New Mexico - Day 8 - halfway across NM to Carlsbad

Carlsbad KOA, Carlsbad

Monday, 8 November 2021

today's route

On the road

Despite knowing Google thought this would be a 4-hour drive, and despite knowing it would actually take me closer to 7 or 8 hours, I didn't leave my friends until 9:00, wanting to cram in some last minute visiting.

I heard on the radio there's some controversy about proposed changes to NM's school curriculum.  Not counting the disagreement about teaching kids to respect differences in the cultures of their classmates (NM is 50% Hispanic and 10% Native American, so these lessons seem logical but are upsetting lots of people), the proposed science curriculum was under attack.  

Changes would have included the actual age of the Earth, information about human evolution, and information about climate change.  Those provisions were taken out of the draft, thanks to anti-science adherents, an action that generated a massive backlash from scientists and regular people.  So now having support, NM was able to put that stuff back in the curriculum and NM schoolchildren will be allowed to learn reality.  I'm comforted by knowing that this sort of thing isn't new and has been going on for decades.  Maybe centuries.  And we still haven't imploded.

We stopped at Moriarty again, to walk in their nice little park, and then drove for a very long way through not much more than yellow grass.  For many miles we saw low rolling hills with yellow grass.  Then the view included various cacti.  Later the cactus petered out and I started seeing juniper mixed in with the yellow grass.  Farther along, no more juniper but plenty of sage mixed in with the yellow grass.  You can tell this area isn't one thrill after another, though it's attractive in its own way.

I passed a herd of cows gathered near a large water trough.  I passed a large flock of sheep.

We stopped at Encino, elev. 6,280', to take a walk and eat some lunch.  It's the sort of place that has the village hall combined with the library in the same very old building.  It looked like a farming town to me.

We passed an enormous boulder - maybe 6' tall and 10' diameter - and the fence for the field it sat by went around it to close it out.  I wondered if it had been left behind by a retreating glacier, but I can't find anything online that says there were glaciers this far south.

We passed the town of Vaugh, "Crossroads of New Mexico" they say, based apparently on US-285, that I was on, crossing US-54 there.

Out in the middle of nothing, I passed 2 huge sculptures - maybe 15' or 20' high, one on either side of the road.  Both were cowboys.  One was pointing his finger at the other, who was sagging back as if shot.  Really.  No sign, no explanation.  Just these cowboys.

I passed the turn leading to Fort Sumner Historic Site.  I had a hard time finding information about why this place is considered worth preserving but, according to this Wikipedia page   https://en.wikipedia.org/Ft-Sumner-NM there are 2 reasons.

One is that it was built in the first place to supervise the forced internment and mistreatment of 2 tribes of Native Americans: the Navajo and the Mescalero Apache.   https://www.nmhistoricsites.org/bosque-redondo  The other reason for preserving this site is that it's the gravesite for Billy the Kid.  It's still not clear to me how he got to be so famous so many years after his death.  He was a fast shot and he killed people.  At least Wyatt Earp, who did both, was also a respected lawman.  Anyway, Ft. Sumner is now also a town with about 1,000 residents, if you want to visit.

I started seeing hay fields that were being harvested.  Also occasional herds of cows or flocks of sheep.

We stopped at Roswell, elevation 3,570', taking a break at their convention center where there was some green space for us to walk.  Roswell is home to the New Mexico Military Institute, a land grant school, and the only state-supported military college in the western US.  It has a beautiful campus.

I passed the turn for the Bottomless Lakes State Park.  They're a group of 9 small deep lakes that formed when caves in the limestone reef collapsed and filled with water.  It's a much-touted local attraction.

As I drove south, I continued to pass large grain fields, all of them harvested and some that appeared to have been replanted.  I wondered if winter wheat would survive snow and winter conditions here, and the internet tells me it can survive in northern Minnesota, so I guess the answer is yes.

The rolling hills I saw all morning have been left behind.  Here the land is all flat.  I'm still seeing lots of yellow grass interspersed with cactus, but now I'm also seeing lots of grain fields.

I passed a CCC historical marker, documenting a CCC camp nearby where the young men improved water sources and developed grazing lands for both livestock and wildlife.  And at the town of Artesia, I passed another historical marker, this one telling me Artesia has more than 10,000 residents, sits at 3,350', and was named for the numerous artesian wells in the area.

I heard on the radio that there's a large nuclear waste storage site near Carlsbad that was reporting safety problems.  This sounded ominous to me so I looked it up.  This first article from the site itself is general information that I hadn't known.   https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp-site  And this second one, which uses so many acronyms that I found it hard to follow, still provides information about the current safety concern, which sounds like there's good reason to be concerned.   https://www.currentargus.com/wipp-safety-issues-slow-disposal-nuclear-waste

Then I heard something related to this nuclear storage site that sounded even more ominous.  Scientists in Texas and New Mexico have tied the recent rise in low-level earthquakes in the SW TX/SE NM area to the oil and gas industry.  Specifically, to fracking.  It's not the extraction of the actual oil and gas that's the problem but dealing with the brine they're mixed with.  As much as 10 times more brine than oil/gas, in fact.  Nobody wants the brine and they have to do something with it, so they've been injecting it deep back into the ground.  Seems logical since it came from the ground in the first place, but the Earth doesn't see it that way.  I guess it's being injected much deeper into the ground than where it started out and there's a staggering quantity of it.  And it's triggering earthquakes.  The NM state scientist I heard on the radio said they've been able to track a shotgun-blast pattern of injection well sites around nuclear waste sites in both SE NM and West Texas - including the Carlsbad storage site (above).  So far the quakes haven't been any stronger than 4.0 - but that's not nothing, and if it affects these underground nuclear sites, it could be catastrophic.  If you're interested, I found a local news article about it.   https://capitalandmain.com/rise-in-nm-earthquakes-and-the-oil-industry

And I began to see many oil wells along the road, some working and some not.  So this is certainly petroleum industry territory.

