{texas}
After my refreshing visit to Balhormea State Park I continued north through Pecos, which is very much an oil & gas town - I saw nothing but transports and pickup trucks for miles! There were lots of oil wells and little camps along the way north, where I crossed the New Mexico state line..
{new mexico}
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| Welcome to New Mexico! |
...and spent the night in Carlsbad. I didn't take the time to explore too much of Carlsbad, but I enjoyed a relaxing evening catching up on emails etc., then got an early start to Carlsbad Caverns. I was undecided over whether I should take an organized tour or just explore the 'big room' & main cave on my own, so I wanted to be there at 8am to get some more information. When I arrived I realized that the self-guided cave tour covers quite a lot of area and takes about 2.5 hrs, so I decided that would be enough.
The trail to the natural entrance opened shortly afterwards, so I headed off on the 2km hike descending 230m into the cave. It was quite steep, but very cool to see the natural entrance to the cave and notice how the light gradually faded until it was only artificial light lighting the path. Within the cave, there was another a 2km trail that wound it's way around the big room past several different formations. It's a massive area - over 600,000 sq ft - and that's just one section of the cave! There are several other sections to the cave & they are still discovering new areas!
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| Natural Entrance to Carlsbad Caverns |
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| Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns |
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| Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns |
From the cavern's, it's wasn't very far back to the state line, where...
{texas}
... I stopped off at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It's very interesting landscape, but I wasn't in the mood to start a day-long hike in the middle of the day, so I carried on. It was a couple more hours across to El Paso, where my first stop was the Ysleta Mission. I really tried to soak in the history and appreciate the story it had to tell, but in all honesty it was creepy as! Next to the altar, they had a display of a life-size dead black Jesus that was allegedly floated across the Rio Grande a couple hundred years ago; history - but creepy.
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| Ysleta Mission, El Paso |
While I was downtown I drove around the downtown core, which is mostly abandoned store-fronts and pretty run-down, with a couple exceptions. I also stopped off to see the the Chamizal National Memorial, which explains and recognizes the agreement between the US and Mexico to resolve the 100-year border dispute which resulted from the flooding and shifting of the Rio Grande; the border was defined as the deepest part of the river, which is prone to shifting; the border is now a concrete canal which will not shift.
I spent the night with Jack & Mae, who my parent's had met a couple years ago on their trip. They were very welcoming and full of stories to share! Mae was working on sewing a lining for a purse she had knitted, so it was fun to help out with that. The next morning I headed off across the scenic Franklin Mountain Pass to the Border Patrol Museum. They explain the evolution of border patrol over the years and have some very interesting and entertaining displays of items that have been seized from illegal immigrants, vehicles used in border-crossing attempts, and vehicles used by border control.
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| Border Patrol Museum; 2 truck hoods strapped together to make a boat |
{new mexico}
I continued north to White Sands National Monument, where I had a picnic lunch and had a look around. It was stunning and very white, with dunes stretching almost as far as your eyes could see. It was a neat contrast to have the bright white dunes with the mountains in the background. There were lots of people out enjoying the dunes for the day, sledding down on little round toboggans. It was quite hot, so I enjoyed a popsicle while I looked around. I did the full loop around the park, then continued my bigger loop back towards El Paso.
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| White Sands National Monument |
My next brief stop was at the White Sands Missile Range, where they do a lot of missile testing and have an outdoor museum with a LOT of missiles. It doesn't really hold my interest to read all about them, but the sheer number of different shapes & sizes of missiles took me by surprise.
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| White Sands Missile Range |
A little further down the road back, I stopped off in Las Cruces for a brief look around, then continued south to El Paso.
{texas}
I spent another evening with Jack & Mae, and we went to experience the apparently-legendary Chico's Taco's. It was an experience all right.. 3 hard rolled tacos, in a runny tomato sauce with an abundance of cheese on top. There is no classy way to eat food like that. On the way back, we took the scenic route across the Franklin Mountain pass to look out over El Paso and Juarez. You could see the row of lights lining the border, and the difference between the two countries. It was strange to be within sight of one of the most dangerous cities in the world and yet be completely unaffected by the violence. Driving through downtown El Paso, you can see that the proximity has taken it's toll on the city, but you are still surprisingly removed from it.
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| Chico's Taco's - still wondering how they got their reputation.. |
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| Nighttime view of El Paso, Texas/Juarez, Mexico |
The next morning we went...
{new mexico}
... to church together, then...
{texas}
... back to Jack & Mae's for a delicious lunch. After lunch I got myself packed up and ready to hit the road west again. Mae had made some caramel corn for me to deliver to Arizona, so my entire van smelled delicious for the next couple of days!
{new mexico}
From El Paso across to Arizona I had the option of the interstate or a smaller state road following the Mexican border. I opted for the backroad and was admittedly surprised by the complete and utter lack of... anything. I passed through a couple one stop-sign towns, and listened to podcasts to pass the time until I crossed the state line for the night in Douglas, Arizona.
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| wide open space; southern New Mexico |
J.
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