Quiet Before the Storm

 

Was remembering Walter DeMaria's piece in that field in New Mexico, the other day. Want to go back to that time, and to that place.

Day Eight

We woke up early so we could see the sun come up. While the sunset made the dunes lavender, the sunrise made them pink.



It had been a quiet night in our little tent.


When we got out and walked around, though, we were surprised to see little tracks everywhere in the sand. There was definitely some bird and insect life around. I'm not sure if you can make it out in my photos.

I don't mind waking up early to greet the sun, but after about 20 minutes, I considered it greeted and went back to bed. Julia stayed up to get the full nature experience.


Before we left, we took a few more turns on the sled.


And followed the posts back to the Impala.


We spent the day driving through Southwestern New Mexico. We stopped again in Las Cruces and the tiny town of La Mesilla. We ate, or rather, I ate lunch accompanied by Julia, at La Posta, which used to be a stop on the Butterfield Stagecoach. Julia could at least have a beer, since I was driving.

Outside La Posta, I took a picture of strings of dried peppers which is something we saw *everywhere* in New Mexico. Chili peppers are big here.


They're a real feature in the cuisine, and we heard stories about how much people miss them when they move away, and beg all their New Mexican friends to send them a giant bag at chili pepper season (August, btw).
We also found a pottery shop in La Mesilla, with colorfully-painted pottery. Some in the shape of, say, pigs, or cats. I think there are fawns there, next to the pigs.



La Mesilla also had a thrift shop! It had clothing, hats,


and curiosities

We left La Mesilla with a definite soft spot in our thrift-shop-loving hearts, but we had to get back on the road. We finally made it to the campgrounds at Gila National Forest, where they have natural hot springs!! I believe the name of the campsite was the Gila River Campground, and that it was. It was a pretty ideal spot. It had a kitchen, bathroom facilities, and did I mention, hot springs?


It even had a nice log bench from which to take in the river view while enjoying a brewski and waiting out turn for a quiet soak in the hot springs (pics to come in Day Nine).

Day Seven

We woke up early in beautiful Cloudcroft,


and drove back into town to Burro Street, where they have a quaint collection of shops.


On our way out of town, we ran into a shop called the Old Apple Barn, owned by Beverly and Bill Niffenegger. Beverly was possibly the most outgoing, friendliest person we met, but I still somehow couldn't bring myself to ask about the salt and pepper shakers I saw in the store.


And a close up:


We were a little late getting back on the road, and had to rush a bit to get over to White Sands National Monument to book our campsite for that night. They only have 10 campsites, and what with the beautiful weather and summer vacation, we didn't know how crowded it might be. In our worst nightmares, we pictured getting there in the early afternoon only to find that the campsites were all filled. So we got there around 1pm to reserve our spot and were told to return at 6 that evening to sign in for the night.

In the intervening hours, we drove up to the Three Rivers Petroglyphs site north of Las Cruces, with a short stop in Alamogordo's Shell Station to change the oil in the Impala.


Las Cruces was actually a pretty cute place from what we could see. At least we managed to amuse ourselves with crafts and ice cream (not pictured).


The petroglyphs to the north of Las Cruces were left by the Jornada Mogollon (pronounced Muggy-own, we found out) people who used stone tools to abrade designs into the rocks between 900 and 1400 AD. They feature animals, birds, even fish, as well as abstract designs.

I believe these are arrows sticking out of this ram. Wishful thinking?


We were a little shocked because the petroglyphs weren't protected in any way. If some wiseass were to come along and add some of their own scratchitti, there's nothing to stop, or even discourage it. It's really just a bunch of rocks on an open hill in the New Mexican countryside.

On the other hand, it's such an intimate experience to have nothing between you and these works, and to feel so integrated into the landscape. And I didn't see any defacement so far. I guess the people that go see this are a self-selecting group who aren't looking to damage the artifacts they drove a few hours to get to.

We got back on the road to White Sands with baited breath. Would we have to share White Sands with too many other campers? How many? Would they be loud? Wailing babies? Boy Scouts? We arrived promptly at 6 for our orientation only to find that we were the only ones spending the night in the entire park! Even the lecture on unexploded ordinance didn't dim our spirits!

The sands of white sands are actually gypsum, which is water soluble. But since the Tularosa Basin has no outlet to the sea, wikipedia tells me that the rain leaves the gypsum in its crystalline, apparently sandy form, selenite. The road is packed down selenite, with white dunes in every direction. Here's the shadow of our trusty Impala in the "parking lot" of the campgrounds.