And I came to tonight's campsite, which is actually about 20 miles from Carlsbad itself.

New Mexico - Days 6 & 7 - at home with my friends

My friends' home near Sandia Park
Saturday, 6 and Sunday, 7 November 2021

I did almost nothing for these 2 days, which was really great.  We had a lot of sun, so were able to sit outside for hours, something I don't do in campgrounds.  I don't want to sit out when the dogs have to stay in the RV, and I can't let them out because Dexter especially tends to lunge at passing dogs.  He's broken 2 of those reinforced braided metal leashes (the weak link is the hook that attaches to his collar), so we're stuck inside.  This sunny hiatus was a real treat for all of us.

And my friend Bruce has, until recently, been in the wine business.  He and Paula have traveled extensively to wineries and vineyards in Europe (I think I have that right) and have amassed a really nice collection of wine.  Which we made inroads into this weekend.  I don't know enough about wine to know what I'll like when I'm confronted with the array in a liquor store, so it was relaxing in another way to have somebody else choose the perfect tasting wine.

We had lots of time to catch up - with their family and with my travels and with all the things that've happened in the last year and a half.  We've all known each other since the early 1970s, so that shared history is relaxing in yet another way.

They live at the top of a hill, so Gracie and I had plenty of chances to strengthen our leg muscles and our lungs when we went out for walks.  Dexter never seems to mind much, but he's substantially younger than we are.  On Sunday we drove down the hill to a paved hike-and-bike path.  Bruce and Dexter were the only ones that seemed unfazed by the hills, and I could tell even Dext was ready for a drink of water when we were done.

They gave me suggestions on great places to see in NM.  But because I'm afraid my continuing dizziness might be due to altitude sickness, I decided to head south to the Carlsbad area, instead of staying up here in northern NM to visit Santa Fe and other important places.  I want to give my body a chance to adjust to the altitude - assuming that's what the problem is - before tackling even more of it.  Santa Fe sits at 7,198' and Los Alamos is at 7,320', while Carlsbad's only at 3,225'.  So I'll hold off a bit on the altitude, just in case.

New Mexico - Day 5 - to Sandia Park

My friends' home near Sandia Park
Friday, 5 November 2021

today's route

The yellow line on the map is from when I visited my friends in July last year - during my COVID hiatus.  You can see today's drive wasn't particularly long, and Google said it'd take me only 2 hours.  But of course it took me much longer, as usual.

I left the campground just before 8:00 - just after sunrise - and found the interstate along that section to be not like usual interstates.  I suppose it's because it curved around mountains and through forests, so it looked more like a US route than an interstate.

We took a break at a park in a town that I now can't remember the name of.  I remember the park well but can't find anything that looks like it on Google Maps.  The parking lot was next to a playground, which didn't have a "no pets" sign but I was sure wouldn't want my dogs there, so we just walked around the large area where the parking lot was.  

We were just coming back to the RV when a police car pulled up quickly right in front of my RV, and the officer got out and put on a mask and started coming towards us, so I immediately started wondering what I'd done wrong.  Nothing, it turned out.  He wanted information.  Had I seen a woman around there?  I pointed to a woman in a yard nearby but said we'd only been there about 15 minutes and asked whether there was a problem.  He said they'd gotten a report of a woman who was unclothed - his word - in the vicinity.  I was glad it was cool enough for me to be wearing about 4 layers of clothes.

We had an early lunch and stayed a while, which was just as well because the cop stayed parked in front of us for a good part of that time.  And another police car pulled up beside us, the 2 of them talked for a while, then the 1st one left and the 2nd one stayed a while longer.  This was not a large town (I wish I could remember the name) and I didn't expect it to be a hotbed of excitement.

I passed the turn for the Pecos National Historic Park, which is another place that would be interesting to spend time in.  It includes a surprising array of historical sites, ranging from prehistoric ruins to cattle ranches (once owned by Greer Garson, the actress) to the Glorieta Pass Battlefield.  That last was where a significant Civil War battle was fought that I knew nothing about.  

Seems southern NM was aligned with the Confederacy, and troops from Confederate Texas tried to cross Glorieta Pass to take over Fort Union, which was then controlled (appropriately enough) by the Union.  It looks like the Texans won that battle but ended up losing the war, so to speak, because the Northern forces destroyed the Texans' supply chain, forcing them to retreat, ultimately, back to Texas.  There's an interesting account, including controversy over who should get the credit for the winning strategy, on this Wikipedia page.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Battle-of-Glorieta-Pass

We turned onto NM-41, which took us past several small towns and down to I-40 and the town of Moriarty, elev. 6,200'.  We stopped there again at a nice little park where we could walk around a bit.

I was interested to note that I had found hardly any religious radio stations until we got near Albuquerque.  Not sure why that would be.

And then up off the interstate to Sandia Park and the other small communities that dot the mountains above the city.  It was really nice to see Paula and Bruce again.  I'd been dealing all day with the continuing dizziness and headache that hit me a couple of days ago in Taos, so it was good to know I could just sit and relax with friends who knew me well enough to know what to expect.

New Mexico - Day 4 - Capulin Volcano, to Las Vegas

Las Vegas KOA, Las Vegas

Thursday, 4 November 2021

today's route

On the road

A sign told me I was on the Ports to Plains Corridor.  I think it was Colorado when I last saw one of those signs.  This is the route that runs from Laredo to Denver.

I saw an odd slice of life.  In the area between the road and a fence, I saw a rough-looking guy standing next to and looking at a large circle of burned ground.  That's it.  I didn't see a car or truck or even a bicycle or a horse that might have carried him to this isolated spot.  There was nothing around but mountains and yellow grass and fencing.  I didn't see a tent so I guess that burned spot wasn't a campfire he'd started.  There wasn't anything to suggest why the area was burned, or why it was a circle, for that matter.  Just the guy and the burned area.  Odd.

