My month in New Mexico

My take on New Mexico

where I went in New Mexico

New Mexico's land

New Mexico is the 5th largest of the states, which is saying something when the list begins with Alaska and Texas.  That fact gives it plenty of room for geographic and biologic diversity, and the state takes full advantage of that.

Its lowest point is Red Bluff Reservoir at 2,844' in the southwest near the Texas border; its highest point is Wheeler Peak at 13,167' in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos.  The 10,000' difference allows a wide range of habitats.  In an easy one-day drive, you can cross New Mexico and find deserts and croplands and grasslands; flat land and hills and mountains; cactus and sage and lush alpine forests.  And each of these areas has its own set of critters that call that area home.  It's a remarkable variety for what's actually a fairly small area - I mean, even I can get to all these places in a day's drive.

New Mexico has its own collection of natural wonders, too.  The Rio Grande Rift, formed by the earth simply stretching itself and then collapsing - not the usual natural method of forming a canyon.  The Capulin Volcano created by its own cinders.  Twelve-million-year-old Ship Rock and other volcanic leftovers.  White Sands, the largest gypsum dunefield in the world, and both the coldest and the wettest desert in North America, besides being beautiful.  Carlsbad Caverns, including some of the largest caves in North America.  This state isn't a one-hit wonder.

New Mexico's people

Everyone I talked to was glad they were living in New Mexico and specifically glad to be living in whatever community they were from.  Most people listed accessibility of outdoor activities as the prime thing they liked about living here.  In fact, after listening to this same idea for a month I almost came to believe that only those who enjoyed outdoor activities would be happy here, though I'm sure that's not true.  But there was a remarkable consistency in the answers I got.

New Mexico is unique among the states in having almost 50% of residents being of Hispanic or Latino heritage.  Another nearly 10% is of Native American heritage.  Add in other races besides caucasian and you can see how NM has come to be one of the few "majority-minority" states.  And also unlike other states, NM seems to celebrate that diversity - at least in public.  I'm still concerned about the controversy over teaching schoolchildren about the various backgrounds of their classmates - what on earth can be controversial about that?  But at least for a casual visitor to the state, there seems to be pride in their diversity.

Almost everyone was pleasant and helpful.  I took away a positive impression from most of my contacts here.  None of this holds true when these folks get behind the wheel of a car (see below), but on dry land (so to speak) everyone was great - even those secretive people in Los Alamos.

Driving in New Mexico

I did not find this a comfortable state to drive in for a number of reasons.

For one, as I mentioned above, I found many drivers to be reckless or careless or rude - or any combination of these.  I learned to be cautious at intersections because of the large number of people who misunderstand the concept of "right turn on red."  Or even the concept of safe driving.  I can't stop on a dime in the RV, even when I'm going slowly, and I had a lot of close calls at intersections.  And the same with merging onto a highway, where the people who are supposed to be yielding to those of us on the road apparently believe we're supposed to stop and let them whip in front of us.  I really got tired of a whole month of this.

For another, as I mentioned several times in my daily posts, the New Mexico highway department and I don't agree on how to sign a roadway so as to be of help to motorists.  I found directional signs hidden or even downright missing (for instance, turns were posted from one direction but not from the other).  I found hills and curves that weren't marked and speed limits that didn't make sense.  And I still haven't figured out why they decided a Friday afternoon was a good time to construct their own Jersey barriers in the middle of a busy highway near the state capital and why they couldn't buy them or make them elsewhere and transport them to where they were needed.

And for still another reason, I thought a lot of the roadway surfaces could have used some work.  In fact, after awhile I started wondering what New Mexico spends its gas tax money on, because it sure didn't seem to be road surfaces.  But adding rough roads to the other nuisances just made me wish the state were a lot smaller so I didn't have to drive so much in it.

What I didn't see that I wanted to see

Lots of things.  My main problem this month was my various health issues that cropped up, making travel much more difficult.  I mentioned a number of places I missed in my daily posts.

In addition, I missed everything west of I-25 and north of Silver City.  That includes Gallup - which I've heard of as long as I've heard of Truth or Consequences, the Grants area including El Malpais National Monument and Acoma Pueblo (oldest town in the US - people have lived here since 1075), the Chaco Culture National Historic Park, and the Very Large Array Radio Telescope ("one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories," they say).  Actually, I did try to go to that last place, but found out online that they've closed it for tours until this stupid virus is under control.  It's about an hour down the road from Socorro.

And I missed everything east of US-285.  That includes Hobbs, Clovis, and Tucumcari.  At Santa Rosa there's a place called Blue Hole, which is 80' deep and a constant 60° year round, used by scuba divers.

Because of dizziness and fear of ice, I chickened out of taking the scenic route between Taos and Raton.  That meant that in addition to beauty spots like Angel Fire, I missed Cimarron, where the tin ceiling in the St. James Hotel reputedly still has 20 bullet holes left from the Wild West days.

New Mexico has a lot that's worth coming to see - both natural wonders and museums and other relics of the past, as well as equipment for the future (the Very Large Array, e.g.).  I'm sorry I couldn't see more of it than I did.

My conclusion

New Mexico has a lot going for it, and I can easily understand why the residents are happy to be living here.  And I should qualify my opinion here again because I felt so poorly so much of the time I was here that I'm not sure I can be fair to this state.  

But even given that drawback, I know this isn't a place I could be happy to live in.  Of course it's too far from any ocean - or even an ocean-substitute (like the Great Lakes).  And while it has mountains, they seem to come to a halt south of Albuquerque, though my AAA map says I missed a bunch of mountains west of I-25.  But what I saw myself in the southern 2/3 of the state was flat land or rolling hills, nice in their way but not mountains.

I was interested to note that Wikipedia says the 2020 census found that NM's population increased by less than 3% in the last 10 years, one of the slowest growths in the country and 2nd only to Wyoming in being the slowest in the western US.  And these figures resulted from an unusually strong push by NM's government to count even those who live in very rural areas, where undercounts are common.  And if it wasn't one of the most popular states for retirees in the country, the results could have been much worse.

I'm sure there's a lot here to attract retirees.  Just not this particular retiree.  Too bad.

New Mexico - Days 23 - 30 - in Silver City

Silver City KOA, Silver City

Tuesday, 23 through Tuesday, 30 November 2021

Original plans

When I came here, I'd intended to stay only until after Thanksgiving.  I made the reservation a couple of months ago to be sure I'd have a comfortable place to stay over the holiday, when campgrounds tend to fill up despite the seasonal weather.  I planned to use this somewhat central location to visit the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, go down to see Deming and Las Cruces, and then finish the month in Lordsburg.

But a couple of things intervened to change those plans.  First was the fact that I visited Las Cruces earlier than I'd planned and, while it seemed a nice place, I didn't feel the need to go back now.  