Note the rainbow in the background. Also note the sled we bought at the park gift shop.


Finding our campground wasn't too difficult, thanks to posts that guide you across the dunes. You move to a post, and then stay right there until you see the next one.



We got there just about an hour of light left, and we rushed to set up our tent so we could enjoy the sunset over the dunes. We were a little worried we were going to get creamed by this rather ominous-looking cloud,

but it passed us by without a drop. So we got busy with the sled on those dunes!


After a while, though, we had to just stop and admire the changing colors in the sky.



It was already quiet, but in the semi-light, with no one else in sight or hearing, we could have been the last people on earth.

Day Six

The next day, we toured the famous Caverns at Carlsbad National Park. The entrance to the Caverns looks like...a giant hole in the earth.

And you walk down into it.

And you keep walking until you can't see any more. Then you keep walking. Seriously, though, you go 750 feet down. It's a mile long trail, but it didn't seem all that steep. The cave is 56° year round, which can feel nice in the middle of August in New Mexico. The rock formations are amazingly varied. And they all have evocative names that I can no longer match up with what I took a picture of. Still, here they are

After spending the morning and early afternoon in the cave, the bright, sunny, New Mexican day was a relief. Cloudless and blue, and, of course, hot.

We drove a couple of hours west into the Sacramento Mountains to a tiny town called Cloudcroft and found the Cloudcroft hostel. The scenery outside the car window changed dramatically from the ocher colored desert to lush green pine forests, in just a couple of hours. The air even felt less dry, and as the afternoon lengthened, we were shocked to see mist rising from the mountains. Cloudcroft (allegedly 9,000 feet above stress level, if the website is to be believed) was pretty adorable, but we left the exploring for the next day. We spent a quiet evening talking with the hostel's owner, John, as the sun set behind the mountains of the Lincoln National Forest.

Day Five

Here are our early morning pictures from Storrie Lake.

You can see an RV in the background on the right. One of many.

Unfortunately, I think that may be all the pictures I have of Day Five. Julia will probably have more. We spent most of the day driving. New Mexico is a huge state. Huge. The fifth largest. We had to go from Las Vegas, in the middle of the state to Carlsbad, waaaay down in the south of the state. Google maps tells me it's around 260 miles, and I believe it. We must have driven 6 hours that day. And what did we see? Not much. A lot of desert with its low scrubby vegetation, and tall dried up yucca blossoms. Roswell was pretty depressing. Everything had to be dressed up in some kind of martian gimmick. I spared you the pictures.

The good news is that we made it in time to see the bats leave Carlsbad Caverns, an occurrence that takes place nightly during the summer months. We got to the caverns around dusk, and waited in the Bat Amphitheater which looks onto the mouth of the famous caverns.


We waited. And waited. I didn't mind the wait, but it was a struggle for the families with small children, or impatient adults, to wait quietly without the distraction of their cameras or cell phones. Too much noise will throw the bats off their mojo as will the collective sound of everyone's electronics. We can't hear it, but if you're practically blind and fly by sonar, I guess it's pretty disruptive. So I don't have pictures, but I was able to cadge one from the Carlsbad National Park site.

About 300,000-500,000 bats leave the caverns every summer night. They can fly as far as West Texas for their nightly insect meal. They left the cave in a rush of wings, nearly soundless, that lasted for about an hour and a half. And they were tiny, tiny! Maybe the size of a sparrow, with delicate wings. If you got very close to the cavern entrance, you might hear a susurration like the rustling of leaves. Seeing them leave the cave left me with such a special feeling for them. They're so tiny and delicate and harmless, and really beneficial to us humans, and they've been so reviled for being ugly and creepy. I recently read a New Yorker article about a fungus that was killing bat populations all over the world. Realizing how precarious their survival is made me feel even more protective of them.

Here's a picture of a little guy called a javelina, native to New Mexico. We didn't actually see one, though I had my eyes peeled for them while we were there.

After the bats, we grabbed a Sonic Burger (ok, I grabbed a Sonic Burger, Julia grabbed some Sonic tater tots)


and went back to our hotel, the Stagecoach Motel. Don't ever *ever* go! Our room was so infested with roaches (3 killed in 20 minutes. And Julia did none of the killing), we had to set up the tent on the bed in order to feel okay falling asleep. The weird thing about the motel is that it had a beautiful, well-maintained pool, nicely screened from the highway with decorative plants and trees. Go figure. A hilarious picture of Julia on the bed with our tent.