The road from Raton heading east felt like it was climbing the whole way - which makes sense since Raton sits at 6,680' and the visitor center at Capulin Volcano sits at 7,832'.  They're less than 30 miles apart so, yeah, the road was climbing.

Capulin Volcano National Monument

Capulin Volcano

I could see this mountain for a good part of the drive but never seemed to find a good angle for a photo, so this one is off the internet.  You can see the road that runs from the visitor center up to the very rim of the volcano.

At the visitor center, the ranger first asked me how big my RV was.  I'd already seen signs that said trailers were prohibited on the drive to the crater, but the ranger said my 24' was okay to go.  She warned me that it was a one-lane road in one place, that there were sharp turns, and there were patches of ice and slush here and there.  As soon as I heard "ice and slush" I gave up the idea of driving to the top.  I really wanted to go up there but there's no way I could think it reasonable to voluntarily try to drive my RV on ice on a mountain road with sharp turns.  Instead, I chose the video they offered.

This video was as good as the other National Park Service videos I've seen, meaning very interesting and helpful.  (As an aside, however much money the park service gets in its budget, it's definitely not enough to account for the excellent services they provide to the enormous number of citizens and foreign visitors who rely on them.)  

After I watched this video, I went back to the ranger and said, "Did that video just say that this wasn't a mountain to start with but instead just a hole in the ground?"  And she said yes, and explained to me what had happened.  This whole northeastern area of New Mexico, from Raton to Clayton near the Texas border, was once an active volcanic field.  A hundred or more volcanoes erupted in this area, with the Capulin Volcano the most recent - between 30,000 and 60,000 years ago.

And it was indeed started from a crack in the Earth's crust that allowed lava to flow out.  In this case the lava flowed with such force that it spewed into the air, falling back to the ground as cinders that accumulated around the opening.  The lava continued to spew, the cinders continued to fall, and a mountain was created out of those cinders where there had been flat earth before.  

There were 4 later lava flows, but instead of coming out the cone, they flowed out from the base of the new mountain from several vents.  The lava flowed in every direction from the mountain, eventually covering almost 16 square miles.  The national monument boundaries are quite small, covering only the immediate volcano area.  But the lava is still there.

After a long time, lichens began to form on the lava rocks and cinders.  They were able to break down the rocks and create soil.  Soil allowed plants to grow, and when the plants moved in, the animals followed, and people followed the animals.  I had no idea lichens were so integral a factor in the development of life, but they sure were here.

This volcano was a waystation on the Santa Fe Trail, but indigenous people followed the bison through this area for millennia.  

To me, volcanoes mean earthquakes - tectonic plate activity - but I don't think of New Mexico as a hotbed of earthquakes so I asked the ranger.  She said NM has 2 fault lines - one where the Rio Grande flows north to south (past Taos, for instance), and another that runs across this area and runs east to west near Cimarron.  She said Cimarron had a 4.5 earthquake 5 years ago and just last month had one that was 3.6.  The USGS says there's a 15% chance of a major earthquake in that area within the next 50 years, which was surely unsettling news to those who live nearby.

Dogs aren't allowed on most of the trails around here, but the ranger said I could take them on the short nature trail near the visitor center, so I did and learned a little more.

chokecherry in winter

basalt

lichens on the rocks

the yellow grass I've been seeing for 2 days

lava squeeze up

I saw this information in the video they showed in the visitor center, but seeing it for myself helps me make sense of it.  The lichens growing on the rocks break them down; dirt collects in the crevices, and then seeds take root.  And from a barren rocky landscape, you get a mountain's worth of grass and bushes and trees.  Amazing.

And that lava squeeze up - I'd never have thought it was anything but a big rock, but it's actually a place where lava pooched up out of the ground, which is how the big rock got created.  This was once an extremely active place, geologically speaking.

And it still is.  The dogs and I saw a couple of deer at the parking area who, fortunately for me, decided to go somewhere without dogs.

This historical marker pretty well summarizes this site.

Back on the road

I headed back west toward Raton, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, with snow on their tops, clearly in view ahead.  I saw these mountains when I was in southern Colorado - they're the most southerly part of the Rockies, running down past Santa Fe.

I intended to get on I-25 at Raton, but Google insisted I couldn't.  It gave me 2 choices: either take one of their crazy shortcuts that would begin with me turning onto a road with no name, or go north on I-25 for many miles before making a u-turn to go south.  Instead, I did the ordinary thing of crossing the highway, turning left and entering the interstate.  What a concept.  I can't even imagine why Google thought I couldn't do that.  And now they agree that what I did is not only possible, they don't even suggest either of those 2 routes.  Weird.

Eastern NM's NPR station, that they say also serves west Texas, has NPR news until 8 AM (and presumably after 4 or 5 PM) but the entire rest of the day they play elevator music.  It's weird to hear this stuff from public radio, that still has a reputation for being a little high-brow.  As examples (and these are mostly instrumental versions, or singing by someone other than the original/best known artist): Fool On The Hill, Some Enchanted Evening, I'll Never Find Another You, Scarborough Fair, Take Good Care of My Baby (where's Bobby Vee when we need him?) - you get the picture.  Nothing wrong with this music, but when it doesn't come from the original artists, there's only just so much of it I can take.

I passed the turn for Fort Union National Monument.  For some reason, the name sounded familiar so I looked it up.  Once an important point on the Santa Fe Trail, it now looks like a place worth visiting for those interested in old military forts or adobe ruins.  Here's a link with some photos of the building ruins - and they're in much better shape than those made of wood that I've seen elsewhere.   https://www.atlasobscura.com/fort-union-national-monument

I saw a lot of pronghorn on the drive south.

A sign told me I was entering the Pecos River Watershed, flowing to the Rio Grande, an idea that surprised me, despite having crossed the Rio Grande a couple of days ago.  I'm just so used to thinking of the Rio Grande being the border between Texas and Mexico that I haven't adjusted yet to the idea that it flows north/south through a chunk of Colorado and all of New Mexico before it hits Texas at El Paso and then becomes a border.