I'd also wanted to go down to Deming, and from there down to the Mexican border to the Pancho Villa State Park.  I was interested to see what the state of New Mexico had to say about him but found online that the park office has closed due to Covid.  In trying to find out why the state was interested in this Mexican revolutionary, I found this website   https://lflank.wordpress.com/when-pancho-villa-invaded-nm that gives a clear explanation of the Mexican revolution, which in turn explains how Pancho Villa became a household name in the US, and also explains why Columbus, NM, is home to a state park named for him: in 1916 he became the first foreigner to invade the US since the War of 1812.  If we can ever get rid of this stupid virus, I'd like to visit there.

I really do regret not being able to get up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  That was partly because I read online that the road up there isn't so great for my kind of vehicle, and partly because I kept being disoriented by the black stuff swirling around in my vision (see next section), and partly because I ended up having so much to do to catch up I didn't want to take a day to drive up there.  But next time I'm in the area, definitely that's a place I want to go.

Anyway, the Silver City campground was comfortable, the wifi signal was strong, and I had so much to do before the end of the month that I decided to just stay here until I go to Arizona.

Health problems

The dizziness that'd been a problem for most of this month gradually disappeared, except for a mild recurrence now and then.  But soon after we arrived here, I noticed a blind spot in the vision of my left eye.  It was odd, almost like the fuzziness you see online when a person's face is being blocked out of a picture.  Just to the left of center in my left eye, about a quarter of my field of vision was blocked.

After another day or so, that went away but another kind of vision block took its place.  I guess it's what eye doctors call a floater, but in my experience those are usually fairly small and colorless, and they go away after a bit.  This floater was big and black and never went away.  It almost looked like a black lace curtain had dropped over the vision in my left eye, and the bottom of the curtain had a heavy black border that curved around, like the hem of a curtain when it moves around in a breeze.  I could see normally below the black hem, and I could see a bit dimmer but mostly normally above it.  But the black hem floats around as my eye moves around to focus on various things, so it keeps getting in the way and making it hard for me to see.  

It was always there - morning or evening or in bed with my eyes closed; tired or rested; inside or out.  When I can't see clearly, I can't think clearly, so this blockage started causing me trouble in doing any kind of thinking at all.  I called to all the eye doctors in Silver City and all were booked until at least mid-December, especially for a new patient and a transient one at that.  I finally decided to just make this a priority when I got to Arizona.

Gracie, too, started having a strange health problem.  Actually, nothing seemed wrong with her except that she started collapsing now and then.  I first noticed that she was stumbling for no reason when we were out for walks.  We all stumble over the tiniest things - a little pebble can do it.  But her stumbles became more frequent and seemed to involve her front legs actually giving way, rather than to the usual just losing her footing for a moment.  Then I started to see her standing at her water dish and very slowly collapsing.  Once I saw her collapse backwards with her rear legs giving way, and once I saw her collapse sideways with her left legs giving way.  Slow-motion collapses for no reason at all that I could see.

I decided this might be a side effect of the stroke she had in May, but once again I couldn't find anybody to consult.  All 3 of my critters are due for their annual shots in December, so I decided I'd consult whatever vet I could get an appointment with about Gracie's problem at the same time.  Very worrying, though.

Thanksgiving

The weather wasn't great but we otherwise had a nice Thanksgiving.  Of course I watched Schindler's List, my annual tradition.  It always makes me feel so thankful for the fairly comfortable life I've been lucky enough to have.

And I tried a pork chop recipe I've been wanting to try for years, with a peach-dijon sauce.  And with mashed potatoes and green beans, it was really good.

I've been trying since I moved into the RV to figure out a way of making a microwave approximation of my momma's coffee cake.  She always made it on Christmas morning, but when I've tried it the past couple of Christmases, it's been less than a success.  But I thought I might have figured out how to make it work and decided to try it today before making it for David and Anna when we all get together in Tucson at Christmas.  In the past, I'd just been cooking it too long and the bottom of it got hard as a rock.  Today it was almost perfect.  For Christmas I'll cut another 30 seconds off the cooking time and that should get it.  Huzzah!

I also made something called Raspberry Ganache Pie, which was so easy and so good I'll make it again before next Thanksgiving.  I found the recipe on a box of baking chocolate, so of course it calls for 2 packages of the semi-sweet chocolate, melted with a cup of whipping cream and beaten with a whisk until it's smooth, then stir in a couple tablespoons of raspberry jam and pour all that into a chocolate crumb crust and put in the frig for 4 hours.  Then cover the top with 2 cups of fresh raspberries, and cover all that with a glaze of 4 tablespoons of the jam and 1 T of water that were stirred together and microwaved until the jam had melted.  Really rich so just a small slice was plenty.  Actually, after the coffee cake for breakfast and the feast for dinner, I decided to save it for the next day.  And the next and the next.  It was really good while it lasted.

In the campground

Mostly I spent the week here catching up my blog - I wrote 15 posts, all the way up to this one - and walking the dogs 4 or 5 times a day.  

They have a decent-size dog park at this KOA, so we went there once a day.  Dexter managed to make a couple of friends, which I know you might not have thought he was capable of, but it just has to be done on his terms.  When he's able to meet a dog through the fence first, he's able to establish friendly relations with them while it's safe.  Then when the dog's brought into the park, Dexter's always fine with it.  I've seen this process work with 2 dogs at once, though I think more than 2 would be pushing it.

This is southwestern NM, and the cactus in the park reminded me of this.

This is what a whole plant looks like, but it's not clear
from this distance how lethal this plant is.
That's Gracie's head at the bottom.

This close-up makes it a lot easier to see
how truly dangerous this plant is.
But pretty.  Yellow flowers in November.

Because there was a national holiday stretched across much of the time I was here, there were lots of families and lots of kids.  There seemed to be a pack of them that were always together and - as kids do - were in and out of everywhere.  Once I was doing laundry, and the pack of kids came through the room from the campground office to the outside, and I heard the oldest, a girl of about 11, say to the others, "And exactly why is it we think this is a good idea?"  I didn't hear the answer or see what it is they were going to do, but I'm still curious what it was.

This campground had a decent playground set up including a special slide.

In case it's not clear this is a (pretend) dump truck, here's another view.

I've never seen another one like it.

On our early walk one morning we heard a large pack of coyotes carrying on.  Dexter decided whatever they were saying was worth barking at and I had a hard time getting him to stop.  That same day I could smell a skunk nearby, though fortunately we didn't run across it while we were out.

Not far from the office was a medium-size pond with a bunch of geese or Muscovy ducks or something in there.  They always seemed to be there, but I don't know if they were residents or had just stopped by for the winter.

Trips to Silver City

I finally managed to stay in one place long enough to get an appointment for the Covid booster shot.  A relief to get that taken care of.

