New Mexico .... Land of Enchantment

There were many beautiful and unique areas in New Mexico as I hope to show you in this post. Visiting in the winter didn't allow us to get out and explore as much as we might have liked, but seeing the snow against the red stone and sage brush was also very beautiful. I loved this scene of a typical Santa Fe street.

Mileage: Will update at end of January

States: 33 Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico

Sunday, January 10

Carlsbad Caverns is located in the southeast corner of New Mexico, and it is really remote. We had to take a little connector road over to the state highway where Carlsbad is located and at dusk it really seemed like the end of the earth. They had a nice RV park, and even though the cold weather persisted, we had a really comfortable night. The park opened at 9 am, and we arrived soon thereafter. We had the choice of riding the elevator down some 20 stories/400 feet, or walking down the natural entrance which is a long, steep switchback trail (again, another challenge for the knees which they met!).

The Caverns are limestone caves, and within the National Park there are more than 110 caves. Huge caves have been formed by the gradual leaching of limestone by sulfuric acid. Self-guided tours lead to the Big Room which is 8.2 acres in size. One can purchase individual audio guides which you hold up to your ear like a long telephone, and you can run the descriptive tape at the pace you wish. As is the case with many caves, Carlsbad is the summer home to hundreds of thousands of bats, and their exit ensemble at summertime dusk is something many visitors come to see. The bats had gone south for the winter, so we didn't get to see them and their impressive exit. But we did get to see their evidence: mounds of bat guano were clearly evident on the ceiing of the caves ... their roost.

The variable dissolution of the limestone has resulted in beautiful and varied limestone formations. You will recall that stalagmites are those formations which rise from the Ground, and that stalactites hang from the ceiling. While the lighting wasn't ideal for picture taking (though was ideal for viewing .... a Hollywood lighting director consulted on the lighting for the cave), I did get a couple:

But I'd like to show you a little more from Carlsbad through the Elizabeth League technique: taking a picture of a post card!

We did both the Natural Entrance and Big Room self-guided tours (I was here in the early '60's, on the high school trip around the US, but I don't remember taking the long walk down), and then (as Buster was parked a very short distance away outside the park), we decided to take the long way home through a scenic desert drive. We saw these beautiful long-horn sheep just as we were exiting the canyon.

Monday, January 11

This was a big travel day, as we had to back track to Pecos, Texas to pick up our mail. Sometimes its hard to predict just where we're going to be by the end of the week. We give the mailing instructions to Cincinnati on Tuesday, and on Wednesday they send all the mail that has been collected there to us at the current address by second day Priority Mail. On Tuesday in Big Bend we thought we would make it to Pecos by Friday, but the weather held us up.

After collecting the mail, we continued on Interstate 10 west to El Paso. I was driving when we drove through the city, and to see Juarez/Mexico so close and see how packed and compressed with people it was (even as we just glimpsed it) was startling. I couldn't get a picture because I was driving! We drove on to Las Cruces (named for the crosses on the hill that mark the graves of some settlers killed in an Apache raid), where we stopped and did a Target run: batteries, DVDs for our entertainment, I think a new swimsuit for Liz, and other "necessities." We motored on to Truth or Consequences, and climbed a bluff to a park with a beautiful view of the mountains and surrounding desert. Travis, our Rio Grande River guide, had told us that Truth or Consequences got its name because if it agreed to have its name changed, the television quiz show would agree to come there and film the show. That did happen, in the 50's we think, but unfortunately the show only lasted a couple of years, but the town's name stuck.

Tuesday, January 12

We headed out from Truth or Consequences and took Interstate 25 up to Albuquerque. It parallels El Camino Real and old route 66 is nearby, too.

