Day 22: Carlsbad, NM to Marathon, TX

Stops:

Guadalupe Mountains NP, TX

Marfa, TX

Marathon, TX

As you enter Texas from New Mexico, you'll come upon the beautiful, tall stalks with red and yellow flowery pads on them known as the agave plant.  They are really quite unique, but we will get more into those tomorrow.

You'll come upon the Guadalupe Mountains and a rocky outcrop known as El Capitan.  Guadalupe peak is the highest point in Texas at 8751 ft.  Here you will also find the Texas Madrone and Texas Mahogany trees.

This is mostly a hiking park, but most the good hikes are 9 miles and uphill. We just didn't have time for it this time around. Maybe a future trip us warranted as the movie at the visitors center made it seem so.

Our next stop is a Prada storefront in the middle of nowhere Texas.  It is an art installation commissioned by Ballroom Marfa. You can't actually enter the store. The door doesn't open. It is a neat and random thing to come upon.  People leave their business cards on it on the backside of the exhibit. It is complete with shoes and purses from the 2005 collection and hand picked by designer Prada herself.

We also ran across this playboy bunny art exhibit.  I believe it is still in progress.  Hugh Hefner owns the land and the exhibit. The locals mostly don't like it though. 

Marfa's big thing is its artist studios. Lots of galleries to visit.  When we arrived, we took a break in a nearby DQ and shortly after, the air siren was blowing indicating a possible tornado warning.

We decided to not hang and find out.  We quickly left town and headed towards Marathon, TX, the town along the road to Big Bend NP.  Just outside of Marfa was another strange phenomena known as the Marfa Mystery Lights.  These lights mysteriously appear in the pictured area of the mountain, below, where the range goes down on both sides. No one has a definitive answer as to what the lights are, but many have speculated.

There's not much in Marathon, TX, but it does have the historical Gage Hotel, a cattleman's house that was converted to the hotel.  It has a very western theme.   We  decided that with sore and sweaty bodies, it was finally time to relax and pamper ourselves with a dip in the pool, a hot shower, and dinner and drinks.

Remember that storm I told you about earlier in Marfa?  Well, it finally caught up to us.  We managed to get our dip in the pool, but when we returned to the room, the lights started to flicker before it finally went out......FOR GOOD!  We tried to make the most of the evening light, catching up with other guests at the bar before heading to our room.  Still no light and the sun was setting.  

It was actually kind of fun, moving around the resort with nothing but flashlights, and luckily it didn't get too hot. However, it was a resort and we couldn't fully use it without electricity, so we finally just went to sleep.  

In the morning we found out that the storm knocked down one of the main power poles into town and it takes a long time for anything to get fixed when you are in the middle of nowhere.

Day 21: Carlsbad Caverns NP

Carlsbad Caverns isn't the biggest, deepest, widest, or longest cave system in the world, but some people call it the prettiest in the world, and so far I have to agree. Temperates remain a cool and constant 56 degrees year round.  For those a little bi adventurous, you can entered via the paved Natural Entrance and walk downhill for 750 ft.  For the quick and dirty or for those with physical impairments, you have the option of taking elevators down a 750 ft shaft.  The elevators were added back in the 1940s and 50's.  You ended up at the Lunch Cafeteria going either way.

From their you can take a tour of the Big Room which is the equivalent of 14 football fields.  Jim White was the original explorer of the caves and named many of the formations Devil's this and that, but eventually after understanding that the place was not so devilish, started call formations Fairyland, Temple of the Sun, Rock of Ages, etc.

From here you can also sign up for a very limited tour of the Lower Caves which I highly recommend. It is capped of at 12 people and only offered on the weekdays.  The other tour to take, that is more physically demanding, is Slaughter Canyon.  It is also limited in size.  Call or go online and make reservations at least 1 week ahead of time.

Ranger Manny Bemis led us on tour of Lower Caves. Here there are no paved trails and the trails at marked with red ribbon and caution tape for fragile areas.  The paths are thin and slippery at times.  In fact, to start, to must take a knotted rope and descend to the top of 3 ladders before finally entering the Lower Caves.  It isn't much more demanding than that and offers a look into a less touristy place.

Lower Caves is where Jim White took National Geographic members for a photo shoot in order to build up popularity to the cave.

Here you can spot little piles of balls called cave pearls and areas which use to contain pools of water. You have the option to crawl on your hands and knees and drag your self over your belly thru a hole.  I did it but did scuff up my knee even with pants on.  You should have pants and sturdy boots for the tour.  They give you gloves and a hard hat with a headlamp.  You need to bring 3 AA batteries.  The tour gives you a feel for what cave exploration was like.

