Camping in Minnewaska State Park

Peter and I camped in Minnewaska State Park this weekend.

We splashed around in this amazing waterfall.



Picked blueberries to our hearts content and brought bags of them back home too! The trail we hiked along was lined with them -- much like Harriman.


No camping allowed in the park, but we were quiet and broke down the tent at first light. It was completely deserted at night! Not a soul! Almost eerie, but definitely amazing.


The water is crystal clear -- the lake has a limestone bedrock so the pH is not suitable for fish and other animals.

It would be amazing to go back in the fall when the leaves are turning!

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 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.

Day Four

We bid a fond farewell to Sandia Mountain Hostel and our donkey friends. Here's Bambina looking to start the day with a crust of bread or a melon rind. The sign on the door, aptly enough, says "please close the door to keep animals out of the hostel."


The day before, a gallery/shop owner in Madrid had told us about a national monument about 45 minutes away that was her favorite place to send people—one of her favorite things to do in the area. We figured we would trust the locals and visit Kasha-Ketuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. After a short coffee stop in Madrid, we drove out to Cochiti Lake, on the Pueblo de Cochiti Reservation. Pictures aren't allowed on the Reservations, but this is what our drive was mostly like:

The "tent rocks" are these enormous rock formations that are formed from different layers of rock and ash and tuff (volcanic ash). They settled over time and then were eroded away by wind and water. Since the layers all erode at different rates, the rock has striations with different colors. The giant rocks almost look like curtains (or tents, I guess), billowing in the hot wind.

Sometimes the path leads you through a narrow, twisty canyon with tent rocks on either side. It could be really dangerous to be here during a heavy rain. The summer months in New Mexico are notorious for flash floods. The weather can be clear one minute, blue skies and all, and then a huge storm will roll up out of nowhere and dump enough water to cause a flood in one of these "arroyos" or dry river beds. The lady who recommended Tent Rocks to us told us we wouldn't want to be there in the rain, but being Easterners, we thought she meant because there was no cover. Only when we got there, did we interpret her words to mean "it would be dangerous to be there in the rain."



It was quite a steep path near the top. The Canyon trail took us up to 630 feet up. Nearing the top:


At the top, though, we were rewarded with a great view of Tent Rocks below as well as the Rio Grande Valley, and the Sangre de Cristo, Jemez, and Sandia Mountains in the distance. This kid in the red shirt scared us half to death by playing along the edge. His dad didn't seem too concerned, but I could barely look long enough to take a picture. The boy (who was also sporting a grown-out mohawk) assured us that there was a ledge just 1o feet or so below him, but I couldn't even gather the courage to look.


After our Tent Rocks adventure, we had to put some distance between ourselves and the Sandia Mountains. We drove about 100 miles to the east to pull into Storrie Lake State Park just north of Las Vegas, NM. We blew through Las Vegas pretty fast, but we still managed to find the Fort Union Drive In Movie Theater. The drive-in experience got two thumbs up,


even if the movie itself left something to be desired.

Storrie Lake proved to be a bit of a disappointment. The lake itself was small and stagnant, with a large perimeter of boggy marsh surrounding it. Then, there was the management of the park. It's totally cool with the rangers, accepted park policy I guess, for everyone to drive their cars and giant RVs onto the grass and all over. So everywhere you go, the grass (not lush to begin with because of the dry, dry climate) is criss-crossed over with muddy tire tracks. Add on top of that the most unhelpful pair of rangers ever, and this campsite ends up with two thumbs down!! A side note: they actually have quite passable showers that smell nice and woody like a sauna, and have hot (though a bit sulfur-smelly) water. If you go and find a giant hairball sticking to the wall, though, don't blame this halfie. All this notwithstanding, I managed to take a picture that made it look gorgeous. It's all in the light and strategically cropping out the RVs.