"Phone Home" on the Way Home: Roswell and Silver City, NM

Our six weeks touring Texas was over and done, but the only way home to Arizona was through New Mexico.  Our brief visits would take us through two iconic NM cities, Roswell and Silver City. 

Roswell is perhaps best known as the supposed site of the "Roswell Incident," in which a USAF nuclear test surveillance balloon crashed into the nearby desert on July 2, 1947.  Many conspiracy theories around the occurrence continue to exist, most notably that one or more UFO's crash-landed there and that its alien occupants were recovered by the military, which then engaged in an elaborate and ongoing cover-up. 

Roswell city planners and entrepreneurs take full advantage of this marketing angle, with just a few of the many, many examples in full force throughout downtown Roswell.

ALIEN STREETLIGHTS

HIS-AND-HER ALIENS

THIRSTY ALIENS

THUG ALIENS

DUSTY, TIRED ALIENS

ZEN ALIENS

UBER-DRIVING ALIENS

MARIACHI ALIENS

GLUTEN-TOLERANT ALIENS

CHICKEN-LOVING ALIENS

BILINGUAL ALIENS

BULLFIGHTING ALIENS

CRAFTY ALIENS

The International UFO Museum's stated primary goal is "to provide information so the visitor is able to make up their own mind about the Roswell Incident, the UFOs and other possible extraterrestrial phenomena."

Inside, there are lots of articles and paperwork ... lots and lots of words to read.  Not a whole lot to look at, though what was I expecting, actual artifacts and concrete evidence?  Not here.  We tried to think of another type of museum that doesn't really have actual things to display, and came up empty.  Can you think of any?  Let us know ...

There were a couple of lifesized renderings of alien "concepts," however, making this more of an art gallery than a museum, I suppose.

P.M., phone home. 

Outside town, even the managers of our campground got in on the fun.

The oddly-named "Bottomless Lakes State Park" is a chain of 8 lakes that are actually sinkholes, which formed and filled with water when subterranean caverns collapsed under their own weight.

The largest of them, Lea Lake, is of course not actually "bottomless" ... but might as well be ... with a depth of 90 feet, and incredible clarity from the spring water that feeds the lakes.

"Bird blinds" are often located in park campgrounds to camouflage observers and allow them to see birds at close quarters. 

Here, I was able to see the rare one-legged P. Millerus variety of  Stork in its natural habitat.

Our final stop in Silver City, NM, was predicated on the funniest and BEST ensemble comedy movie ever produced, called Rat Race and starring John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Lovits, Seth Green, Kathy Najimi, and lots more super-funny people.

In this movie, a Las Vegas casino tycoon entertains his wealthiest high roller friends -- a group that will bet on anything -- by pitting six ordinary people against each other in a wild dash for $2 million jammed into a locker hundreds of miles away, in .... wait for it, wait for it ... Silver City, NM.

Because we love the movie so much, we were disappointed to subsequently learn that the actual location of the movie-version Silver City, was Ely, Nevada, and it looked nothing like the city we visited.  BUT, it was nevertheless a charming and interesting city with lots of shops and art galleries.

This is the local furniture and appliance shop.  Most interesting storefront award, yes ...?

Silver City sprang to life in 1870 with the discovery of a vast vein of silver in the area, but was built without adequate planning for storm water runoff. Citizens compensated for summer rains by using (very!) high sidewalks which allowed high flood waters to still flow down the street. Look closely ... Philip is 6'2" and that curb goes mid-thigh on him!

In 1895, a heavy wall of water rushed through downtown, destroying much of Main Street and instead leaving a ditch 55 feet lower than the original street level.  Being adaptive, business owners just started using their back doors as their new front entrances, effectively moving Main Street up a block and leaving behind what became "Big Ditch Park" down in that gulley. 

Leaving New Mexico and heading into Arizona, evidence of the very cold and wet weather we had experienced all through Texas continued to surround us, from the snowy mountaintops to the prolific blankets of wildflowers across the desert.   

