Any recommendations for must-sees while driving from Carlsbad Caverns back to El Paso for flight home?

You'll pass by Guadalupe Mountains NP. Never been there, but I heard scenery isn't too bad. Highest point in TX.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is worth a stop. There's not much else between there and El Paso but it's a nice drive.

Utahtea

The Guadalupe Peak is an eye-full for sure. You won't miss it, it's in the mountain pass. There are only shelters there but it's a nice spot for a picnic if you bring one (NO place to shop or buy the 3 hr. trip). If you're a hiker then Maccitrick Canyon (TX) is a very nice hike, just before the pass. But if you're just stopping, there's not much to see although once I drove inside and saw a big buck deer.

There is a restaurant in Cornudas, I think called the Cornudas Cafe or the like. It's pretty good American food.

You will also pass through a salt desert where they are still mining salt, FYI. It is very white. There are some wind turbines atop the mountains that are nifty.

Be careful about your speed, they patrol that area religously. And if you need gas, water, or a bathroom stop, get it before the mountain peak as you will see nothing for many many miles to come (once I saw a woman peeing on the side of the road, holding onto her car door handle with her pants around her ankles, her buttocks dangling in the breeze -- really! If you gotta go...).

You're discription of the woman peeing is the reason I LOVE my motorhome!



Utahtea

well, if everyone had a motorhome then I wouldn't have had such an eyefull

Hmm. Fairly common sight in Paris late at night when the bar hoppers are either past their capacity or out of money.
(cannot pay to enter the street facilities and inhibitions have been vanquished by alcohol.)

Tampa has a Gasparilla Pirates invasion in the harbor with a parade along Bayshore where all the ultra-rich live. But the revelers, drunk as skunks, don't care a hoot about whose yard they're using, and when nature calls they avail themselves in the gardens and yards of the upper echelon. It has caused quite a "stink".