Day 20: Roswell, NM to Carlsbad,NM

Stops:

Roswell, NM

Carlsbad Caverns NP, NM

Roswell, NM is well known for its alien/UFO crash site, however, you wouldn't realize this unless you drive through downtown Roswell on Main St. Most of the shops and museums are there.  Back in July of 1947, something did happen. I believe that.  I believe the government covered something up. I'm not sure if it was aliens necessarily.  The International UFO Museum presents enough info to make you start to believe.  I'm not so sure, though, if it was little green men with big black eyes.  

Just the part of town on Main Street takes advantage of this green little men concept.  The rest of the town just seems like any other small town.

The International UFO Museum is worth the $5 admission cost, but there is quite a bit to read. Lots of affidavits from military officials. It includes an animated exihibit of 4 alien beings with a spinning UFO and lots of smoke. it also includes lots of paintings. I truly enjoyed it.

There is even a photo taken in McMinneville, OR. On May 11, 1950. I bet this is how the UFOFest started there.

They even had a replica of some pieces of metals that had scanning electron microscopes ran on them and determined to be not of this world.  One of the I-beam pieces had strange pictures on it, similar to hieroglyphs. 

We headed from Roswell to Carlsbad, NM. and arrived at Carlsbad Caverns NP in the evening to watch the bat flights program.  The Mexican free tail bats fly out at dusk from the Natural Entrance of the cave every evening.

Ranger Foz presented facts about the bats in a game show format using a Survivor like format where people where given options regarding different bat scenarios and if they guessed wrong, they were eliminated.

Initially, cave swallows flew in and out of the cave but they eventually flew away and the bats came out.  Not a bad night. The way to tell the difference is that the bats flap their wings more than the cave swallows.

Day 19: Las Cruces, NM to Roswell, NM

Stops:

White Sands Missile Range, NM

White Sands National Monument, NM

Alamogordo, NM

Ruidoso Downs, NM (Hubbard Museum of the American West)

White Sands Missile Range is hugely known for testing the world's first nuclear bomb which was eventually used against Japan when it was dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the form of bombs known as "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" respectively.  The project was code named "Trinity" and WSMR was ground zero, well actually 88 miles from WSMR.

When approaching the military base, there are signs warning to stay on the road as there may be explosives scattered in the desert off the road and also radioactive parts.

One must get out of the car and go to the reception office where you must present a valid form of ID, like a drivers license.   Then you can get a pass which which allows you to walk over to the guard gate and they let you walk into the base.  Photography is only allowed at the museum and missile display.

Here, you'll recognize some of the missiles if you have paid any attention to the news or played combat games on your PC or video game console.  They had Patriot missiles a.k.a SCUD Busters used in Operation Desert Shield, sidewinder missiles, Nike Ajax missiles, Pershing missiles, and plenty of other surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles. 

They even had the type of bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.  Can you tell, I played plenty of combat games and flight simulators growing up?  They had some great examples of guided and unguided missiles.  Guided missiles use a laser guidance system to adjust the flight course with pinpoint accuracy, some have countermeasures as well, and some the capability to look like a small aircraft to incoming radar.

They have an item that looks like a UFO to many, but it is a weather ballon used for a decelerator test.  I'm almost sure many of the UFO claims are based on this weather balloon.

Finally, they had the V-2 missile, originally known as the A-4 missile, which was German designed and was used by Hitler, but was considered a failure.  The US used it for experiments in space including the launching of a Rhesus monkey into space.

On the way to White Sand National Monument, we had to go through a Department of Homeland Security checkpoint to make sure we were legal residents of the US.  

White Sands NM is blindingly white.  So blinding that I cannot even see the pictures I took on my digital  SLR.  White Sands is the world's largest concentration of gypsum dune fields.  The animals have adapted to the white sand changing their colors to very light or almost white themselves.  We say a few whit lizards scurrying across the sand.

White Sands is known for sledding too.  We saw quite a few people sledding and even tried it ourselves.

B spotted an egg, either hawk or snake, not sure.  We showed the picture to the ranger and they think it is one of those.  The yucca plant grows around here, sometimes having roots that are 15 ft deep and a stem that is 10 feet tall.

At the visitors center, there are barn swallows everywhere.  We even spotted a nest with babies in it.

Finally, we stopped in Alamagordo, NM and Ruidoso Downs, NM to get the scrap metal Roadrunner and the horses, before finally arriving to Roswell, NM where it was a mild 100 degrees.  We actually took some downtime here to do some laundry and saw a cool alien mural.  I'm sure we will see a lot more alien stuff tomorrow.