This thingamybopper was a headscratcher ... hovering above Superior, Arizona.  A little Internet sluethery revealed that it's a package of electronic instruments that is used to map and unlock the secrets of local aquifers (like their depth, and whether they connect to other aquifers) which is otherwise difficult to acquire because you can't "see" through layers of rock.  Pretty cool technology, and not just some difficult placement of a trampoline in someone's yard, as we suspected.

The sun has set on our 2019 Texas Adventure.  And what an adventure it was!

We are now back in Arizona for 10 weeks, in part to celebrate the wedding of our daughter Sarah and new son-in-law Sean.  We'll be back on the road again from May 15 through October 8, following this slow path all the way east as far as Old Quebec City, Canada, and the coast of Maine!

Texas was full of surprises, most notably all the different terrain and weather we encountered, but then, it's a really big state, so of course it has a little bit of everything!  People always ask, "What was your favorite stop on the trip?" Answer: hands down, Big Bend National Park!  Thanks for following along with the Lucky Charm!  See y'all on down the road!

TX and NM: Man's Artwork vs. God's Artwork

Along Route 66 just outside Amarillo, TX is one of America's most interesting art installations:  Cadillac Ranch.  You can see it from the freeway:  what the heck is that?

Invented in 1974 by a group of San Francisco hippies (let the stereotypes abound!) called the Ant Farm, they wanted to create something that would "baffle the locals." Mission accomplished!

They found an Amarillo billionaire with a big piece of empty land to spare, and half-buried ten Cadillacs nose down in the ground, supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza. The cars went in order of the changing evolution of the tail fin on the Cadillac, from 1949 Club Sedan to 1963 Sedan de Ville. 

Of course, as soon as it was installed, people started to deface it with spray paint and rip off pieces of the cars as souvenirs.

The artists were delighted!  People were INTERACTING with their art! 

Forty-four years have now passed and they are still there.  Tourists, pets, yuppies, everyone is still welcome and there is no ticket taker, no entrance fee, no gift shop. 

Visitors are encouraged (heck, practically required) to bring their own spray paint and leave their mark.  But you'd best take a picture of your handiwork, because within hours or days, it will be painted over by someone else!

Even the ground, the fence, the dumpsters are not immune from artistic expression.

The State of Texas is not amused but can't do anything about the cars, which are on private property.

Cadillac Ranch is a testament to the free spirit of Americans, who want to be naughty but don't want to be arrested for it.  Wahoooooo!

Leaving Man's Artwork behind us, we headed back through New Mexico on our way home. 

In search of (and likely to find):  God's Artwork! And boy, did NM deliver ... in spades!

Near the Native American hamlet of Cochiti Pueblo, the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument was some of the most spectacular hiking we've ever done!

We've going to the TOP!

The cone-shaped tent rock formations came from volcanic eruptions 6-7 millions years ago.

 

The layering of volcanic material creates the bands of grey, pink and beige rocks.

Over time, wind and water created amazing slot canyons and arroyos, for lots of hiking fun!

The Canyon Trail is only 3-miles round trip, but a steep 630-foot climb to the top leaves you breathless ... for many reasons!  WOW what a view!

Kasha Katuwe ("white cliffs") is only 35 miles from Santa Fe, and 52 miles from Albuquerque, but in terms of a "bang for your buck" combo of beauty and accessibility, a fantastic find!

Another quick but interesting stop south is the "Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano," south of Grants, NM.  A hike amongst jagged, broken lava and sinkholes ...

...past twisted trees up to 700 years old (they are twisted and gnarled because trees growing in lava find it hard to establish deep roots) ...

... to a steep set of stairs ....

... to "THE ICE CAVE"!

The green tint is caused by an Arctic algae.

Formed 3,400 years ago, this floor of the ice is 20 feet thick!

The temperature in the cave never gets above 31 degrees F.  

Be sure to bring a cuddly friend to keep you warm! 

Leaving the Ice Cave, we trekked up a nearby mountain to view the Bandera Crater, one of 29 in the area.  And you thought you had to go to Hawaii for volcanoes!

Erupting 10,000 years ago, this crater is 1,400 feet wide and 800 feet deep.

Time, erosion and gravity are taking their toll on it (as they are on me, too)

and it is slowing filling up as cinders and rocks fall down into it.

