New Mexico

May 27, 2014

King's Palace tour

Took Bobby to see the pottery shop, have an hour to waste, before our tour.   Still did not buy anything, am I good or what?

So excited as we are taking our guided tour today!   Seeing the Kings Palace tour, oh my god was it amazing.   No wonder they call this the granddaddy of the caverns.   This tour shows you why….I’d highly recommend this to anyone visiting the Carlsbad Caverns.  Tour takes about 2 - 2 ½ hrs, so we came home to rest before we go back to see the bats fly out.

inside King's Palace

We arrived around 6:45PM to see the bats fly out, early but it gave us time to talk with rangers, etc.   The rangers start their talk at 7:30, giving you facts about the bats.   Yes they can hear and see, but usually elect to use their sonar instead.   The majority of them have not arrived from their winter breading grounds in Mexico, but at about 8:10, they start to fly out, it was not the swarm we had anticipated but still we thoroughly enjoyed seeing them.   We did learn that there are about 500,000 Brazilian bats that live at the caverns.   The mothers will begin delivering the pups in middle of June and they’ll learn to fly around end of July.   They eat their body weight (5 oz) in bugs (mostly moths) every night.  No wonder the farms like bats!   It was interesting to see but honestly thought we'd see a lot more bats than we did, next time, we'll come in July when there will be more to see.

May 26, 2014

Bobby hurt is back, so we’ll just stay around the motorhome and take it slow.   Elks are having a memorial day picnic, so we joined them.   They have a large swimming pool but water was to cool for us to get into….gosh we are spoiled!   Justin & Susan Crockett, we met them in Roswell (parked next to us), entertained us.   We invited them to come to Havasu and spend some time….hopefully they will.

May 25, 2014

The rustler

The cattle boss

Left Roswell around 9:00 AM, heading to Carlsbad.   First stop will be Artesia, want to do their walking tour.  They have many statues thru out their main street.   We stop at IHOP and had a quick bite, then continu   They have great statues depicting the cowboy and oil field eras.
 

The vaquero

Sally Chisum...the teacher

Back on the road around 11:30 and arrived in Carlsbad around 12:30, we’re staying at the Carlsbad Elks.   Around 2:00 PM, we headed out to Carlsbad Caverns.   Took the Natural Entrance tour, it’s about 1 ½ miles long but goes down 750’, tough on the old knees, but very interesting.   Once we got into the cavern, we took the Big Room tour (self guided).   By the time we finished, you realize why they call it the granddaddy of the caverns.   This was my 2^nd time here but 1^st time was 20 years ago.   Don’t remember the walk down being so steep…lol.

Got back to the coach around 6, later on I might walk down to the Peco’s river and take some pics of the sunset

May 24, 2014

flag football

Flag football

The weather was not looking good in Carlsbad, expecting golf ball size hail, so we decided to stay one more night.   With nothing planned, we decided to do our laundry and then we went to the “hike & spike it” tournament.  It’s a 4 person flag    Some of the teams are playing for a $15,000 purse while others are after trophy’s.   The 5^th wheel next to us has kids playing in the 15-19 yr old bracket.   They won 2 out of three games but at least they got the opportunity to play on Sunday in the finals.  

football tournament, the largest in the world.

  

May 23, 2014

Books at court house

Art from RAIC

First stop was the Chamber of Commerce, the lady their told us about a mural approx 6 miles South of town, we drove out and took pic.   There’s a fence, so only Bobby climbed over.   I did not want to get my skirt caught on the fence.

 Afterwards went back to the court house to tour their museum.   We had a local Sheriff give us a personal tour, which was very nice.   He explained so much to us, would recommend Scott to anyone coming to this area.

 

 We then attended the RAIC museum (saw lots of local art) and then we toured the UFO museum.   Here we learned about the incident that occurred back in 1947.  They still are unclear as to whether or not a UFO crashed NW of Roswell, but honestly from all the reports, something crashed.   Whether is was a UFO, still remains a mystery.

After lunch at the coach, we visited the history museum, which is in the White old home.  It’s a 5,000 SF home once owned by the White family.   It still has many original furnishings from the family, very interesting.

 May 22, 2014

Ruidoso Downs

Left Alamogordo, NM around 8:30 and headed to Ruidoso, home of Ruidoso Downs.   I was hoping to see a race, but they did not start until 1:00 PM.   I did not want to wait around, as a major thunderstorm is coming to Roswell and I wanted to be set up before it hit.   We walked around the race track, looked thru the hall of fame and the casino.   The casino has a replica of the jail that Billy the Kid made his famous escape from, it’s fun to read all the history that happened around this area.

We then made our way to Roswell, arriving around noon.   Got set up in the RV park and then had lunch.   Around 2, decide to take a drive thru the town.   It’s much larger than I had anticipated.   The New Mexico Military Institute is located here, which is a very large facility.   

