Space Cadets in hot water in New Mexico

We were very glad to depart Arizona. Since we had missed a trip to Mexico we opted for New Mexico. During our stay in Las Cruces, we had become interested in the space related activities centered around Alamogordo. In any case even Rv parks in New Mexico were breathtaking. A few days in Alamogordo, then North to explore Santa Fe and Taos before heading home was our plan.

Alamogordo houses the New Mexico Space History Museum. It is appropriately perched above the city, beside the university, in the shelter of towering sandstone cliffs. In this dramatic setting are a selection of rockets, missiles, satellites and the remnants of an exploded bomb. 

That's a pair of nose cones 

They are huge. They dwarf an individual and they were not created by any individual. The museum is international. The clear theme is the cooperative nature of science and space exploration. Along the hallways are pictures and information about members of the space hall of fame. It begins with  Hipparchus from 190 BC  who calculated the distance between the earth and moon, through Eugene Krantz, who was mission control on many Apollo flights. It made me think of Issac Newton 's comment about standing on the shoulders of giants. Newton is, of course, in the Hall of Fame. There is also a dome Imax theater, we made plans to return the next day for the Imax.

Francis happily watched larger than life planes race over and around his head. The parralax of the theater sent me into the hall, to a more conventional screening of the latest Nasa Mars Rover discoveries.

Welcoming and socially aware folks at Can't Stop Smoking

After enlightenment and celestial exploration, we returned to earth and discovered we were hungry. We went in search of divine smoke bar b que. We found it at a local spot called can't stop smoking. They not only had good food but also good works. They asked you to drop wooden nickels into cups identifying local charities. They made contributions to all in proportion to the customer votes. Nice concept.

Alamogordo is the site of White Sands National Park. A unique beach of gypsum dunes has formed along the normal desert.

In the middle of the high desert, there were families on a Saturday outing for sand sledding on the dunes while in the distance the wind spun up dust devils,  like towers of smoke,  in the fine white powder. We drove through the dunes with an errie sensation of displacement, were we at the beach or in the mountains? 

White Sands Missile Base is just across the highway. Closed to the public. While the formerly secret Los Alamos research base is a short drive away at a higher elevation. The Hollis Bradbury Museum explains both historical secret Atom bomb studies and the open current research. Hmm? Are all the Los Alamos programs really public?

    

While in Alamogordo we stayed at an RV park owned by a retired White Sands Missile Base Engineer. He was native to our neck of the woods in Pennsylvania and had done his best to recreate that environment in the New Mexico desert. He had a windmill pumping water for a pond surrounded by fruit and nut trees. It was an RV oasis complete with migrating ducks and a school of koi.

Alamogordo has the ancient as well as the modern. Near to town are 100s of petroglyths 10,000 years old. Scattered among the desert boulders it is hard to imagine that this was once a thriving farming area. Not 1,000s of years either, just a hundred years ago an unusually damp period tricked many immigrants into farming nearby. When their creeks dyed up they turned to livestock ranching. The Federal government took their land by eminent domain to build the missile range and Los Alamo.

From Alamogordo we went on to Santa Fe, where the emphasis was American History. The New Mexico Museum of History clarified facets of Westward expansion and settlement, while the Indian museums told the same story from a different perspective. Altogether, manifest destiny - - an excuse to invade a neighboring country and steal land from the residents, forget treaties, just a big land grab.

Not a wonderful phase in our history. The hand crafts in the Museum of Indian Art were wonderful. Traditional pottery and weaving, later silverwork and turquiose work and recent sculpture and paintings. A large painting in the Wheelwright Museum gave a different perspective, Buddha, Jesus, Yaweh and Shiva are playing cards but Coyote is the dealer and we all know the house always wins in the end

When we said we were going on to Taos, Johnathon told us about a hot springs nearby. A little research uncovered that their was an on site campground. Ojo Caliente is in the middle of nowhere, about 30 miles due west of Taos. The mapping software kept showing roundabout  routes looping out of the way north or south, but some maps indicated a direct shot.