Lastly, our final NM stop for viewing of God's Artwork was El Morro National Monument.

El Morro is a great sandstone promontory with similarly great hiking, and a spectacular storytelling history carved into its walls.

Ancestral Puebloans, Spanish and American travelers heading west would stop here for it's year-round pool of life-sustaining water. The dark lines on the rocks show the spillways where water flows down when it rains.

Here, on "Inscription Rock," over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages and petroglyphs have been carved and left for posterity. Call it "ancient graffiti"  ... though longer-lasting than spray paint on old Cadillacs!  They all have a story to tell! Here are just a few of my favorite examples!

The earliest marking are Puebloan petroglyphs. Can you make out some of the shapes?

Starting in 1583, Spanish travelers began to stop by, and later, a wave of visitors following this route west as part of America's westward expansion, each adding to this "rock autograph book" with fragments of their stories.

Custodians of the monument know many of their stories. For instance, very few women left their marks, but Miss A.E. Baley was one of the exceptions. She and her sister Amelia were part of a wagon party headed from Missouri to California in 1858. After leaving El Morro, the sixty Anglo travelers in her party were attacked by 800 Mojave Indians, killing 9 and injuring 17. The caravan retreated to Albuquerque to wait out the winter, but the Baley sisters eventually made it to Fresno County. Now that's a tough dame for ya!

In the "truth is stranger than fiction" category, P. (Peachy) Breckinridge was in charge of 25 camels being led past El Morro in 1857, as they were being tested by the U.S. Army for their usefulness (and superiority to horses or mules) in crossing the deserts of the Southwest. Predictably, they caused quite a stir as the exotic beasts made their eventual way to Los Angeles.  (Peachy also wins the "BEST FONT" award.)

Many of the inscriptions were in Spanish as their writers were participants in the Spanish settlement of New Mexico. Ramon Garcia Jurado wrote: "On the 25th of the month of June, of this year of 1709, Ramon Garcia Jurado passed through here on the way to Zuni."

Many inscriptions have religious connotations. R.H. Orton was sent to New Mexico in the early years of the Civil War to reinforce Federal troops expecting Confederate hostilities.

In 1868, the Union Pacific Railroad ran a survey through here, but the project was never carried out. Workers on the survey crew carved their names and messages, though the Santa Fe Railroad 25 miles north rerouted travelers and ended El Morro's place as a stopover on the route west.

And so it continued, over 2,000 inscriptions, all telling tales as passers-by sought to leave their mark!

Continuing past Inscription Rock, a strenuous hike on the Mesa Top Trail leads to the top of El Morro National Monument.

#cornerphotobomb

Made it!

  

What is difficult to convey in these photos is how ALONE we were. Gloriously, spectacularly, the only ones on the top of the mountain. Here is where we relaxed with a picnic lunch, high above the desert floor:

Now, for scale, see if you can find the brick wall on the right in the photo above, in the wide shot below! That's where we hung out, just me, Philip, Sprinkles, the sun and the breeze!

Besides our ham sandwiches, also to be found at the very top of El Morro is "Atsinna," the remains of a 700-year-old pueblo. Atsinna means "place of writings on the rock."

Occupied from around 1275 to 1400, the entire pueblo was at least 875 multi-storied, connected rooms that housed up to 1,500 people at its peak population.

We could get THAT CLOSE to the ruins! It was extraordinarily special, for humans AND dogs.

Only 18 of the 875+ rooms, plus a round and square kiva, plus numerous artifacts, were excavated in the 1950's.

Since then, the focus has shifted from excavation to preservation.

El Morro is a little-known, rarely-visited treasure not far over the Arizona/New Mexico border.

Even the Lucky Charm's accommodations have been naturally beautiful in this part of the country.

For example, the Cochiti Lake Campground ... can you spot Lucky Charm -- 3rd from left in the back row?

We have to "call" this contest ... God's Artwork wins! 

As we chugga-chugga-choo-choo our way back home ....

we've got one more National Park to visit: 

Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, in Northern Arizona!

This seven week adventure is rapidly drawing to a close.  Cue the tears!