Day 19, 9/24/13 - El Dorado, KS to home

Since we were in Kansas, we just quoted Dorothy and said "There's no place like home!  There's no place like home!"  Sure enough, 4 hours later we were home.  Well, sorta - We're moving into the Cottage for a bit.  The cats, despite all the treatments, Front Line, etc., left us a present before we took them to the cat boarder - we came home to a houseful of hungry fleas.  A quick spot treatment knocked them down enough to be able to get some things done, until the exterminator comes tomorrow.  Then we're going to rip out the carpets and put in a floor covering less welcoming to those little critters.

Pictures will be posted eventually, when Sandra has time to write up her journal.  Bye for now.  

Day 18, 9/23/13, Canyon TX to El Dorado KS

Big oops today.  That 333 mile trip turned out to be almost 420.  Either Rand McNally lied or I misread woefully - or maybe a bit of both.  I  feel assured, however, that my 244 mile estimate for tomorrow is reasonably accurate.  We'll be home in early afternoon, then the work begins - getting all those credit card charges input, the bills paid, the mail looked at & sorted, the suitcases unpacked & stuff washed, the residue of muddy roads removed from the car...

Made no scenic stops today, but the sunrise as Bill loaded the car was worth a shot, so he took it.  After that it was prairie (or originally so), some flat, some hilly, and all very windy.  We ate lunch in Seiling OK, and supper here in El Dorado, where we're staying at our 9th & last Holiday Inn Express of the trip.  Wrap-up tomorrow.

Day 17, Sunday, 9/22/13 - Roswell to Canyon TX

We did a lot more than planned today.  After a long drive across pretty-much-empty prairie, we arrived at Ft. Sumner, where we toured the Bosque Redondo Memorial.  This New Mexico State Historic Site (formerly called a State Monument) commemorates the forced imprisonment of the Mescalero Apaches and Navajos at a featureless flood plain with bad water, little wood, and inadequate support.  Navajo call this the Long Walk, similar to the Trail of Tears when the eastern tribes were expelled to what's now Oklahoma.  Col. Kit Carson, previously a friend of the Navajo, under threat of court-martial, was ordered to round them up from their homes and march them about 500 miles - in winter, naturally.  The Mescaleros, only about 350 anyway, managed to escape, but over 8000 Navajo were held until the government determined there was no gold or silver in their homeland and they promised not to raid any more.  Then they walked home, around late 1868.  The folks at the memorial were very helpful, but new exhibits aren't in place in their new addition.

Then it was on to Clovis, where we visited  Blackwater Draw National Archaeological Site.  This is where the famous Clovis Point was discovered in conjunction with the bones of extinct animals, and pushed the timeline for human habitation of North America back a couple of thousand years, to  12-14,000 years ago.  The site is unusual in that it holds the record of many millenia of different cultures occupying and hunting the springs there.  There's even a partially-excavated bone bed with a building placed over it allowing viewing in situ.  Staff again was very friendly & helpful.

We boogied off to Canyon, where we'll spend the night.  We have changed our plans and will not stop at Enid or Bartlesville, but will go to El Dorado KS tomorrow and home fairly early Tuesday afternoon.

Day 16, Saturday 9/21/13 - Alamogordo to Roswell

Well, look where we are!  Where even the hotel elevators celebrate the reported 1947 UFO crash.  Besides the UFO museum and the July 4th festival/parade, there are plenty of shops selling UFO-related gear and info, some serious & some humorous.

Outside Roswell, the UFO connection tends to overshadow the great art & culture scene.  We visited the Roswell Museum and Arts Center, which contains a wide variety of art, a Robert Goddard rocketry museum, and an eclectic historical exhibit.  Definitely worth a visit. We also visited the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, featuring exhibits by over 40 years of visiting artists in residence.  Definitely a mixed bag of media, styles & subjects, but also worth a visit.

Back to the beginning - we left Alamogordo early, took a leisurely drive thru Ruidoso to San Patricio, where we visited the Hurd La Rinconada Gallery.  This museum/gallery has many originals by Peter Hurd, his wife Henriette (Wyeth), son Michael and in-laws N.C. and Andrew Wyeth.

Next stop was Lincoln, famous for Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Lincoln County War.  The visitor center & museum has been much upgraded since our last visit, and new exhibits are in place in other buildings of this NM State Monument.  The town was full of bikers (no, not the outlaw types, just middle-aged folks who enjoy riding Harleys) exploring during a major rally at nearby Ruidoso.  We also got a picture of one of Carrizozo's painted burros at a Lincoln gallery.