Pat Garrett

John Cishum

Decide to look at the court house, it’s quite obvious that it’s old…the rotunda is beautiful.   When we went to go up the stairs, a gentleman informed us that no cellphones are allowed in the building, after taking them back to the truck, we continued inside the court house.   Wouldn’t you know it, no camera’s allowed.   The guard ask what I was going to do with my camera, told him take pics of the rotunda, he was gracious enough to allow me to do that, however I had to remain within his sight at all times.   He also informed us that we could not go on any floors since we had shorts on.   They don’t allow shorts, tank tops, thongs, etc.   We’ll come back tomorrow to see the museum and the old court house rooms.

They have two statues around the court house,  one of Pat Garrett (sherriff) and John Cishum (cattle rancher) on either side of court house.

Got back to the coach around 3:45, just in time, as the rain was starting…huge drops.   Certainly would get you soaked in a short amount of time.

 


May 21, 2014

Dunn Telescope

ARC telescope

We are heading to Sunspot, NM.  It's about 60 miles SE of Alamogordo up in the mountains off hwy 82 to visit the National Solar Observatory on Sacramento Peak.  We climbed to an elevation of 9,920, so we were tired while walking around.   At this facility you can't get near the telescopes, they are huge, but we had the opportunity to talk with a scientist from Hawaii about the Dunn Solar Telescope, they watch the activity of the sun through this telescope.   Its towers 136' above ground with another 228' below ground.  The size of this telescope is magnificent but we as visitors don't get to see anything through it.  We were lucky in that we were the only ones there, so this scientist spent quite a bit of time explaining the details of what their looking for, which is basically the hotspots on the sun and how they can create havoc on satellites, space craft, military stuff, etc.

Pistachios growing on a tree

Next stop was the Apache Point Observatory and the ARC 3.5 m telescope, we were lucky as an engineer was working on it, so we got a mini tour of it.   It works at night so we could not see it in action but the hangar doors were open.  At night the building moves on a track and exposes the entire telescope that tips up and points at the sky.  It has to be extremely dark, so no lights are allowed, not even a flashlight!   Believe me, you could see every star in the sky, no city lights within 30 miles.   Next time, we'll stay for the night show.

Giant pistachio

After looking at the telescope, we headed back to Cloudcroft, a typical mountain resort town.  Walked around the shops and then headed back to Alamogordo.   Once back in town, we toured a Pistachio Tree Farm called Heart of the Desert Pistachios & Wine.   This facility is extremely small for the amount of Pistachio's they produce, they have maybe dozen employees during their peak season of September thru December.  They have 12,000 trees, of which 90% are female trees and 10% mail tree.     We sampled several flavors but did not buy any....not our favorite nut.





We also went to the store next door to McGinn's, they have many more flavors than Heart of the Desert did.

May 20, 2014

White Sands Missile Range

White Sands NP

Left Las Curcses around 9:00 and headed to the White Sands Missile Range.  Here we had the opportunity to look at the missiles that have been tested at the facility.   It's a military base, so you have to get clearance and can only go to the museum and park where they have the missiles.  It was very interesting.

Next stop was the White Sands National Park.  We bought a round disk (sled) so we could play on the sand dunes.   A lot more work than I gave it credit for....guess this means I'm getting old!   Even though we waxed the bottom of the sled, it did not want to go down the hill.....might be that we are adults and weigh to much...lol.   We both did it eventually and had a good time, however, the walk back up the hill is a killer!

We then headed to Alamogordo, where we parked at the Elks.  We got settled in and then went to the club...they have a swimming pool, so we went for a swim.   It was wonderful!

Tomorrow, we explore Alamagordo.

May 19, 2014

We had a beautiful sunset last night, think we have some of that smoke from California as my allergies are horrible.

Fort Selden

Started out this morning going to visitors center and collecting stuff for me to read.   We then headed to Fort Selden, an old fort that protected this area.   Most interesting fact, General MacArther lived here when he was a young boy with his family.

We then went to the memorial park, they have a great dedication to the Bataan Battle from WWII.

Zuhl Museum

Next stop, University of NM, here we toured the Zuhl Museum, which is a fosil collection and visited the Chili Pepper Institute.  The museum was very impressive, institute I would not go back.   It's just a gift shop but they do sell seeds for all types of chili's included the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, hottest chili in the world.

Last stop for the day was the town of Mesilla....it's

a very old Mexican town.   Lots of little shops, restaurants, etc.   We walked thru the shops and then had lunch at La Pasta, it was just ok...very bland in our opinion.   The interesting fact we learned here, Billy the Kid spent time in jail plus was convicted and put to death here.







May 18, 2014


Left Tucson after having breakfast at the Voyager Restaurant....it was excellent.

Hit the road around 9 with nothing planned since it's Sunday and most things we assumed would be closed.   Bobby drove to a rest stop just short of New Mexico border and then I drove the remainder of the trip.  It was very windy again but at least the traffic was light and no problems.   We arrived at the Las Crucses Elks around 2:30.

Fuel here is cheap compared to Havasu...$3.699 a gallon.   Hope it like this for the rest of our travels.

We'll spend two nights here....tomorrow, we see the local sites.