At Ojo Caliente we found a beautiful rustic luxury resort featuring four different mineral springs in seven natural hot pools. Rooms started at $150 a night up to $400 for a private adobe. The cost for our RV hookup in a wooded glen was $60 for four nights was $60, more my price range. We decided to explore Taos and the mountains before taking the waters. Francis also wanted to find a hand woven rug.

The grounds at Ojo were as nice as the hot springs. You could hike by the Bosque River or hold events in a Round Barn with labyrinth.

Off into the mountains, we went encountering extraordinary geology and erosion. The terrain is in layers of basalt, sandstone, limestone and clay. The wind picks up sand and grinds the softer stone away leaving bizarre out-crops of the harder tuff. Cliffs stick straight up with horizontal cap rocks. Domed outcroppings are accompanied by strange lumpen pillars. Formations have names like turtle rock and camel hill. Throughout the landscape the hard volcanic basalt surface layer has fallen away in pieces as the softer sub-layer eroded. The black basalt tumbles like giant  children's blocks down the hillsides, piling into the ravines and arroyos.

Deciding to follow the little line on the paper map, unacknowledged by our gps,  we drove past abandoned adobe houses and through a strange little ghost town called Carson and found the Rio Grande River!

The West Rim Bridge had been called the bridge to nowhere as there was no road connecting it to Taos! Signs proudly promoted a recently completed 2 billion dollar roadway project. I walked across the bridge looking down to the Rio Grande about 5000 feet below. Perhaps not as wide and dramatic as the Grand Canyon but still pretty dramatic

Still gasping from the unexpected drama we drove on to Taos. The odometer turned 5000 mile in Taos, . time for the first checkup and oil change. We dropped by the local dealership and they agreed to do the work, while were toured downtown. Off we went for another dose of hubris, manifest destiny and native crafts

Returning to Ojo Caliente we took the Southwest loop route. As we left town a sign indicated a road to Carson. The sun was close to setting and a straighter route could get us back before dark. Off we drove wish fingers crossed, through an adobe and trailer village into a national park. The road followed alongside the Rio Grande River. After seeing the river from the bridge 5000 feet above, it was thrilling to view the water up close rushing and tumbling over boulders and to look up the cliffs to the mesa so far above. At one point there was a USGS observation shack and we could walk out just above the cascades to gaze down the winding river. As we drove along stopping to examine the cliff side and collect rocks we began to wonder where would we cross the river?

Nice road?

Carson was on the top of the mesa across the Rio Grande. Finally there was low bridge across the river, a dirt road led around a hill toward the mesa. And up and up and up, the gravel track climbed at about 30 degree. Our wheels skidded and spun until we went into four wheel drive, then we bounced up the rutted wash. With a single lane-width, minimal shoulder and  no railing, we hoped there were no wash outs, there would be no way to turn around. A van marked "Adventure Charters" came down the track, narrowly passing by us. I was glad we were on the inside! A passenger's wide eyes met mine as the van went by. Several more white knuckled miles and we emerged onto the top of the mesa. 

In the distance I could see the West Rim Bridge and breathed more freely. We took a break to look at a park map which described the route along which we had just traveled  Definitely an off road adventure for us.

While we were staying at Ojo Caliente record low temperatures were set. The coldest since 1917. It was hot water in the springs but frozen hoses in the RV.  The next day we went to the hot springs to warm up. In the water we were warm but every puff of air was painful.  The air temperature made the thermal pools even more impressive. There are iron rich waters, arsenic laden waters and soda  water. The lithic spring was closed as they were rebuilding the pump and pool. Around the pools there were open fires of pinon pine, the fragrant smoke mixing with the mineral mist created an unique incense which spread throughout the complex. There was also a steam room, a sauna, an Ayurvedic spa and in addition,  a restaurant, a yoga yurt, a interesting round barn for events and the ubiquitous gift shop. In the lobby soothing new age music played while  another pinon fire was kept burning in the round kiva fireplace.  One evening I sat in the lobby and knitted until they closed, it was such a pleasant atmosphere. We will definitely return to Ojo Caliente - - when the weather is warmer.

Taos and Ojo Caliente was the official end of the trip from our perspective. We would have seven states to travel through, there would be events along the way with a stopover planned in Memphis, TN