Day 18: Santa Fe, NM to Las Cruces, NM

Stops:

Madrid, NM

Albuquerque, NM

Very Large Array near Magdalena, NM

Truth or Consequences, NM

We were suppose to met some coworkers of mine from the F11X Intel manufacturing site for lunch in Albuquerque, so we decided to get there via the Turquoise Trail, aka NM-14 with a brief stop in Madrid, NM. Madrid isn't much of a town, but it is a strong artist community and a great little park with painted cutouts for plenty of photo ops.  For you Timbers fans, they even have a No Pity Cafe.  Also, there is the Mine Shaft Tavern where they filmed part of the Wild Hogs movie with Tim Allen and John Travolta. It is worth an hour of your time, and even longer if you want to visit all the art galleries. Some amazing work to be seen for sure.

Continuing onward, we arrived in Albuquerque to a restaurant called Mary and Tito's Cafe, which is suppose to be authentic New Mexican food.  The good restaurants are in the South Valley, where the sketchy neighborhoods are.  You should be ok though in the daytime.  We ordered the chile rellenos which were delicious with a kick.  If you like it hot, get the red sauce.

Our next stop was near Magdalena, NM where there was a very large array (VLA) of radio telescopes.  The array consisted of 27 radio telescopes in a Y shape, that can be rotated simultaneously.   They can also be moved along railroad tracks.  Each telescope weighs 270,000 tons.  The radio images each one captures is processed by a supercomputer and transported on fiber optic lines.  If you want to be able to borrow some time for the VLA, you must get your project approved, which is very difficult due to the huge amount of requests.

The VLA is also home to antelopes and jackrabbits.  Everywhere we walked we saw these strange hares with tall ears and huge hind legs. 

The VLA was also shown in the opening shot of the movie 2010 and in a Bon Jovi video and the movie, Contact.

Our next stop was in the town called, Truth or Consequences.  The town used to be called Hot Springs, NM, but there was a game show called Truth or Consequences and the they had a contest.  The first town to change their name to the name of the game show, would get the show aired from their town.  Well, Hot Springs won! The game show host came down to the town as promised an aired an episode.  For a while, the game show host came every year and eventually, the town turned it n a festival called Fiesta, which happens in the first week of May and still happens to this day, even without the game show host.

Finally, we headed out to Las Cruces. We caught a beautiful sunset, but after it was dark, we could see a huge forest fire burning on the Gila Mountains.  Think about that campfire you are the last time you went camping times 1000000.   It was crazy and lit up the sky around it.

Ahhh, finally arrived at the Wal-Mart in Las Cruces and off to bed...

Day 17: Hooper, CO to Santa Fe, NM

Stops:

Great Sands Dunes NP, CO

Antonito, CO

Ok, so no UFO sightings last night, but we did get a cloudless night and a night sky full of constellations.  Based on our previous ranger talk, we spotted the Big and Little Dippers and the North Star.

We slept up top in Moby with all the screen windows open, but woke up freezing with 32 degree temps. Brrrrr....but it was a desert climate which meant large temperature swings, so we headed out early to Great Sand Dunes NP. These are the tallest dunes in North America.

We spotted wildlife everywhere we go and this was no exception. A deer today as we entered the park.  We headed straight to the Dunes parking lot and picked up our cardboard sleds and started climbing the dunes.

Climbing in sand is no easy task.  Sometimes the sand was hard, providing some support, and other times you would just sink in, especially when trying to climb to the ridge line.  The park book tells you to stick to the ridge lines as it is easier to climb.  I'm not so sure I agree with that assessment.  It was just as hard to climb the side of a dune vs. the ridge line, but the views where worth it. Even more interesting are the patterns made in the sand by the wind.

The winds help form the sand dunes, but the Medano Creek helps keep the sand dunes in place.  We were shown a picture from the late 1800's and then one from from 2011 and the dunes pretty much look the same.

The dunes contain 1% of magnetite which gives it that dark or almost black appearance in places.  If you were to take a magnet and move it over the surface of the sand, you could attract some of the magnetite.

We did try sledding with our cardboard sleds but they didn't work well.

Finally, after a little playing in the Medano Creek, we left for Santa Fe.  On the way there, we stopped at a roadside attraction at Antonito, CO. called Cano's Castle. This guy is a little eccentric, so we decided not to leave our van and jut took this picture, plus the neighborhood was kind of sketchy.  The house is certainly interesting. It looks like he made it our of a lot of scrap metal and windows.  I have no idea how structurally sound the house is, but it is still standing.

We headed for Santa Fe, NM, to celebrate our engagement anniversary.  We actually got a hotel room and cleaned up before heading to Ten Thousand Waves Japanese Spa.  About 4 years ago, I had proposed there to B.

What a great celebration.  We soaked in the community tub, meditated in the meditation room, and sweated in the sauna.  I love this place, and recommend it.  In fact, B and I are talking about going to another spa later on in our trip.  We were going to sleep well tonight...