While I was in town, I stopped by a tire shop to be sure mine were all still okay.  With winter coming, I wanted someone knowledgeable to tell me they were safe.  They told me they were definitely safe but had to add a bunch of air to several of them.  I've learned to trust the guys at the various tire shops I've stopped at here and there.  They all seem to know what they're doing and most are able to do it efficiently (some are better at dealing with my hubcaps than others).  Tires are expensive, but I'm usually open to the idea that it's time for me to get new ones, given the amount of time I spend on them.  But I've never had anyone try to sell me new tires when I didn't think they should have been.

On another trip into town, we had to pull off the road to let 14 police cars (by actual count) and a hearse go by.  I came across them again in town as they passed by the fire station where a huge US flag was stretched across the street, being held up by 2 ladder trucks, one from Silver City and the other from nearby Fort Bayard.  I saw a fire officer in uniform crossing the park across the street where I happened to be walking the dogs, so I asked what it was all about.  He said they were honoring a state senator from this district who had died.  Quite a send-off.

That park took up a city block and had lots of trees and a small basketball court and some picnic tables and so forth.  But mostly it was grass and for some reason we didn't see many other dogs in the 3 times we went there.  So it was good place for me to walk mine.

This seemed to be a nice town.  One person told me people were moving here because they have "4 gentle seasons" of weather.  I guess it's all relative, and relative to the weather in the northern part of the state, maybe so.  But despite having about 9,500 residents, this place strikes me as being fairly rural in character.  I saw several Alaska license plates while I was here, and Silver City seemed like the kind of place that someone coming south from Alaska might be comfortable in.  It was a little too rural for me, but I could see the attraction.  Despite all the cactus, there were a lot of beautiful trees and mountains.

And after a week spent here of resting and regrouping, we were able to head on to Arizona, not just to see the state but also to see the doctors in the state.  But I hadn't made reservations past the first 3 nights in Benson, so I could be flexible in where to look for medical help.

New Mexico - Day 22 - the road to Silver City

Silver City KOA, Silver City

Monday, 22 November 2021

today's route

On the road

I heard on the radio that there's a watercolor society in New Mexico.  The news item was about them looking for an artist-in-residence or something - I was busy driving and couldn't write it down.  But I've looked at their website and found a pretty active group of artists.   https://nmwatercolorsociety.org

The road I had to focus on was miles and miles of climbing road with curves and s-curves and 1 switchback.  As far as I could see, there were high hills covered in yellow grass and sage.  It was really pretty.

I came to Hillsboro, elev. 5,180' (appropriately named - I started this drive at Caballo at 4,245').  A sign told me I could turn to go to the Hillsboro Historic District, and another sign told me the town was founded in the 1870s when gold and silver were discovered in the nearby mountains.  It became an important mining and ranching center, was the county seat for a while, and claims to have had the last operating stage line in the US.

Nearby was another historic marker, this one for Sadie Orchard, which I assumed was someone's fruit trees.  Boy was that assumption wrong.  I can't paraphrase this and do it justice - you'll have to read for yourself about this colorful slice of history.   https://www.hmdb.org/Sadie-Orchard

From Hillsboro, the road started going down, around more curves and s-curves.  I crossed Percha Creek via a bridge that suddenly took me over a very deep canyon.  There wasn't a road marker about it and I don't know why not.  It was dramatic and beautiful and very short.  Online I found a trail site that talks about hiking Percha Box, which is what I think I saw.  The site says it's 5.4 miles long, beautiful and a place to watch out for rattlesnakes.

I saw some of those loose cow signs (and saw 2 loose cows), and passed a huge wall of pink rock.

The town of Kingston, established 1882, is the Home of the Spit & Whittle Club.  I had to look it up and learned it's one of the oldest continually active social clubs in the western US, dating back to the 1880s during the mining boom when Kingston was (they claim) the largest town in the NM Territory.  It sounds like now they mostly have fun.

At Kingston I saw a sign telling me I was entering the Gila National Forest, and the road began climbing again.  Between Kingston at 6,224' and Emory Pass at 8,228', I negotiated a total of at least 12 hairpin turns (there were 5 in a row, 3 in a row, 4 in a row - I lost count) plus constant s-curves.  It was a serious stretch of road and part way through, one of my contact lenses got something in it so I was half-blind for many of those curves.  There were almost no pullouts along that stretch until I got to the top of the pass.

I saw what I thought were Bluebirds flying across the road - 4 of them.  And they might have been.  Here's what a Mountain Bluebird looks like.

But here's what a Pinyon Jay looks like.

You can't tell from these photos, but the jay is 10½" while the bluebird is 7¼".  Because of the size difference, I'm going with bluebird as what I saw, but trying to identify a bird while driving that crazy road - well, it's just a guess.  Both pretty birds, though, aren't they?  And the birds I saw were a welcome blue sight in all those green trees and rocks.

The US Forest Service has several campgrounds along this road in the Gila National Forest, and we stopped at one of them - Iron Creek - to stretch our legs.  I saw a youngish couple jogging along a track that led right beside where we were, along with their dog - maybe a Shepherd mix.  The fact that it was off leash made me glad we hadn't already left the RV, and I waited until they'd gone by.  I mention this because that dog was absolutely joyous.  Bounding around and sniffing everything and clearly ecstatic to be running along out in Nature with his people.  Impossible not to smile, watching him.

We had a nice walk, though I was afraid to go down that track in case they came back, so we just walked around the small camping area.  I heard several woodpeckers, and I'm guessing Hairy Woodpeckers because they're almost the only species that's supposed to be here this time of year, and because the bird book says they're the only woodpeckers to expect in dense forests, which this was.  It would have been easier if I'd been able to see them.

From there, the road narrowed mostly because of unpruned junipers and rock overhangs taking up valuable road space.  I was lucky in that all day I saw almost no other cars.  I counted 15 or so that were eastbound, 1 that I overtook going west, and another that was parked.  With all those hairpin turns, I can understand commercial drivers wouldn't want to come this way, but I was surprised there were so few regular drivers.

Just past the turn for the town of San Lorenzo, I saw a sign telling me I'd joined Trail of the Mountain Spirits National Scenic Byway.  I'd never heard of this so I looked it up and learned, among other things, that the Gila National Forest includes the Gila Wilderness, which was the first in the US to be designated a national wilderness area.  Here's a couple of websites that describe the byway more fully.   https://www.newmexico.org/trail-of-the-mountain-spirits  https://www.byways.org/trail-of-the-mountain-spirits-scenic-byway

This byway also follows part of an annual bike race called Tour of the Gila, and I'll tell you how very glad I was not to have been driving here during that race.  This road would be impossible to drive if I had to share it with a bunch of racing bikes.  And apparently it was a near thing.  This year's race was canceled due to Covid, but it's usually held right around Thanksgiving and has been scheduled for 2022 to begin on Black Friday.

And the road started climbing again, and I saw what looked like a big blue rock of a mountain.  And the closer I got, the more it still looked blue.