Albuquerque seemed huge ... it is a city of 1.2 million people sprawled across the desert. It took us nearly an hour to drive from one side to the other. On the northeast side, we stopped for gas and ran into, unfortunately, the rudest person we have encountered on this trip! We were finishing up our fueling, and it was one of those situations where there was a car facing us fueling. As she finished and pulled away, we were clear to drive through and exit. Before we had a chance to do so, a woman in a pick-up truck pulled in and needed to back in to get to the pump. We started to pull forward indicating could we please exit first, and she simply got furious. She backed her car right up to our bumper, cursed at us, flipped us off, and kept calling us names for 5 minutes. We just sat patiently waiting to be able to drive. Then she had us wait five minutes more while she went inside to buy something. It really was unbelievable. She even flipped us off again when we finally drove past her as she waiting in the left turn lane after exiting. As I said, fortunately this type of ridiculous anger and rudeness has been extremely rare. It is true, Buster occasionally causes minor impositions on some drivers when we have a wide turn or something, but most people give us a smile and a thumbs up!

We took the "back road" from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, called the Turquoise Trail and found one of the campgrounds that was open in the winter .... Los Campos de Santa Fe. It is right on Cerrillos Blvd, one of the main oblique arteries into downtown Santa Fe and near a lot of shopping. But the campground was completely empty; only a couple of other campers. We settled right in.

Wednesday, January 13 ... Happy Birthday, Carolyn Madsen Hebbel!!

As it was Wednesday, I spent part of the morning with my Women's HealthSource colleagues which is always a pleasure. We have started an online version of the newsletter, and some extra editorial work is needed both to add content and write an introductory letter about the issue each month for the website.

We also pursued Liz' request which she had had in play for sometime to color her hair. She wanted BLACK hair! I wasn't prepared to go that far, but when we stopped at the Target in Las Cruces I found a non-permanent brunette with reddish tones hair tint. We had done the skin test on Tuesday to exclude skin irritation and allergy, so this was the beauty shop morning. It went fine ... she LOVES it, and Gary and I think it is tolerable. It is supposed to wash out after 25 washings or so, so we'll see what happens.

As it had already snowed in Santa Fe, and we wanted to go up to Taos at even higher altitude, we decided to just take the car. We took the scenic "High Road to Taos." You'll see the mountains in the background with cactus and desert plants up front. We also thought this perspective on a Santa Fe style church was very pretty, as well as the little decorated Christmas tree by the side of the road. As you can see there was scattered snow everywhere.

Also, I'm sure you all want to see the first pictorial recording of Liz' new hair color!!

We were struck that for a Land of Enchantment, which is the New Mexico motto included on car license plates, they might have gotten a little more enchantment with a few zoning laws. While there were lots of beautiful vistas and scenery along the scenic high road to Taos, there was also a lot of trashy looking property. I'm certain this is a result of hard times, low wages, etc., but it still seems people could be a little neater! I'm not certain if we have more zoning laws about property and rusted out old cars and collapsed buildings on your property in Minnesota .... perhaps not. Perhaps the nordics are just a bit tidier!

Taos is very pretty and quaint. We didn't drive the extra 15 or so miles up to the ski area, but I think most people stay and dine in town anyway. We had a delicious lunch at the Bent Street Cafe. Gary had delicious tamales, and I had a homemade celery soup which sounded a little unusual, but was perfectly seasoned and was delicious. Bent Street is where Governor Bent lived (and maybe died!) He was the first American governor of New Mexico.

Below you'll see one of the shopping areas in town, and the Kit Carson Museum.

After lunch, while Gary was browsing in Governor Bent's home/museum, Liz and I were walking

down Bent Street and the strangest thing happened. We were on the sidewalk next to oncoming

traffic, and we looked up and saw this car very slowly rolling toward us. It was coming across the

road diagonally from the other side of the street. It rolled obliquely slowly into the curb just ahead

of us blocking the lane. I'm going, "Who in the world is driving like that .... do they think there is

perpendicular parking on this street, rather than parallel parking?" And then we had our answer:

NO ONE WAS DRIVING! It was a loose car on the street! Presumably someone didn't set a parking

brake and the car just rolled there by itself. When we came back that way to get our parked car

(parked probably 75 feet away, and out of danger fortunately!), we saw that someone had come and

moved it and parked it correctly. It was mysterious!