And then I came to Las Vegas, elevation 6,415'.  I didn't get into town but was curious about where the name came from.  I still don't know but found this fascinating account of the early days of the town.   https://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-lasvegas  For instance, in 1879 it was the largest town between Independence, MO, and San Francisco, CA, along the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Rail route.  And it quickly developed a reputation as wild as Tombstone's until the townspeople threatened to lynch anyone who broke the law.  Who knew?

The KOA here was on a steep hillside with plenty of xeriscaping and no grass to speak of.  The owner warned me that the entire lower part of the park was rife with stickers - "sticker season" he called it - and recommended we walk in the upper part.  Since we were staying only the one night, it wasn't much of a hardship, though Gracie and I were both huffing and puffing a bit on those hills.

New Mexico - Day 3 - driving to Raton

Raton KOA, Raton

Wednesday, 3 November 2021

During the night last night, the temperature inside the RV got down to 45°.  It was in the 20s outside - much colder than we've gotten used to, and I'm not sure yet how to adjust the indoors temp so it's warm enough the dogs don't freeze (Lily usually sleeps with me when it's cold), yet not make it so warm I can't sleep.  Obviously, last night wasn't the trick. 

The dizziness was greatly reduced overnight, but I was still not at all well.  This morning I still felt a fair amount of dizziness, nausea and headache, though it wasn't at the debilitating levels of last night.

But that health status resolved the question still hanging: which route should I take today?  As I had yesterday, today I had Plans both A and B, with Plan A being the really scenic mountain road route and Plan B being at lower elevations and on some flat ground, though likely taking much longer.  But since my dizziness etc. was still with me, there was no way I was going to try to negotiate a bunch of mountain passes and switchbacks.  So Plan B it was.

today's route

You can easily see where Plan A would have taken me, with much of it AAA-designated as scenic.  But the first part of Plan B was also designated as scenic, and scenic it was indeed.

On the road

The first part of today's route is called High Road to Taos Scenic Byway.  Which I'm guessing is a little joke because I can't see that there's a Low Road to Taos anywhere, designated or not.  They're all high.  Taos itself is just under 7,000', so no wonder.

As I was leaving town I passed signs directing me to "SMU in Taos."  The SMU I know is Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and that didn't make sense.  But it turns out it actually is that SMU.  I ended up driving by the campus where there was an unabbreviated sign that spelled the whole name out.  I have no idea why SMU expanded to Taos.  At first I figured it was art in some way, Taos being known as an artists' community.  But online they say they offer all kinds of classes here, including business and sciences.

You can see all that green on the map that I drove through for the first part of the day.  That's the Carson National Forest again.  Still lots of pines and mountains, and still quite beautiful.  I stopped at a couple of pull-out areas to take photos.

In contrast to yesterday's overcast morning, today was beautiful.

I saw more loose cow signs; more falling rock signs; more elk crossing signs; several that said "ICY ROAD" with chains or 4WD or snow tires required (that didn't increase my confidence); many more s-curve signs plus this one:

This sign is copyrighted and is a sample
from roadtrafficsigns.com.

I also started seeing bicycle signs - sometimes just a picture of a bike and other times a sign saying to share the road, or to leave 3' of distance between cars and bikes (like there's actually 3' to spare in these lanes with no shoulder and constant curves).

I passed a sign saying there's a Buddhist monastery up here.

I passed some small towns: Las Mochas, Tres Ritos; and the Sipapu Ski Area.  I don't know what a mocha is in Spanish, or a rito for that matter, and I can't find them online.  But Sipapu is a word I learned at the Anasazi ruins and means the access by which ancestors ascend to another world (or something like that).

I passed sheep, cows, horses.  I saw a sign to watch for snow plows (though I hope not today).  I saw signs denoting "Historic Land Grants" - in Mora and Taos.

I came to a switchback that didn't have a warning sign.  I saw 2 signs saying "Caution - Use Lower Gear."  But I saw no signs telling me how steep these use-lower-grade hills were.  Instead, the speed limit was increased to 50 mph, higher than any other part of the drive so far.  New Mexico has different ideas than I have about how to post signs that help drivers be safe.

The High Road to Taos Scenic Byway split off from NM-518 and aimed southwest, while I continued southeast.  Still, there was nothing not scenic about the road I was on.  The trees were all pines so I didn't see any bare deciduous trees to spoil the view.

I saw an odd sign at someone's property.  It said "Water - Not Fracking" and had a very large drawing of a cow's head.  Maybe a rancher afraid the fracking process would contaminate the drinking water table his cows depended on?

I passed the towns of Holman - and started seeing tractor signs again; Cleveland - and passed the Cleveland Roller Mill Museum; and then arrived at Mora.  That mill museum, by the way, sounds interesting and I'm sorry I didn't know it was there.  They say from 1860 until 1940 wheat farming and milling were the keys to the local economy.  This mill is an adobe, water-powered mill that operated for about 50 years.  Because its machinery was left intact, it's been renovated and is operated for visitors.  It's a centerpiece for the Cleveland Millfest each Labor Day weekend, except of course this last one because of Covid.  But they're hoping to have it back in action next year.

We stopped for an hour in Mora at a small rest area in the middle of town.  So much in the middle that before we left, one local started selling firewood there and several others had pulled over to eat chicken they'd bought from the convenience store across the street.  This town has about 1,400 residents who all seem to know each other: there were constant honks as people signaled to each other when they drove by.  And when the dogs and I were out, we found this historical marker.

side 1

side 2

I thought both sides were interesting.