There was no place to pull over to take a photo, so I grabbed this one from the only place I could find.  I can't find anything about it online, but maybe you can see that that chunk of rock is bluish, in contrast to the tan surrounding rocks.  Strange.

I saw what looked like a mining operation, though I didn't see a sign.  There were very high hills with lots of green and red rocks (which I learned in Utah might mean copper and iron).  And then I passed a sign directing me to the Santa Rita Mine Observation Area.  All I knew was that the AAA map said Santa Rita was a ghost town, so I looked it up.  According to this web page https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/santa-rita-nm, the Santa Rita Mine is a monster open pit copper mine that swallowed up the old town of Santa Rita.  So according to them, Santa Rita isn't just a ghost town, it's now nonexistent.  

At the town of Santa Clara, elev. 5,950', I passed a turn to the right for Ft. Bayard National Historic Landmark District, and a turn to the left for the town of Bayard.  Ft. Bayard was established in 1866 and now consists of nothing more than a national cemetery.  Because Bayard is off the main road, I didn't see it but am guessing it's a farming community.  Their Wikipedia page is silent regarding the local economy, but it's lost nearly 20% of its population in the last 20 years and there doesn't seem to be much going on economically around here - except the Santa Rita mine, I guess.

Just a few miles farther along, I came to Silver City, elev. 5900', Gateway to the Continental Divide Trail, they say.  I've seen these signs before in other states but don't remember looking it up.  You might want to take a look at this website https://www.greenbelly.co/continental-divide-trail-map that's aimed mainly at potential hikers, but there's a map of the trail that's stunning in the territory it crosses.  The trail runs between the Canadian and Mexican borders and can reach more than 14,000' in Colorado.

I drove part way into town, looking for a place to stop and take a walk and have some lunch.  It was only 11:00 when we got there, which I thought was too early to try to check in at the campground.  I followed signs for the county courthouse but found an empty church parking lot first so we stopped there.  In that short distance I learned that Silver City deliberately times its traffic lights to stop traffic.  Somebody should tell them that a better way of slowing down cars is to time the lights to turn green exactly when a car that's traveling at the speed limit would arrive at the light.  Tacoma, WA, did that, and downtown Austin, TX, also used to be like that (not sure if it still is), and it worked well and reduced frustration among drivers, not to mention cutting down on carbon emissions from idling motors.

And then on to the campground, where we had a reservation through Thanksgiving.

New Mexico - Day 21 - Truth or Consequences and Las Cruces

Caballo Lake State Park, Caballo

Sunday, 21 November 2021

When I took the dogs out for our 2nd walk this morning, it was just light and we saw a large covey of quail.  They were on both sides of the road we were on and couldn't seem to make up their minds which side they wanted to be on.  There must have been 15 or 20 of them in the batch we saw, and a little after that we saw huge flocks of what looked like more quail flying overhead.

Gambel's Quail

I'm pretty sure this is what we saw.  The male is much more nicely colored than this female, but she looks more like what we saw.  Plus that little plume on her head was so hard to see, it took me a while to realize it was quail we were looking at.

I had a good view of Elephant Butte Reservoir before leaving.  There was a sailboat on the lake and a decent-sized marina.  But it was clear the lake's water level was way down from its usual level, which might make boating hazardous.

today's route

On the road

The 2 state parks I'd been able to find camping spots in for this weekend are, as you can see on the map, almost next to each other.  I decided to run down to Las Cruces for the day, just to try to get a quick look at what it was like, having heard of it for many years.  It was only about 75 miles from the campground.

I drove back through Elephant Butte and, with nothing (like a sign) to separate them, came to Truth or Consequences.  Of course, I grew up when the TV show was popular and wondered about this town.  Its original name was Hot Springs, but the town voted to change the name in 1950 when the show (it was on the radio then) said it would broadcast its 10th anniversary program from the 1st town to change its name to T or C.  And this place won.  And never bothered to change the name back - I think they see it as a tourist draw.

I passed a marker headlined "Magnificent Magnolia" and didn't stop but had to look it up.  It turns out to be one of those notable NM women markers I first saw in Mora.  The marker itself doesn't tell much about this woman, named Magnolia Ellis, but the website established for those markers tells the story of a remarkable woman.  Born in the Texas Hill Country in 1893, she eventually studied pre-med in Lubbock and put her special talent for healing to good use here in Hot Springs/Truth or Consequences.  Here's the web page.   https://www.nmhistoricwomen.org/magnolia-ellis

Not far from Las Cruces, I saw a sign for Spaceport America.  I thought I was making up what it said, but the FAA has apparently licensed this private facility as an actual spaceport.  Virgin Galactic first launched a spaceship from there in 2006, and there've been 300 launches since then.  The public is allowed only as part of tours they offer (and may charge a bundle for, according to a Trip Advisor review).

As I went south, I started seeing cotton still growing in fields.  I saw it all along the road.  Lots of tumbleweed, too.

And I started getting very strong crosswinds and the same time I came to miles and miles of road construction.  The road closures forced me onto the shoulder with its rough road surface for most of that distance, while the winds were shoving me sideways.  Between the road surface and the wind, I was having a very tedious drive.

Las Cruces

There wasn't a sign telling me I was here, but I figured it out anyway.  This is a city with a current population of 111,385, and is NM's 2nd largest, so it was fairly obvious.

Almost as soon as we got off the highway, we found a hike-and-bike trail near the campus.  Lots of other people were out there too, which made me nervous in case a dog would jog into view before I could figure out how to dodge it.  But after I'd pulled stickers out of both the dogs' feet when they got off the trail to sniff a tree, I turned us around and figured we could find somewhere else less sticker-y.

We drove around the campus of New Mexico State University - they're the Aggies - which seemed very pleasant.  It's clearly got an emphasis on agriculture, as we saw small herds of cows and horses, and small fields for crops, all on the campus or right by it.  I passed a section of what was obviously student housing, but they were separate one-story single-family homes.  Actually, I doubt if a family would fit in one of them.  They might have had 2 rooms total plus a bathroom.  I thought the name of the area was Sunderland Housing, but I couldn't find anything about it online so may have read the sign wrong.  The sight took me right back to my days in Austin in old duplexes heavily used by students.

We drove into downtown, where I saw a tall building with the words "Electronic Caregiver" written on the side.  That seemed a little odd to me so I looked it up and learned that's the name of a company, founded 2009 here in Las Cruces, that specializes in various electronic devices for use in the healthcare field.  Based on that building, I'd say the company has been successful.

We squeezed along Main Street, where I saw lots of sidewalk tables outside every restaurant, and a sidewalk wide enough to accommodate them.  It was an attractive scene.

We passed the City Hall, a very fancy-looking building with a big driveway and 2 huge lions guarding the entrance.

Las Cruces looks a lot like other towns I've seen in NM, but it seems like a pleasant place to live.

