Heading out of Arizona and into New Mexico:
We have enjoyed our couple of days in Tucson and are eagerly heading east to New Mexico. It is the end of our second week on the road and we have been really having a fantastic time. Our stop early this afternoon was in the infamous Tombstone. The streets, buildings and many of the people looked like it could have just been cut out of a picture of the 1850’s. We walked the “Boys” through town, getting several “what is he” - questions” about our Nigel. We then decided to take a narrated stage coach ride (a real old Butterfield Stage Coach) they said we could take the dogs on it for free. We were able to get Guinness up and in, but Nigel was having nothing to do with this idea, so he stayed with woman who sold us the tickets. It was a fun ride through history, seeing the old homes that were opium dens and brothels. Of course there was the Bird Cage Theater, the Cosmopolitan Hotel and the site of the Wyatt Erp shoot-out. We then boogied down the road and stopped at the THING – a funky/touristy place that advertises for at least 100 miles in either direction. We paid our $1. and saw “it “---- hmmmm what silliness.
Lordsburg, New Mexico was our stop for the evening. We got a good start on Friday morning and headed off in a bit of different direction. Mike looked at the map and the itinerary and decided that we should veer a bit north and go see White Sands National Monument. It was truly beautiful. If you didn’t know that the outside temperature was in the low 80’s you would swear it was snow. These are the largest gypsum sand dune fields in the world covering 275 square miles of the Tularosa Basin in the Chihuahuan Desert. Quite a sight to see, we spent the afternoon walking amongst the dunes and went on a ranger led sunset hike across the dunes. That night we stayed in Alamogordo, our first experience as guests at an Elks Lodge.
Mike’s 63rd birthday is today and we had Carlsbad N.M. in our sights. We enjoyed this drive as it took us over the 8650’ summit of the Sacramento Mountains. The little town of Cloudcroft up on top had a bit of snow and even a small ski and snow play area (not open at this point) – beautiful terrain with evergreens, pines and very mountainous looking vegetation; a nice change from the ever present desert that we have looked at these last weeks. We quickly descended back into the arid landscape and made it to the caverns by late afternoon. We bought tickets for Sunday’s guided tour. Birthday dinner was at the Carlsbad Elks’ quite an up-scale lodge, we enjoyed a very good steak dinner to celebrate the old guy’s day.
Guess what? It is Spring Break for many kids in New Mexico – wow it was crowded. We did enjoy our tour of the “King’s Palace” about a 1 ½ hour tour down some 825 feet under the surface with the typical stalactites, stalagmites, flow stone, etc. We love going through caves. The bad part was the 2 hour wait to catch the elevator out of the caverns – 2 of the elevators were down for repairs; the line was very long. Wish my knees were a bit stronger was tempted to hike it out, but didn’t think I could make it. Damn sometimes it is a pain getting older!!
Tomorrow we will head back up to caverns early to take one more hike and then get on the road to Texas.