It occurred to me that maybe I had altitude sickness.  My symptoms fit that diagnosis though it doesn't make sense.  It's not like I've been down at lower elevations and then suddenly, by going to Taos, soared to new heights.  But I really wanted to know what's wrong with me - and continues to be wrong, since I'm still feeling the symptoms.  I'm not going to be anywhere any time soon that I can consult with a doctor, so in the meantime I'm trying to figure out what I might have.  The internet (always such a reliable source of medical information) said to try to get below 5,000' and stay there until the symptoms wear off, which should happen fairly quickly, and in the meantime carbohydrates may help.  Well, I wasn't going to be anywhere for a while below 5,000', but forcing myself to eat carbohydrates was something I could do.  And they did seem to help.

A few miles farther along the road we came to La Cueva, where I took a different road to head north.  I saw an elk sign - no elk in person but I saw 3 Mule Deer running away from the road.

From about here all the way to Raton, I saw huge swaths of yellow grass that ran from the top of a mountain all the way across the broad valley where the road was and then halfway up the mountain on the other side.  I do love yellow and with the sun shining, it was really pretty.

I passed the alleged towns of Rainsville, Ojo Feliz, Ocate, saw 3 pronghorn and later 4 more, and then got to Wagon Wheel, elevation 6,201'.

At Wagon Wheel, we joined I-25 heading north to Raton.  I saw 12 or 15 pronghorn in a field of all that yellow grass, then later another herd of pronghorn with 8-10 horses.  (I'm trying to remember to call them "pronghorn" instead of "antelope," now that I'm not in South Dakota any more.  They look the same though.)

At Raton, we stopped at the grocery store, and I filled up with propane at the campground since tonight's temp was forecast for 25°.  I had plenty but there's no point in pushing it.

I'm sorry I didn't get to take that northern scenic route but absolutely sure it was the smart thing to do today.  It's such a weird feeling not being my usual self.  But I'll get it figured out.

New Mexico - Day 2 - driving to Taos

Taos Valley RV Park, Taos

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

I never did see anyone from security - or in any other official capacity, for that matter.  I did see that this fairground houses the Sunray Race Park and Casino - apparently they host horse racing events as well as running a standard casino - but no horse races yesterday and the casino's not a special event that would explain why security never came by my campsite.

Never having figured out where the office was nor having seen anyone official, I contemplated my alternatives.  I could leave cash at the site I'd occupied with a note (incredibly futile if I want to pay rent); I could leave a check ditto (even worse because of all the identifying info on it); I'd already tried all the fairground phone numbers so I didn't think I could call anyone to give them a credit card number; or I could just leave without paying.  Which is what I did.  It felt weird and wrong but I just couldn't figure out an alternative - other than staying for who knew how long to try to track down someone.  I waited until after 8:00 to leave but still saw nobody official.

And on my way out I saw that today was election day and one of these buildings was an election polling place.  The reason I know is that I saw one of the usual Vote Here signs.  Except it just said Vote Here.

internet sample of what I saw

It didn't also say Vote Aquí, which I'm so used to in Texas.  

also internet sample of the signs I used to post
at the TX precinct where I worked elections

I puzzled over that for a long time (I must not have been fully awake) and finally realized where I was: New Mexico, for crying out loud.  It has the highest population of people of Hispanic descent in the country.  It doesn't have an official state language but is effectively bilingual, routinely publishing state documents in both English and Spanish.  So where on earth was a bilingual voting sign, which is standard all over Texas with a lower percentage of Spanish speakers?  

today's route

On the road

I've noticed already that here in NM I'm seeing gasoline brands I haven't seen in months of travels up north - brands such as Marathon and Speedway.

NM has a town named Blanco, as Texas does, but this one has an elevation of 5,568'.  I crossed the San Juan River, which looked pretty full to me.  I wondered why, given the severe drought throughout the western US.

I heard on the radio that deer and elk are now migrating and for drivers to be especially cautious at dawn and dusk.  And a short time later, I came around a bend to see first a Mule Deer on the left, then another one on the right, then more for a total of 6.

This first part of today's drive, from Farmington east to Chama, took me through miles and miles of reddish-brown hard-rock hills and buttes, with the road running between them like a canyon.  And there was sage anywhere there was dirt for it to grow.

Soon, I came to the Carson National Forest where miles of pine trees were added to the red-brown hills.

I also started seeing many signs like this one, warning of falling rocks.  And twice I saw a large sign that had so much information it was hard to read, even at my slower speed, that said something about "debris" being "possible during inclement weather."  Meaning - what?  Strong winds or rain could dislodge rocks that weren't already falling on their own?  Meanwhile, I was negotiating s-curves and blind curves around these rock hills.  Not an easy drive.

A sign told me I'd come to the Home of the Jicarilla Apache Nation.  This wasn't a name I'd heard before - I guess I thought the Apache Nation was united - so I looked them up.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Jicarilla-Apache  They sound like a special people with an interesting history.

Passed a stack of rocks that looked like a trail blaze - except this one was at least 50' tall and was leaning over.  Gravity's going to get that one soon.

As I was keeping an eye out for migrating deer and elk, I saw near the top of a hill ahead 7 wild turkeys crossing the road.  I had to stop for them because they couldn't all seem to make up their minds right away and dithered at the roadside for a bit before finishing the crossing.

On a 6% grade I saw a sign saying "sharp curves" but what it actually turned out to be was very tight s-curves.  Are you getting the picture of this section of highway?  And this is still US-64, which I'd picked up back at the state line yesterday.

I came to the town of Dulce, where I found 2 off-brand gas stations (I'd hoped to get gas but decided to wait for a brand I knew); a casino; a warning sign for elk and another for deer; and a large sign with an outline of a bat sporting the phrase: "Operation D.W.I." and underneath was this warning: "Checkpoints Everywhere."  (I continued to see these signs everywhere I drove in NM but never saw a hint of a checkpoint, but I've since learned the State throws up 75-100 checkpoints around the state 6 times a year, and they've been doing this since 1993.  They say the number of crashes and fatalities goes down 27% each time.)