Back on the road

I decided on the scenic route for the way back north, so I could see some of the little towns along the way.

One thing I noticed all the way north was cotton and pecans.  I guess that's 2 things.  I saw cotton growing and cotton being harvested and cotton just having been harvested or half the field harvested.  Lots and lots of cotton.

And I saw pecan plantations for miles and miles.  Individual orchards as well as huge plantations of them.

I saw goats and horses and crops of some kind.  Between Radium Springs and Hatch I passed Martinez Arena where I saw dozens of horses being ridden in the arena by dozens of men.  Pickups and horse trailers were all standing around, and I saw a crowd of people on the opposite side of the arena from the road.  Something big was going on and I'll bet they were all having fun.

I crossed the Rio Grande twice, and didn't see much water in it either time.

At the town of Radium Springs I saw a sign advertising property for sale: "325 acres - A View With Some Room."  Radium Springs was originally named Fort Selden Springs, for the nearby fort where some Buffalo Soldiers were once stationed.  When a post office was put in, in 1926, the town got a mineral test done of the free-flowing hot springs there, and found they could legally stick "radium" onto their name.  At that time, this was an attraction and many people came here for relief from arthritis and other problems.  The fort had been abandoned in 1891, and radium eventually became less attractive.  But this is still home to about 1,700 people.

I passed the little town of Rincon, which I think means corner in Spanish.  This is your basic farming town with 220 residents.

And then I came to Hatch, world famous for its chiles.  The town, at elev. 4,050', holds an annual World Famous Chile Festival on Labor Day weekend each year, and I assumed mid-November would be too late for chiles.  I assumed wrong.  I saw peppers still growing in fields and mounds of peppers being sorted.  We saw a little park next to another pecan orchard and stopped for a little walk.

Several places along the road I saw a sign that said "Plowing of Roadway Prohibited."  That didn't make sense - who wouldn't want to have the road cleared of snow?  But then I wondered if maybe these signs had been posted near the pecan trees, and maybe whatever NM uses on its roads - like salt - is hard on the trees and the owners didn't want mounds of treated snow near their pecans.

Not far past Hatch I came to a series of tiny towns: Salem, Garfield, Derry and Arrey.  These all looked like farming towns, where I saw large fields of cotton still growing or having been baled (those tightly-wrapped bundles of what look like q-tips), and fields of chiles and hay and more pecans.

I had been surprised all day to see the pecan trees with all their leaves still green and still on, because by now in Texas they'd have lost most of them.  Finally, near Arrey, I saw pecan trees that were losing their leaves.

Just a few miles farther on we came to the entrance of tonight's campground.  But I needed gasoline before driving across the mountains on the next leg of our trip, and I hadn't gotten it in Las Cruces or anywhere else because the price was so much higher than it had been up north.  Still, I didn't want to risk running low on gas in the mountains, so I went up the road in search of a gas station.  That turned out to be a lot harder than I'd thought.

The next town, Caballo, not only didn't have a sign with its name on (I had to guess from its position) but it also didn't have any services, so I kept going north, still on NM-187.  Nothing wrong with the road, really, but it was bumpy and winding and narrow, so I had to pay attention to what I was doing.

I learned there isn't a town north of Caballo until Truth or Consequences, more than 15 miles down the road.  As tired as I was from driving all day and as much as I was ready to find our campsite and get settled in, I was still glad I hadn't let this gas-search wait until setting out on a drive across the mountains.  From T or C, I got on the interstate.  It wasn't a saving in mileage, but it was definitely a saving in wear-and-tear on my patience.

At Caballo Lake State Park, the park office was open, the nice lady gave me a map without asking why I wanted it, and our campsite was fine.  This is a much smaller campground than Elephant Butte, and local businesses had sponsored numerous areas around the campsites where varieties of cactus were planted.  It seemed to me that the last thing this desert-like area needed was more cactus, but somebody thought it was a good idea.

I hadn't made a reservation anywhere for tomorrow night, thinking I might want to stay here a 2nd night.  But after helping the dogs dodge all this cactus, I decided we couldn't be worse off and might be much more comfortable in Silver City, so I called them and they said sure, come early.  So that's what we'll do.

New Mexico - Day 20 - the drive south to Elephant Butte

Elephant Butte Lake State Park, Elephant Butte

Saturday, 20 November 2021

today's route

On the road

Once again, I was traipsing across a good part of the state.  I'd intended to make as much of the trip as possible off the interstate, but halfway through I changed my mind.

I started with roads along Albuquerque's west side, which gave me a good view of the Sandia Mountains on ABQ's east side.  I went through a constant series of towns, one after the other, almost none of which had signs identifying them.  The only one I know for sure was Rio Rancho, elevation 5,290', slightly above Bernalillo.  But without signs and without room on the AAA map to identify them, for all I know the entire stretch of 20 miles or so was all Rio Rancho.

Finally I started seeing farmland in the midst of housing developments, so I knew I was beginning to leave the city behind.  And then finally, no development.  Just farmland and scattered houses.

I saw a highway sign that said "End Patrol 4356 Maintenance."  I've seen signs similar to this ever since I got to New Mexico and have never figured out what they mean.  And looking it up online got me nothing.  Is maintenance along that stretch of road done by patrol 4356?  Who is patrol 4356 and why should the driving public care?  And I don't remember ever seeing a sign that said "begin patrol ___ maintenance."  They always just told me about the end.  Yet again, I'll point out that NM highway signs leave a lot to be desired for the driving public.

By the time we got to Los Lunas, we'd been driving for a while and were ready for a break.  But what we found was a major traffic accident at the busiest intersection in town.  Police were only letting one lane go by, for some reason, even though it would have made much more sense to let all lanes take turns.  So long lines of impatient drivers were held up by an officer who didn't seem to be able to process more than one idea at a time.  Though to be fair, he may have been following orders.  But Los Lunas has about 16,000 residents so I'd expect a competent police force.  Oh well.  We made it through eventually.  But it complicated trying to find a park or a church or someplace to walk.  I finally just kept going down the road.

Soon after that I saw a small truck on the road in front of me that couldn't seem to drive straight.  The driver went for miles without being able to stay in the lane, and in fact drove for some distance mostly on the shoulder.  It could have been a distracted driver, or maybe a drunk driver (though it wasn't noon yet), but regardless of the reason, I still didn't think being around him was safe and fell back a ways.  He finally turned off the highway.

I came to Belen, elev. 4,800', "The Hub City," they call themselves.  I'm not really sure why.  It looked like a regular town of 7,000+ folks.

I passed a business called Black And White Dairy, Bosque Dairies.  And nearby there were lots of black-and-white cows.

I passed the Walking Sands Rest Area and didn't stop though the name made me curious.  But the internet isn't satisfying my curiosity.  I know what walking sands are in general, and the internet says this rest area sits at the edge of the Sonoran Desert, which suggests sand.  But other states with walking sand dunes celebrate them - Indiana's has been named a national park.  NM lets its walking sands sit in comparative anonymity near a highway rest stop.

