West Texas and Southern New Mexico

Mountain peaks, deep caverns, and extra-terrestrials both real and imagined

April 5-7, 2003

Headed west on I-10 and I-20 towards our first planned goal: Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This is a very beautiful park in the far western corner of Texas and we planned to spend several days here. We were a little disappointed by the Pine Springs Campground, though. RVs (our trailer included) were restricted to a single location which was really just an asphalt lot -- apparently they had converted a trailhead parking lot into some spaces for RVs. (The tent camping spaces nearby, however, looked really good.) Next time we come to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, we'll stay at the remote Dog Canyon campground on the other side of the park. We would have moved there, but it's a 100-mile drive to get there, even though it's only a few miles away!

This National Park was made for hikers -- mountains, forests, some desert and lots of hiking trails. On Sunday we both hiked Devil's Hall, a nice trail that leads to a narrow slot canyon. We also explored an historic old stage stop from the Butterfield Stage, the first scheduled trans-continental overland service to California from the 1850's

On Monday, Jacque left the campground (elevation 5280 ft) and headed for Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas (elevation 8749). On top of the peak, American Airlines had placed an obelisk commemorating the early Air Mail pilots -- perhaps a strange place for such a monument since you can only get there by foot. From the top of the peak you could see many, many miles of range land to the south, east, and west, and more mountains to the north.

Brian thought he wanted an easier hike, so he headed off on a 5-mile loop trail, but he ended up climbing Hunter's peak (elevation 8368) -- not quite as much elevation change as Jacque, but a longer hike with a steeper climb. So much for not wanting a strenuous hike!

The campground host came by that evening and informed all campers that the weather forecast that night was strong winds -- 80-90 miles per hour. So we battened down the hatches and waited for the wind. Well, it got a little breezy during the night and the temperature dropped to the 30's, but no strong winds. So, we don't know yet how our trailer would survive such conditions.

April 8, 2003

Left Guadalupe National Park early and headed to Windmill RV Park in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We both had remembered visiting Carlsbad Caverns National Park when we were younger and we did not want to miss this opportunity, so we had made reservations to take a special tour of the limited-access Lower Cave. First we fortified ourselves by having lunch at Happy's -- a little joint in a former Stuckey's in Carlsbad. The burgers were great and we had something called Texas Toothpicks -- onions and various chilies lightly breaded, fried and served with Ranch Dressing. Very yummy -- we both agreed that this is what road food should taste like.

The tour at Carlsbad Caverns was spectacular -- only 12 people in a special tour of the Lower Cave that's only accessible via this tour. We wore helmets with lights and crawled down a rope and several ladders. Some spots we had to crawl through tiny openings to get in to. The Lower Cave was beautiful!

April 9, 2003

Before leaving the town of Carlsbad, we washed the trailer for the first time in many days, and then had lunch at a charming little place called the Blue House Cafe.

In an effort to stay off the Interstate highways, we headed north and west across New Mexico on small roads. North from Carlsbad we passed through Roswell, known throughout the world as the nexus for all things alien. We took pictures of the outside of the stuff stores, but didn't go into the International UFO Research Center or anything else.

We drove through Lincoln, NM and we learned that a "war" took place there in the 1800's involving Billy the Kid. However, we didn't have time to stop and learn much about it. Apparently there are still bullet holes in the wall of the courthouse where Billy the Kid and his buddies shot some deputies and escaped custody.

We also saw where they found Smokey the Bear.

Coming out of the mountains, we happened upon the Valley of Fires Recreation Area -- a large lava flow in southwestern New Mexico. It reminded both of us of the lava flows on the big Island of Hawaii. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had a nice campground (both electric and water hookups) right beside the lava flow, so we decided to park there for the night. It was very beautiful with mountains to the east and the sunset across the lava flow towards the west. Amazingly, out in the middle on almost nowhere, we had full-digital cellphone service, allowing us to get some work done!

April 10, 2003

We didn't get up too early, and enjoyed coffee overlooking the lava flow. At the Visitor's Center, we picked up book describing some of the other BLM campsites, which complements our book on the National Parks.

We next headed towards the Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), southwest of Albuquerque. This was a site suggested by Steve Betz (thanks, Steve!) -- and it was really cool! We saw the very large array of radio telescopes across a high plain, and even saw all the telescopes move in unison towards a different target. This is probably the largest scientific instrument that either of us will ever come in contact with. Basically, it consists of about 40 large radio telescopes, all connected together. By having all of them pointing simultaneously at the same place in the sky, they can gather enough data for images that would normally require a single extremely huge telescope. They filmed the movie "Contact" here with Jodie Foster pretending to be a Scientist.

After visiting the VLA we headed off to Albuquerque to visit Jacque's Aunt Alice and cousins David, Michelle, and Renee and Michelle's daughters, Elisha and Melinda. Elisha made us a very fine turkey dinner and we stayed up late visiting with everyone.