Coming toward the town of Lumberton, I started seeing signs like this:

This was clearly a farming area, and I saw many of these signs as I drove.

I also saw one of those elk warning signs, but this one was enhanced with flashing lights - high elk traffic area, I guess.  Followed by another one saying to expect elk for the next 7 miles.  All these elk warning signs and I've never seen one.  I almost feel cheated.  But I didn't see a tractor on the road either.

More deer signs.  More loose cattle signs.

At the town of Chama, elevation 7,800', we stopped at the visitor center for a walk and some lunch.  The walk was terrible because there was a lot of trash and litter around the visitor center, plus areas with both dog poop and deer poop - so I spent the whole time trying to keep both dogs from eating anything while trying not to step in anything.  The part of Chama I saw wasn't remotely scenic, but the businesses I saw were aimed at tourism.  Maybe for outdoors enthusiasts?  

On the other hand, Chama is one end of the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad, which they claim includes the "highest operational railroad pass in North America."  The train operates seasonally between Chama and Antonito, CO, and they offer 3 different types of trips for those with different amounts of time to devote, and 3 different levels of service for those with different levels of money to spend.  Here's their website.   https://cumbrestoltec.com  They already have their 2022 schedule set.

Also at the visitor center I saw a historical marker but wasn't able to get a photo of it, so I'm including this link here.   https://www.hmdb.org/Old-Spanish-Trail  This made me curious so I looked up this trail and found more than I'd expected.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Old-Spanish-Trail  This was a trading trail between Santa Fe and Los Angeles during the early 1800s that was in heavy use for years, despite being considered "one of the most arduous trail routes ever established in the United States."  A lot of history walked through this area.

Luckily for me, I was driving.  US-64 made a right turn at Chama, and that next section of the drive was a subject of great concern for me.  AAA says it's a scenic route, probably because it goes through mountainous roads with switchbacks (you can see them on the AAA map).  But what I knew was that I'd tried getting a camping reservation at several RV places in Chama, all saying they were closing due to weather.  So of course I worried that this weather might extend to mountain roads.  And the National Weather Service had predicted freezing temps last night along this route, though it was supposed to warm up during the day.

I had a Plan B all routed out that would take me south to Española and then north to Taos, where I'm staying tonight.  But that route would be much longer and likely not quite as scenic.  I'd decided to wait till I got here, to Chama, and see what the road looked like.  The road had been clear all morning up to this point, and I figured, since it was nearly noon, anything frozen on the road ahead would have melted, so I went with Plan A.

At first what I saw were lots of tractor signs, a couple of deer signs with flashing lights, lots of cows and horses and sheep, lots of magpies and ravens and crows.  And the sun finally came out from behind the clouds.

The road started climbing so much my ears hurt.  I counted 4 switchbacks and many s-curves.  Signs warning the road was slippery when wet (it was wet); signs warning of loose cattle.  My real concerns though were the patches of snow I could see beside the road, especially at those switchbacks, making me worried about the road I was driving.  Then I noticed I was driving through clouds.  I came to the top of the hill, though there was no summit sign or information about the elevation we'd reached.

I saw 10 or 12 wild turkeys that almost crossed the road but changed their minds when they saw me.  I was willing to stop for them, but they turned around and headed back into the brush.

More rocks-on-road signs.  More loose cows signs.

Then I came to a house that looked nearly buried in the ground and I wondered if this were the home of a survivalist.  But then I saw another and another and then a whole group of them and, just before wondering what sort of community I'd wandered into, I saw a sign: Earthship Architecture.  A big relief.  Each of the buildings looked distinct from the others - this was definitely not a housing project with identical dwellings.  Some of them looked quite sophisticated - not your basic hippie dwelling.  It's an interesting project and here's their website, including photos.   https://www.newmexico.org/earthships  They say you can rent one of them if you want to see what they're all about.  And they have a global perspective in more ways than one: they build these houses all over the world.   https://www.earthshipglobal.com

And then suddenly I found myself passing Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument Visitor Center and the bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge.  I'd never heard of either one and I was stunned by the view I had as I drove across the bridge of a gorge I didn't know existed.  It was just suddenly there, and then suddenly wasn't.  And there wasn't anywhere I could see to turn around and go back to the visitor center where the parking lot anyway looked completely full.  

This national monument is managed by the BLM and here's their web page about it.   https://www.blm.gov/visit/rgdnnm  And Taos touts it as an area attraction, and I'm including their web page because of the photos.   https://taos.org/rio-grande-gorge-bridge  But various pages were giving me conflicting information about both the height of the bridge and its subsequent placing on the list of America's highest bridges.  This Wikipedia page addresses that question.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Rio-Grande-Gorge-Bridge  The answer is: the bridge is high but just how high hasn't been agreed on.  Weird.

I stopped for gas at the town of El Prado just north of Taos and noticed across the street the extreme popularity of Toribio's Mexican Restaurant.  It was nearly 2:00 in the afternoon, but the parking lot was packed, including 3 police cars.  That was enough recommendation for me, though I saw high marks in online reviews.  Unfortunately, it was way too long before dinner time and I don't think Mexican food tastes as good lukewarm.  That's if I could have found any place to park.

I went on through Taos, where I saw adobe buildings everywhere.  I guess the climate here makes this a reasonable building material.  But it also makes the streets feel a little crowded, though when the town was founded in 1795 they weren't as worried about driving access for RVs.  They urge visitors to come by the Kit Carson House, which has somehow passed to the ownership of the local Masonic lodge.  They charge fairly high admission ($8 for seniors), but they offer free entry to a whole raft of various people.  Here's the entry to their website.   http://www.kitcarsonmuseum.org

Having already come through the Carson National Forest, and now passing a museum where he'd lived, I began wondering how he'd gotten so revered when I had the impression that he ranked with Custer and Stonewall Jackson for his treatment of Native people.  As often happens with human beings, the truth is complicated.  It seems he had a change of heart during his life.  Plus, his role in opening up the western wilderness was significant and shouldn't be completely overshadowed by his other actions.  Here's the Wikipedia page that describes these various aspects of his life.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Kit-Carson

And then on to tonight's campground about 7 miles south of town.  And there I had a strange experience.