I passed a field with a couple dozen cows and 2 Longhorns.

Socorro

We stopped here at Socorro, partly because we needed the break and partly because I'd intended to stop here anyway.  I'd heard on the radio that Socorro is the home of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, aka NM Tech.  These are some of the folks doing the research on the connection between fracking and earthquakes and nuclear power.

The school has an attractive campus - I was surprised to find the buildings so modern since the school was established in 1889 - and since it was a Saturday we were able to stop on the campus and take a walk for a bit.  

I also found a grocery store to pick up a few things for the next couple of nights at state parks.  While I was waiting in line, I had time to watch the clerk trying to explain to the man ahead of me that he hadn't paid enough for his food.  I couldn't tell if he was deaf or mentally slow or what, but he just kept gathering up his bags until finally she got through to him.  But he didn't have any more money.  And then a woman who'd been standing to one side opened her wallet and said she'd pay half of his bill - $22 of the $44 total.  The grocery store clerk kicked in the odd amount of change still needed, and the man went on his way.  None of these folks seemed to know each other.  Just a random act of kindness.  It gave me a good impression of the people of Socorro.

Back on the road

By the time we left, it was already 1:45 and we still had almost half the drive left to go.  So I gave up the side roads for the interstate, just to be sure we'd get to the campground before dusk, since I drive so much slower than others.

I passed 2 national wildlife refuges: the Bosque del Apache and the Sevilletta.  Considering their size and location (near deserts and lakes and forests), they're likely able to protect a wide variety of critters.

I passed the turn for Fort Craig National Historic Site.  This fort was built in 1854 and was one of the largest forts built in the West.  It's in ruins now.

The farther south I drove, the less traffic I saw, which made driving easier.

At Nogal Canyon, the road dipped sharply down and then sharply back up again.  On the way down I saw one of those "Gusty Winds May Exist" signs.  This time the highway department had put up 2 wind socks to prove it.  And they showed that today was a day when gusty winds did indeed exist.  I had to concentrate not to get blown off the road as I drove down into that canyon.

A short way farther along the road, I came to La Canada Alamosa, another canyon with another gusty winds sign and more wind socks and more gusty winds.  That seemed an odd name - Canada, after all - so I looked it up.  The internet says this name is an Anglicized version of Cañada Alamosa, meaning valley of the cottonwoods.

And I finally came to the town of Elephant Butte, "Let the Fun Begin!".  Apparently this little town of 1,348 is putting all its money on the recreation opportunities of Elephant Butte Lake and its state park.  It seems to be one of the most popular recreation areas in the state.  The reservoir was created from the Rio Grande, is 40 miles long and the largest in the state by surface area.  It's also the only place in NM where pelicans can be found, per Wikipedia.

It was an attractive area, by desert standards (no lush stands of trees, for instance), and obviously popular.  The campground was in good shape with lots of volunteer camp hosts.  But I was surprised that they didn't have a map of the campground.  The office was closed when I got there, and all of the hosts seemed surprised that I'd even want a map.  This despite the fact that there were 3 separate camping areas, and the one I was in had sections labeled Loop A, Loop B and Loop C, none of which were loops but instead all were straight lanes that met at the end.  No signs said how to get to the lake, or back to the exit for that matter.  Strange place.  But a great view from the top of the butte (I guess that's where we were).

New Mexico - Day 19 - Santa Fe and Los Alamos

Albuquerque North/Bernalillo KOA, Bernalillo

Friday, 19 November 2021

today's route

On the road

Google told me I couldn't get on I-25 at exit 242, that you can see right by Bernalillo.  Google said I had to turn myself inside out and drive a whole bunch of extra miles out of the way.  Google was wrong.  I made a right turn onto US-550, drove a quarter of a mile, turned left and got on the highway.

I passed a sign telling me I could turn where it said, if I wanted to visit something called "Mormon Battalion Monument."  I had to look that up, and I learned a battalion of Mormons marched south (I don't know from where) through this area to join the US forces in the Mexican-American War, and a monument was erected here to commemorate that.  It doesn't make sense to me, but that's what all the online sources said.

I passed through the San Felipe reservation and the Santo Domingo reservation.

The highway felt like it was climbing up to Santa Fe, which it was: Bernalillo is at 5,052' and Santa Fe is at 7,198'.  So an extra 2,000'.

Santa Fe

By the time I'd gotten into Santa Fe, I had the feeling all the houses I'd passed since Bernalillo were pretty much the same color.  They're mostly made of adobe, and they're mostly some variation of that natural terra cotta shade.  I generally think monochrome color schemes tend to be restful, and I felt that about these houses.  But they can also be a little boring, and I felt that too about these houses.  I would have liked to see at least one family decide that even shocking pink was a good house color.

At several points I saw signs telling me I was on the Santa Fe Trail Original Route.  

And I saw a sign noting there was an internment camp for Japanese-Americans in Santa Fe during WWII.  I can't find a photo of that sign online, but I did learn that from 1942 until 1945, more than 4,500 Americans of Japanese descent were held here.  And I found two personal descriptions of this camp and the controversy about erecting the memorial.   http://www.manymountains.org/santa-fe-marker and https://kathrynelim.com/santa-fe-internment-camp

Santa Fe's downtown streets feel as crowded as those in Taos, and for the same reason - they're narrow and the adobe buildings feel more hulking than I'm used to.  I managed to find the capitol building, but the way the streets were configured, I couldn't get any angle for a photo.  I found this one online.

New Mexico State Capitol

Often called "the Roundhouse," this is the only round capitol building in the country.  It was built in 1966, and the design was intended to evoke the sun symbol - zia - that is shown on the state's license plates.

zia

Each of the building's 4 entrances looks like the one above.

It's a very attractive building, though I was a little frustrated that it was so heavily surrounded by plants and other buildings that I couldn't get any better view of it than the photographer did in that photo above.  I also saw some really nice public art nearby.  It looks like it'd be an interesting place to visit if you can find a parking place, but since I had trouble finding a place to drive in, I didn't even bother looking for a spot to park in.

Santa Fe, by the way, is the oldest capital city in the US., dating back to 1610 when the Spanish designated it as the capital for their Kingdom of New Mexico.  When Mexico won the land along with its independence from Spain in 1821, the Palace that the Spanish had built in 1610 became the capitol for Mexico's Nuevo Mexico.  And when the US claimed the land in 1846, that same building continued as the seat of territorial government.  The Palace is now home to the state history museum and is the oldest public building in the US.  I would love to have seen the building and visited the museum.  Once again, I just didn't have time.

Back on the road

I passed signs for the Tesuque reservation, for the Pueblo of Pojoaque, and for San Ildefonso reservation.

All day I saw mountains, mostly tan and rounded with juniper dotted all over.  And I saw lots of flat-topped mesas.