Finally, we headed for Roswell, had lunch, visited the aforementioned attractions, and settled in to our hotel.  Tomorrow we continue the Billy the Kid theme with a stop at Ft. Sumner, where he was killed and, more importantly, site of Bosque Redondo, where Navajo & Mescalero Apaches were interned in the mid 1860s.  We'll continue to Canyon, TX via Clovis NM.

Day 15, Friday, 9/20/13 - Alamogordo to Las Cruces & Back

We got up early early to get to White Sands for early morning (magic time) pictures.  Guess what - it's completely closed until 8:00 AM.  With almost an hour to kill, we checked out the C-store at nearby Holloman AFB.  Got back to White Sands NP to be first in line when the gates opened, but the magic light was gone.  Nevertheless, we took a bunch of pictures, some of which are contest-worthy.


Then it was on to Las Cruces to visit Sandra's Uncle Murray and his down-the-hall friend Peggy.  We picked them up and headed for Hatch, home of the famous Hatch Chiles.  We bought some seeds, and had an excellent lunch at the Pepper Pot, a down-home New Mexican cafe in Hatch.  All agreed it was a great place to eat.

We took the scenic route back to Las Cruces on NM-185, crossing the Rio Grande a couple of times - a thin stream of water is running in the riverbed, the first they've seen for months.  All the rain was captured by upstream dams.  Said goodbye about 3 and returned to Alamogordo, the trip slowed by an immigration checkpoint.

Tomorrow we head for Roswell via San Patricio (Hurd-Wyeth gallery/museum), and possibly Lincoln. All travel now points toward home.

Day 14, Thursday, 9/19/13 - Belen to Alamogordo

Well, here we are in Avocado - Avogadro - Alamogordo, after a good day looking at old pueblos, painted burros, and petroglyphs.  First stop was Abo, a unit of Salinas Missions Nat'l Monument.  We arrived well before the official opening time, so we took photos from a distance.  We had previously visited it in any case.




The second unit of this Nat'l Monument is Grand Quivira, where we arrived shortly after it opened at 9 AM.  After a nice chat w/ the ranger, we took a walk around this large pueblo.  It was built of a different colored rock than the other units and was considerably further south.  We learned that these Piro/Tompiro speaking pueblos were abandoned before the pueblo revolt, and the language apparently didn't survive. 


Off to Carrizozo, watching rains developing in the mountains.  Had lunch at about the only place in town after touring it looking at the painted burros (waitress at the restaurant called them "jackasses").  They're everywhere, even on the roofs!  We stopped at an old-fashioned soda fountain and got a couple of ice cream cones, then hit the road again.

Next stop, the Three Rivers Petroglyphs.  This is a BLM site with a $5 fee, and we took a nice walk around

it, taking pictures of the glyphs (and the storm over the nearby mountains).

Ended up in Alamogordo, which means large cottonwood, and started getting ready for tomorrow's early pictures at White Sands and a trip to Las Cruces to see Sandra's Uncle Murray, and lunch in Hatch.

Day 13, Wednesday 9/18/13 - Gallup to Belen

It's probably not over 150 miles by the most direct route - we took 254.  Ah, but what we saw -  the sky was full of small rain showers, starting at sunrise, making for all kinds of scenic clouds.  First stop was El Morro Nat'l Monument, which is full of inscriptions ranging from petroglyphs to the early 20th Century.  Notable among them is the first inscription by a Spaniard, Juan de Onate, who led their first settlement in the SW, and by an officer of the California Column in 1866.  Even without the inscriptions, it's a very scenic location, with a 1/2 mile walking trail and a 2 mile loop.  Definitely worth a visit.

A bit up the road one finds El Malpais Nat'l Monument.  Malpais means "badlands"which is a good description for these huge lava fields from many eruptions, including one just 2000 years ago.  It has two distinct sections, one a walk around an old crater and lava tubes - we started the walk, but a crash of thunder sent us back to the car.  The other side takes one to overlooks and an arch - but first it was time for lunch at El Cafecito, Grants.  This place is GOOD!

We took the long ride down the road to the overlook - sandstone cliffs that stopped the lava flows.  First, we had to drive thru some of the residue of a rainstorm that had hit the area shortly before our drive - yellow, muddy water running over the road.    After this side trip, we headed for Belen, a 100 mile drive.  We stayed ahead of a big storm, checked into the Holiday Inn Express, and ate at Pete's, another great local eatery with New Mexican cuisine. 

Tomorrow we take US-60 to Mountainair, NM-55 south to visit Salinas Missions at Gran Quivira, US-54 to Carrizozo and Three Rivers Petroglyphs, and on to Alamogordo.