This was a nice campground, privately owned but well-run and clean.  Entirely xeriscaped, so I had to pay attention to what the dogs were sniffing on our walks.  During the before-bed walk, I was suddenly hit by dizziness so strongly that I was almost sick and had trouble standing up.  I had to disappoint the dogs and cut our walk short and still could barely make it back to the RV.  Even there, where I had things to hang onto, I had trouble standing up.  I had to lie down for a bit to wait until the dizziness and nausea had abated somewhat.  I was still dizzy when I went to bed.  It was a very strange and scary feeling.

New Mexico - Day 1 - NE AZ, 4 Corners, NW NM

San Juan County Fairgrounds, McGee Park RV Park, Farmington

Monday, 1 November 2021

I don't remember saying anything about the Ravens I've been seeing in the Monument Valley KOA.  It's been a long time since I was able to spend much time around them and it's so nice to see them acting like themselves: hopping around, making an assortment of sounds, looking for food, checking out the people in the area, soaring in the air.  They're just great birds.  Though I might feel differently if one were in my living room sitting on a bust of Pallas, or any other item.  And Pallas, in case you're curious and never looked it up, was either the Titan god of warcraft or a friend of Aeneas or a teacher of Athena, depending on whose mythology you look at.  Not sure why anyone would want a bust of any of these alleged folks.  But I still like Ravens.

today's route
The map is mostly pink because I drove mostly through
Navaho Indian Reservation land.

On the road

I never quite figured out where the town of Monument Valley is, but about a mile south of the campground I came to a traffic circle, and I think the town was on the road heading west from there.  And I saw a sign: 

                   San Juan County

   The World's Greatest Outdoor Museum

And almost immediately I came to a Welcome To Arizona sign, so I figured the San Juan County sign belonged to AZ.  I was wrong.  I'd just gotten through spending 4½ days in San Juan County, UT.  And I learned later that when I crossed into New Mexico, I'd be crossing into San Juan County, NM.  Don't know why that sign was only at the southern border of the county.  But I agree it's an amazing outdoor museum.

My goal was the Four Corners Monument.  I could have stayed in Utah and driven back north toward Hovenweep and branched south, but I still would have either had to go into Arizona or into Colorado.  I was afraid there might be snow in the Colorado mountains, and decided on this route into AZ because I wasn't sure I'd be coming up this far north when I spend my month here.

As I traveled mostly east in Arizona, I saw a lot of buttes and interesting mountains like those I'd seen in Utah - not too surprising since geologic forces don't stop with state boundaries.

I passed a vast solar array and then came to this sign:

The tribe has recently expanded the operation, originally completed in 2017, so that now they've doubled their capacity and can supply power to 36,000 homes, which is nothing to sneeze at.  As you can see, they're the first tribe in the country to implement such a project, and they're pleased not only with the resulting power source but also with the skills their labor force has acquired.  In the background at the base of the mountain is part of the solar panel array.

I passed a sign saying the road had been dedicated to Richard Singer, WWII Navajo Code Talker.  I expected other sections of the road would be dedicated to other code talkers, as was done in, I think, West Virginia.  But this was the only sign I saw.

These next 2 photos show bits of the landscape with little settlements around their base.  The buildings all look alike and I wondered if they'd been built with funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Then I came to this sight.

Just before I stopped for this photo, I'd crossed Church Rock Wash, 
and a road saying something about Church Rock.
So I guessed that this is Church Rock.

That guess was correct, according to this Wikipedia page with better photos than mine and some statistics about this impressive hunk of volcano.  https://en.wikipedia.org/Church-Rock-AZ

I started seeing signs saying "Watch for Water on Road Next ___ Miles."  The odd thing was these were fold-up signs that had been folded open, indicating there might well be enough water around here worth warning drivers about.  I don't know where they were hiding it, but I never saw a drop.

The sign said these were called "Baby Rocks."
But look at the enlargement below.

Don't these look like the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon?
Keep an eye on them for forming arches and windows over the next geological period.
And I think that group on the left looks like a king addressing his advisory council, maybe.
Or a group of judges condemning someone.

I passed cattle and fields of sagebrush and isolated houses.  This is not a heavily populated land.

I passed towns with Navajo (I guess) names: Dennehotso; Tes Nes Lah; Teec Nos Pos - all in AZ.  Later I came to To'koi; Gadii'ahi in NM.  As far as I can tell, the Navajo language is in daily use around here.  When I was getting gas at a convenience store, I heard 2 women talking to each other in a language I couldn't understand and am guessing it was Navajo.  Given the strenuous attempts by early Spanish priests and later BIA officials to wipe out all traces of the language and customs of these folks, I'm happy to report they didn't work.  The Navajo culture seems to be thriving.

I saw 2 signs that might have been homemade (though large and clearly done) that were placed on private land, and both said:

      Stay Home

        Be Safe

      Save Lives

COVID devastated the Navajo people last year, landing them near the top in infection rates in the US.  But unlike some governments, they took it seriously, closed roads through their reservations, mandating masks and, when available, vaccines.  This article  https://www.nytimes.com/vaccine-covid talks about efforts by Native tribes in this region and the disturbing recent spikes in infection that they think are caused by residents traveling to non-reservation areas where precautions are much looser.

I saw a pack of 4 or 5 animals trotting along the roadside, and my best guess is they were coyotes.  I actually thought they were wolves, but they were much smaller than I thought wolves are, so I'm guessing coyotes.  

I started seeing miscellaneous signs saying I was at elevation 5,000'.  It was just like in southeastern Utah - these signs were placed out in the middle of nowhere, no towns or even hills nearby.  Just signs beside the road.  Weird.