I passed a sign for Puye Cliff Dwellings, a National Monument, that are apparently on the road toward Española.  The dwellings were likely used between 1300 and 1600 and are probably fascinating to visit.  But that wasn't where I was headed now.

The road was climbing once again as I drove toward Los Alamos, which sits about 150' above Santa Fe.  Despite the small difference in elevation, this road began a long upward constant series of s-curves, with a recommended speed of 25 mph.  And I took that hint, not least because I was on the side of the road that didn't have a mountain attached to it.  It was a fairly hair-raising drive and I was glad to get into town.

Los Alamos

Los Alamos, "Where Discoveries Are Made," they say.

We stopped at a nice park that wasn't far from an off-leash dog park.  Unfortunately there were already 4 or 5 dogs in the dog park, so I kept mine in the regular park at a distance.  We still had a nice walk in the grass around trees.

I found the Los Alamos Visitor Center/Manhattan Project National Historic Park and went to learn about this historic event.  As it happened, the main thing I learned was that they were and are obsessed (to my mind) with secrecy.  They have a smallish room that includes displays of information about the Manhattan Project, and there were two park rangers/volunteers who were very willing to answer questions.  But they were insistent that I couldn't use any photos of their displays on my blog.  None of that stuff "was in the public domain," they said.  Which seemed really odd, considering the exhibits were being shown publicly, the door was standing wide open, and I didn't have to give a secret handshake or anything.  But they insisted they themselves weren't allowed to use those photos on any of their materials, so I couldn't either.  And I won't.

But they handed me a brochure - one of the usual brochures the National Park Service puts out for their properties - and I didn't think to ask if that was in the public domain because surely - surely - it must be since they handed it out to a member of the public.  

NM-502 is the road to Santa Fe.  Following that to NM-501
and then to NM-4 winds up on US-550, the road from Farmington down to ABQ.
This map shows the overall area, and
the numbers correspond to the descriptions below.

The brochure had a 2nd map, this one of the historical sites in Los Alamos itself.

The Bradbury Science Museum was not named for Ray Bradbury, as I'd speculated, but instead for Norris Bradbury, who directed the lab after Robert Oppenheimer.  To give you an idea of the folks at this visitor center, they didn't even crack a smile when I said that about Ray Bradbury.  Granted they'd probably heard a million people say that, but surely - in a public relations position - it rates a smile?

And finally, the brochure had these before-and-after photos.

During the war - reminds me of photos
I've seen of Washington, DC during the war.

After the war - though this photo was
apparently taken when some event was going on.

As I understand the situation, the information from the visitor center exhibits is public - as I said no one made me swear an oath of secrecy to view them.  I just can't show you the photos of them.  So here's some information that I saw at the exhibits but don't see in the brochure.

Many of Germany's most talented scientists had fled the country before WWII.  Robert Oppenheimer was born in the US to parents who had left Germany at an earlier time.  He trained as a physicist, and recruited some of these immigrant physicists to this project.  There was some fear that Germany was trying to develop an atomic bomb, and the Manhattan Project was an attempt to get there before they did.  As it turned out, the Germans weren't working on this - or at least not very hard - but we didn't know that.

It was called the Manhattan Project because the engineering work was originally located in lower Manhattan.  As the project grew and got moved around, the name just stuck.  It was just a piece of luck that the name helped disguise the nature of the project.  NYC's Columbia University was of enormous help in researching and developing methods of obtaining uranium-235 for the weapons.

To develop the project, the US needed areas with large tracts of federal land where the access could be controlled.  They ended up with a number of sites across the country, the main ones being at Hanford, WA, Oak Ridge, TN, and here at Los Alamos.  Oppenheimer knew about this area, having been here earlier for vacations and for his health.

The rangers told me about a book on Oppenheimer called American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.  It won a Pulitzer.  I was intrigued by the title - American Prometheus, the mythological Prometheus having stolen fire from the gods to give to humans.

The staff at the Los Alamos lab came first from those already in the army that were technicians and scientists; later people with these skills were recruited directly into the army to work on this project.  They ended up with about 1,800 of them.  After the war, most of them returned to college to get their degrees, having already studied at "Los Alamos University" with some of the world's best scientists.  Of that group, 5 were awarded Nobel prizes.

All these folks agreed to join a top-secret project.  They were told to arrive in Santa Fe, and from there they and their families were transported secretly to Los Alamos.  In 1943, about 1,000 people lived here.  By the end of 1944, there were 5,500, with the average age of 25.  In 1943 alone, more than 80 babies were born there (with their birth certificates showing the location as P.O. Box 1663.

That post office box was the address for all the civilians here, and Sears Roebuck complained about being asked to send 400 catalogs to the same address.  All mail, coming and going, was monitored, as were all telephone calls. The ranger told me the driver's licenses - even for the civilians - didn't have names on them, but instead had numbers in place of names.   What a strange way to live.

I took these photos outdoors at that pond you saw in the photos above, so I'm sure they're considered public domain.

I made these as legible as I could.  I think if you can enlarge them a bit, you'll be able to read them.  I had trouble with the sun's angle.

And, because these too were outdoors, I'm including these photos.

I asked the rangers about the road to Valles Caldera and Bandolier, and they both suggested I might want to wait till another time for that trip.  They pointed out what I already knew - that those places were nearly 3,000' higher than Los Alamos which might be a problem if I had altitude sickness.  They said the road went straight through the laboratory grounds and guards often wanted to search RVs, just in case.  They said there was at least one hairpin turn on that road where tractor-trailers sometimes got stuck.  When that happened the entire road was closed down until a tow truck could come down from Colorado.

None of that sounded like a game-changer to me, but all that combined with my continued vague feeling of unwellness made me decide this was indeed a trip to postpone for a more propitious time.

Back on the road

The drive back the way I came was easier because this time I had the mountain on my side.  And the highway department posted a sign warning that the twisty windy steep road I'd traveled up was a 7% grade going down.  I also saw deer and elk warning signs that I hadn't seen on the way up.

I passed a balanced rock on the way down that I'd noticed on the way up.  But this time I had the advantage of the rock being on my side of the highway, so I saw a sign for Camel Rock.  Which is what this was.  There's a photo and explanation for it at this website.   https://www.roadsideamerica.com/camel-rock  Despite what this web page says, I don't think this rock looks all that much like a camel.  But it does look like a balanced rock, which I find a lot more interesting than putative rock camels.

Traffic was being routed into one very narrow lane on each side of I-25.  For miles I was having to drive mostly in what would usually be the shoulder, and having to run over those indentions they put in the road to tell you not to drive on the shoulder.  It was fairly miserable driving.  And what I found the highway department doing was building Jersey barriers in the road.  Actually building them themselves using what looked like a wire frame and concrete coating.  I thought those things were pre-fab and just set in place as needed.  Maybe so, but these guys were building them.  I had time to watch them while the traffic was stopped or slowed way down.  Is it cheaper to do this?  Did they just run out of the prefab ones?  Why would a highway department do this?  On a Friday afternoon when traffic is most likely to be heavy?  I'm telling you - New Mexico and I have really different ideas about road practices.