The drive back to Santa Fe was beautiful through the Rio Grande Gorge. The headwaters of the Rio

Grande are in the Southern Rockies/San Juan mountains, and the river had done some nice carving through the mountains

by the time it reached this point in New Mexico.

As you can see, the sky was darkening, and we wanted to make sure

we got down the mountain and safely to Buster before any weather

confronted us. We thought it was so fun when we passed a

manufactured housing lot in the outskirts of Santa Fe. There was

a very attractive Santa Fe style house!

Thursday, January 14 we decided to just explore Santa Fe. Gary and I had visited Santa Fe a couple of years ago in the fall. I had a meeting there and we drove up to Bandelier National Monument and the ruins there. So we felt we could just do a little review of some of our favorite things with Liz. We had been hoping to find a handsome Indian/Southwest rug and we saw many beautiful ones in a marketplace in Santa Fe. Here's a picture of Liz sitting on the one we decided on in her new hat purchased at The Pink Coyote.

Liz got a darling turquoise and silver bracelet there, too, and then we walked over to the Palace of the Governors where many native crafts are displayed and sold. Walking around in our new hats (again from The Pink Coyote) we saw this great sculpture of bears.

One of our main priorities was to return to Cafe Pasquale. It is famous particularly for its breakfasts and when we had visited in October of 2007, we had had to stand outside for over a hour to get a table. On January 14 for lunch ..... not so much. But it was as charming .... and as good as ever. I had an amazing roasted vegetable lunch with a yummy creamy/cheesy sauce, and Gary had a big scramble of seemingly everything you can imagine. Liz had gourmet mac and cheese in which they blended about 4 or 5 different cheeses. It was all so yummy. Gary and I had previously bought these great black T-shirts there, his with a very rakish Zorro-type bandito on the back. Liz has now added a Cafe Pasquale t-shirt to her wardrobe. And look how cute it is ....

We spent the rest of the afternoon sauntering around Santa Fe including visiting Ortega's ... a lovely jewelry store specializing in southwest pieces. I have been eyeing a carved graduated oblong bead sterling silver necklace, and saw a gorgeous one at Ortega's. It seemed a little pricey, and I said I would keep looking. But when Gary dropped Liz and I off at the motor home and went back to Wal-Mart to do a little shopping .... he was gone an awfully long time. So I am holding out hope that he went back to get the necklace for Valentine's Day!

Friday, January 15

We got a reasonably early start from Santa Fe, and backtracked a bit back toward Albuquerque to connect to state route 550 toward Farmington and Bloomfield where we planned to stay. We got into more and more snow, as you can see. We arrived relatively early in the afternoon, and

learned there was a National Monument

there named Aztec Ruins. Gary was surprised that the Aztecs would have been this far north, and, in fact, he was right. There was an ancestral people that inhabited this area from 850 to 1150, but they weren't the Aztecs. But the name stuck. People left these ruins in the late 1200's, possibly due to drought, the allure of other places, such as south to the better watered country of the Rio Grande drainage, but many Southwest people still maintain ties to their traditions and stories. The ruins are fascinating.

You will see below on the left an exterior view of a kiva, a circular ceremonial chamber, and on the right the interior view which is beautiful and conveys a real spirituality.

Liz actually stayed in the RV park in Bloomfield, as she wanted some down time. She locked the doors, and we were only gone a couple of hours during the daylight, so that worked out well. This was a night that, once again, we were really happy we had figured out the heating system as it felt nippy and we were certain it would go below freezing again that night. We were right.

We go to Four Corners tomorrow (and get THREE new states: Colorado, Utah and Arizona) tomorrow. That will be fun.

We're getting closer to what I still think of as home .... Southern California. So it's exciting. We're trying to stay warm like everybody else in the country.

Later,

Julie, Gary and Liz