Then: Welcome to New Mexico

             Land of Enchantment

New Mexico - my 34th state

If you look closely at the route map at top, you'll see the road runs from AZ into NM for a short distance, then back into AZ.  But that's okay because at the Four Corners, I wandered around into all 4 states.

Four Corners Monument

The monument sits on Navajo land, which I hadn't realized, and the tribe charges admission to the area.  $5 per person, credit or debit only.  So I paid my money and took my chances.  It wasn't at all what I'd expected.

This odd sight is the first thing I saw.

At first my tired brain wondered if these were narrow motel rooms where people could stay when they visit here.  Really narrow, though some of the cabins and campsites I see routinely make that idea barely plausible.  I finally figured out (looking through open doors) that these were vendor kiosks, each with its own entrance.

Then I noticed that these arms - there are 4 of them - are very shallow and I could see an opening between their ends that led to a large concrete area.  I of course had been expecting grass, not concrete, because I guess a month in Utah hadn't fully educated me to the desert-like conditions in this part of the country.

In those openings there were large signs posted, saying absolutely no pets, just genuine service animals; and saying bring water because you may have to wait a while in the hot sun for your turn to take photos; and also saying this:

No part of this thought had ever occurred to me.

So, not being able to take the dogs with me into the 4 Corners, I walked them all around the place and then moved the RV to another part of the parking area.  They had an area designated for RV parking, which was quite a way away from the entrance.  Since I'd already walked my dogs and didn't want to keep on walking just because of a sign, I went to the back side where nobody else was parked and real quick got out, went into the center area, looked around and took some photos, and left again.  Strange place.

Each state with its state seal.
In the upper right you can see one of the entrances, and along the top
are the little vendor kiosks, some in use, others empty. 
This isn't high tourist season, I guess.

"Four States
Here Meet
In Freedom
Under God"
or rearrange the order - nothing says where the saying starts.

There were also many flagpoles, one each for each state's flag plus 3 flags of the Navajo Nation and one of one of the Ute tribes.  Plus, of course, 1 for the United States.  I found a Wikipedia article that has historical information about this place, plus a note about current controversy about its location.  https://en.wikipedia.org/Four-Corners  That article references one by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey that I found a little technical but interesting.   https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/four-corners

Back on the road

We started back and almost immediately had to stop.  This frig that I bought last June is too sensitive for the kind of roads I travel on - terrible ruts and potholes on the road leading to the monument - and it starts buzzing at me.  The noise it makes isn't the sort that can be ignored for any length of time, so I had to find a place to pull over, clamber over the dog on the beds between the seats, go back and turn off the frig, wait, and turn it back on again.  (I still haven't gotten around to looking at the directions for any other way to reset it, and anyway I couldn't do it from the driver's seat.)

US-160 joined with US-64, which became a friend of mine over the next few days.

For a long distance I could see Ship Rock, the landmark (in every sense) that helped establish the location of the Four Corners.  But I could never find a place to pull off to take a photo when I had a view that was worth taking.  So this is an internet photo.

Ship Rock
designated a National Natural Landmark

This amazing rock was part of a volcano, and scientists believe it was originally from 2,500' to 3,000' below the Earth's surface, and has been exposed by erosion.  Just think of how long it must have taken for wind (probably) to erode almost 1,600' of rock that was originally almost double that height below the surface.  This Wikipedia article has more information about the rock's history and geology and about its significance to the Navajo, who have jurisdiction over it.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Shiprock

The town of Shiprock isn't nearly as impressive as the rock, but few towns could be.  Their high school is Home of the Chieftains.

I saw a sign advertising The Nizhoni Soap Company and, for some reason, I got curious and looked it up.  I'm glad I did.  It's the story of a girl who, at about age 10, founded this company with help from her parents.  She says her products are made with local natural ingredients and it sounds like they'd be worth checking out.  Here's the link to her store.   https://www.nizhonisoaps.com  The most we did when we were 10 was set up a lemonade stand.  Very impressive.

And finally I came to Farmington, which says its elevation is 5,300'.  I saw a license plate that read PUTTNITN.  It took me a minute to separate all those sounds in my head.

I crossed the Animas River and drove through town looking for the CVS.  They had my prescription refills for my blood pressure meds ready.  I walked the dogs a bit and then started looking around for the local fairgrounds.

When I was planning my route, I knew I had to come to Farmington, because it had the only CVS in northern NM, and I had to get my meds refilled.  So I spent a lot of time looking for campgrounds anywhere at all in this area - even another 90 miles away - with no luck.  Several that I called told me, surprised that I should ask, that they'd be closing on October 31st because they'd already had snow.  (And I thought, big whoop, we already had snow in Beaver UT but they weren't closing for the winter.)  The only thing that looked likely was an RV park that the local fairground operated, intended I'm sure for exhibitors and attendees at fairground functions.  What I couldn't tell was whether they'd still be open when I got there, and I tried every phone number on their website and got no response.

So my top priority after getting my meds was being sure I had a place to sleep tonight.  And I found the fairgrounds right where Google said they'd be.  I saw the signs directing me to the office and, just as on-line commenters warned, the office was really hard to find.  I didn't find it.  

But commenters also said that security had come to their campsite almost as soon as they were parked and would either take their money or direct them to the office.  I found the RV sites, and I talked to another camper working on his RV.  He said security had come by and taken his money, and he suggested I call the number posted for security.  So I found a campsite and called the security number.  Got voicemail and left a message.

Walked the dogs, got settled in, and called the number again and left another message.  A couple of times I saw the security car at a distance and would have flagged him down if he'd been anywhere at all within flagging range, but he never came near us.  I had my money (and face mask) sitting by the door all ready to meet him, and never saw him.  It was weird.

I stayed up later than usual, thinking he'd come by when his usual daytime duties ended, but he never came.  I finally went to bed, still not having paid.