I was sorry for the things I missed seeing but glad to have seen those I did.  Once again I found myself wishing I could spend a lot more than one month here because of all there is to see.

New Mexico - Day 18 - A day in Albuquerque

Albuquerque North/Bernalillo KOA, Bernalillo

Thursday, 18 November 2021

part of today's route

On the road

The main AAA map is too compressed to show any detail of this area, and the area map above doesn't start until the ABQ city limits.  I chose to ignore the interstate and come into town on NM-47, also known as 2nd Street in Albuquerque.  I discovered that 2nd Street has several pieces of art along its length, including a nice sculpture of a Nuthatch.

I saw 3 hot air balloons ascending just west of town.  Albuquerque claims the title of Hot Air Ballooning Capital of the World because of its unusual set of conditions that create an ideal setting for the sport.  They have predictable wind patterns, plenty of open space, and cool early-morning temps that allow balloons to rise faster.  Their annual balloon fiesta starts the first week of October each year, so I just missed it by a month.  I'm sure it's an amazing sight, and I'd like to come sometime.

Getting here I drove through a very residential neighborhood and had plenty of time to see that adobe is the primary building material in this area.  At least, that was my thought until I realized some of these houses looked more like stucco.  I've been trying to find someplace online that'll explain the difference to me and honestly, they sound a lot alike.  Here's a page I found from someone who builds these kinds of houses here in New Mexico, and it includes some discussion of the composition of each type.   http://pajaconstruction.com/adobe-plaster-or-conventional-stucco  

But of course, being uneducated, I don't know the difference by looking at them, and then I found this page where the focus is on the style, rather than the building material, and I think that's what I've been noticing.  The buildings I've been seeing all over, ever since before Taos, have very likely been adobe, but what I've actually been noticing has been that Pueblo style of design - rounded corners and so forth.  Then I found this page - Wikipedia, of course - that explains what I've been looking at is most likely what's called Pueblo Revival, a style that's most popular in New Mexico, though it's found in surrounding states.  It was even established by law in Santa Fe in 1957.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Pueblo-Revival-architecture  Whatever it is, there's a lot of it in this neighborhood.

Rio Grande Nature Center

There are 2 similarly named parks in ABQ, one run by the state and the other by the city.  The one I visited is the state park, set on the east bank of the Rio Grande.  They require a $3/vehicle/day fee, which seemed reasonable.

I easily found the path Paula had mentioned for the dogs, because I saw several other people taking their dogs in or leading them out of the area.  I just couldn't take the chance on taking my dogs into an area where it was almost guaranteed we'd meet other dogs on a narrow trail.  And that instinct turned out to be right: I took the dogs around the large parking area instead and while we were out, a guy and his dog came past from that walking area, and Dexter started going crazy as he often does.  Jumping around and barking and generally carrying on.  The other guy stopped - I don't know why people do that, but a lot of them do - and I told him to please keep on going, which he did, and Dexter calmed down as soon as they'd moved on.  I'd been bracing myself against a thick wooden pole to keep him from pulling me over, and I was glad for the reinforcement.

The park prohibits dogs from going on the nature trails, which makes sense to keep them from scaring wild critters, but I really don't like to take long walks any more without them.  They need the exercise as much as I do, and I don't want to wear myself out walking alone and then not having energy left for them.  This meant I started off into the park, but turned around after a fairly short distance when I realized all that was in there was long, winding paths leading to various viewing areas and gardens.

I'd gotten there about 8:30, hoping to avoid other dogs (that didn't work), but once there I found the visitor center didn't open until 10:00 and that seemed to be where the information about the Rio Grande Rift was.  So the dogs and I walked around the area some more, and I looked through the wildlife viewing holes at the Wetlands Overlook - lots of duckies, mostly.  While we were walking some large birds flew overhead singing.  Very large birds.  And I finally realized they must be Sandhill Cranes.  Apparently ABQ is a prime wintering spot for them.

When the visitor center finally opened, I did find some information about the Rift.  Unlike most other river valleys that were created by their rivers, this one got the river after the rift had been created.

The ground in this area sank 25,000,000 years ago along fault lines, creating the rift that was 25 - 30 miles across.  Unusually, it wasn't caused by erosion or earthquakes or any of the usual forces but instead, over (a lot of) time, this section of the earth between the fault lines just stretched and sank.

The Rio Grande is only about 50,000 years old and apparently just used the channel that had already been created.  Here's information about the river itself.

The numbers on this map correspond to
the numbers on the photos below.

These are photos taken at the locations
shown on the map above.

Naturalists have learned to undo some of the damage that earlier generations inflicted on our land - reconstructed wetlands and grassy plains and so forth.  But regenerating the Rio Grande is unlikely to happen.  Too many people depend on it in its present form now.

And here's one of the unfortunate byproducts of those changes.

I know cottonwood isn't universally popular because of its ability to trigger allergic reactions.  But it doesn't have that effect on me and I love the way they look and the shade they create, so their loss matters to me.  This is almost enough to make me want to run out and find a home where I can plant lots of cottonwoods.

The visitor center had a lot of other information, of course, about the many forms of life in this area - types of fish and invertebrates and so forth.  I found this information about beavers.

And there were also exhibits about bird migrations, though it was hard for me to take photos of them because of the lighting.  But here's information about the migration habits of a few interesting species.

I also learned that ABQ has more extinct volcanoes in the vicinity than any other city in the Lower 48 states.  Glad to hear they're extinct.

So this visit didn't turn out as I'd expected, but I still learned a lot.

Back on the road in ABQ

We drove from there to a Total Wine shop, that had a remarkably poor selection of wine (almost none from the Pacific Northwest, for instance) but they did have my favorite brand of scotch so I forgave them.

We went to a grocery store and a park and then to a Jiffy Lube.  It was about time for a routine oil change.  The hardest part about that is finding a shop with doors tall enough to let us in.  I'd called a half-dozen places of various brands before finding this one.  The folks here seemed a little intimidated, but after all it's just got an ordinary Ford engine, so they were able to do the work.  

I'm once again glad about the choice of RV I made.  It may be hard to find a shop with 11' clearance on their doors - but my RV is a lot lower - and shorter - than many other types.  And with the ordinary engine, I can get regular mechanics to work on it without having to locate some RV-specific mechanic as some have to do.

I didn't get to see a lot of Albuquerque that I'd have like to - the balloon museum and Old Town and just more of the town in general.  But we spent more time at the nature center than I'd expected, and sunset is before 5:00 these days at this latitude, so I just added these things to my growing list of places to see when I come back to NM with more time.