shapes and sizes. This tradition as been a part of Artesia since the 1980s and best part of all, its FREE!!

Location: Fri at 2302 W Grand Ave, Artesia, NM 88210 and Sat-Sun at W J J Clarke Dr, Artesia, NM 88210

Dates: Nov 3-5, Fri balloon launch is at 7:30am, Sat balloon launch 7am, Sun balloon launch 6am

Admission: FREE

Trunk or Treat

While trick or treating is a dying tradition in the Permian Basin, truck or treating is in full effect! There are trunk or treats in almost every town of the Permian Basin at a variety of different places and locations.

Trunk or treating is a safer, easier form of trick or treating. Located in a parking lot, tons of cars will park, open their trunks, decorate them, and hand out candy to kids coming by.

Most trunk or treating events offer an assortment of activities. We have been to some with costume contests, bouncy houses, haunted walks, carnival games, and delicious treats. They have all been fun. For the best environment for young kids though, I suggest sticking to church sponsored trunk or treats.

Facebook events or your cities website is the best way to find the local trunk or treats in your area.

Go on a Haunted hike at Halloween In The Park at Abilene State Park

Another place to try trick or treating is Abilene State Park. Each year campers decorate their campsites with all sorts of spooky decorations for a fun outdoor trick or treating environment.

This is also a great educational experience as you can learn about the creatures of the night. If you are brave enough too, you can go on a haunted hike on one of the trails. Just a fun family friendly event in the woods to give that spooky vibe!

Location: 150 Park Rd 32, Tuscola, TX 79562

Dates: Oct 28, 6pm-9pm

Admission: $10 per car

Pick Flowers at Sky Gardens

While most people think of picking flowers in the spring time, fall is when zinnia flowers are in full bloom! Sky garden is a beautiful garden in Lubbock, Texas where you can pick your own bouquet! Learn how to make flower arrangements for pumpkins as the perfect centerpiece of your fall table.

You can come to this flower farm to cut your own flowers for your own bouquet. Also be sure to cuddle some bunnies, enjoy a campfire, explore the farm, and roast some hot dogs!

Location: 3576 Hummingbird Rd, Levelland, TX 79336

Hours: Tues 6pm-9pm, Fri 6pm-9pm, Sat 8am-12pm & 6pm-9pm

Price: $35 you-pick jar of flowers

Go Birdwatching to see hundreds of cranes in migration at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Roswell

October-December is the great sandhill crane migration! During fall it is an amazing time of year to witness the gathering to hundreds of these birds to the Permian Basin. In Roswell, there is a wildlife refuge that is one of the best places to go birding in the Permian Basin!

October is when these cranes will begin to gather in the area, and they will reach peak around the end of November! This is the best time to go and see the gathering of these birds as they literally take refuge in this national refuge!

There are 6 trails at this refuge all of them easy enough for little kids and not strenuous. Oxbow is probably the best one to get closer to the cranes, but all of them you will see an assortment of insects and birds!

Trails:

• Bitter Lake Bike Trail (2.11 miles)
• Butterfly Trail (0.41 mile)
• Desert Uplands Trail (0.32 mile)
• Dragon Fly Overlook Trail (0.14 mile)
• Oxbow Trail (2.18 miles)
• Pajoro Observation Blind Trail (0.13 mile)

Location: Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 4200 E Pine Lodge Rd, Roswell, NM 88201

Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-4pm, CLOSED Sat-Sun

Admission: FREE

Witness the Monarch Migration

On their 3,000 mile journey from Canada to Mexico, the monarch butterflies make a pitstop right in the Permian basin. By the end of October there will be so thousands of them! In McCamey, Texas my mother saw so many that you couldn’t even see the tree they were perched on!

You will see monarchs where ever you go during this time, but the truly amazing thing is to find spots where they are more likely to gather. Nature centers, wildlife refuges, places that are not highly trafficked by people are the best places to see the monarchs.

To track where the monarchs are click here.

Walk Through hundreds of lite pumpkins at Lubbock’s Pumpkin Trail

Though West Texas may not have Pumpkin Nights like Dallas or Austin, it does have the next best thing, Lubbock’s Pumpkin Trail! A pathway that is lit up only with jack o lantern pumpkins! Walk the trail to see hundreds, actually thousands of carved pumpkins.

Location: 4111 University Ave, Lubbock, TX 79413

Dates: Oct 26-29, daylight hours: Fri-Sun 9am-6pm, evening hours: Thurs, Sun 6pm-8:45pm, Fri-Sat 6pm-9:45pm

Admission: FREE

Walk through a fun house at a carnival/fair

A common theme amongst teenage Halloween drama movies are that they all have carnivals in them. They are at the carnival on a date and afterwards that is when the spooky stuff happens. It just seems to be a common theme for Halloween movies. So it just makes sense that you should go to one too!

This is the time of year where carnivals and fairs are popping up all over the Permian Basin. Nothing says fall like riding a Ferris Wheel, chowing down on corndogs and funnel cake, and trying your hand a carnival games to win a giant stuffed animal! Here are our favorite annual fairs/carnivals to look forward to each fall season.

• St Ann Fair– Midland
• St Johns Halloween Carnival– Abilene
• Halloween Carnival– Lubbock

Fun Fall Activities’ You Can Do In Your Own Town:

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