Job available in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel

I just got back from another great trip to the Southwest. I went to the El Paso 'Tex-Mex' Hash weekend and had a great time. We went go-karting, hashing every day, and lots of game, partying, and drinking. The Mexico trail was fun with a good A-B trip hitting several bars. The A-Hole trail Sunday was a 20 miler (or so) that included a gondola ride to the top of one of the mountains.

After that weekend, I headed off for some hiking and went to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Carlsbad caverns National Park, White Sands National Monument, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, Ft. Bowie National Historic Site, and Chiricahua National Monument.

Mexico's greatest export: Their population

tried to visit the Chamizal National Monument on the border, however it seems that the visitor center is actually closed on Mondays, so unfortunately I missed out in getting my NPS stamp. I ended up just grabbing breakfast and finding an open access point to catch up on E-mail and web browsing before I had to get to the airport since I wouldn't have enough time to get back across the border even if I was interested in in going back to Mexico. Besides, I had something better I wanted to see waiting back in Tampa. This is going to be a great year I think.

If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck -- shoot it.

Last night I found a nice dead end road in a field where I could throw out my bivi and crawl into my sleeping bag. This was the first time I really used the bivi sack and with a slight drizzle in the early morning, it worked great! I headed off to Chiricahua National Monument just as they opened so that I could take the shuttle to the top. The previous day I cam by after hitting Ft. Bowie to look around and get some pictures, so this time I was able to leave my vehicle at the bottom near the visitor center and catch the ride up and hike back down. The walk itself was a little chilly at times with an occasional drizzle, but it was great to be able to do a downhill only hike without having to carry a big pack. I took the Big Loop trail which was about 9.5 miles from top to bottom plus a few side trails along the way to see particular formations. After finishing the hike I headed back to El Paso and stayed overnight with one of my hash friends from the Tex-Mex event.

Confucius Say: Man who jump off cliff jump to conclusion!

After leaving Las Cruces I had considered checking out the VLA (Very Large Array) however the distance was a bit too much just to look at some large radio receivers, so I headed on to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. It was a really long, curvy ride to get here and I had to even stop once to move a large rock that had fallen in the road so that another vehicle would not be damaged. I've already seen several cliff dwellings in Utah and colorado, so these were not too different, but it was nice to get in the area and experience them as well as check out the area National Forest.

After that I headed over to Fort Bowie National Monument for a little while. Not much remains of this once grand frontier fort other than some foundations and remnants of a few walls, however it was on the way to another nice national monument where I could do some more hiking the next day.

Out in a blaze, but not so much with glory.

When looking through Google Earth before the trip, I noticed a placemark in the town of Las Cruces that pointed out the burial site for Pat Garrett, the sheriff who reportedly shot Billy the Kid. Since it wasn't too far off my way, I decided to make a quick stop and take a few pictures. In doing a little research, I found out that Pat Garrett was killed outside of Las Cruces and that the site of his death was a secret in order to protect the monument left by family members. Apparently the area is now being turned into a housing development and some historians wanted to have the site protected, so the organization of Friends of Pat Garrett was formed. Not too far from the burial site was the Dona Ana County Historical Society and local small museum, so I stopped in to learn a bit more. Often people will go to large museums but skip the small local places that little towns or counties set up, however the traveler may be missing a lot by skipping these sites. There can be so much more history than one would realize; not just local history but also artifacts from all over the world that may have been brought back by local citizens.

The lady behind the desk wasn't familiar with the Pat Garrett site other than the family burial plot. There was an old gentlemen (probably in his 80s) just walking around the museum area that overheard the conversation and came over. He indicated that he had been out there once before, probably decades ago, and started talking about some of the area history. though it had been a long time since he visited the site, but I knew I was onto something. I grabbed my laptop from the truck and found a nearby wireless signal where I could preload the Garrett Memorial Marker website and Google Earth with the surrounding area before running back inside. Using the pictures from the site that showed the mountains, power lines, and old roads with the google Earth maps, he was able to narrow down the area. The clerk even called someone she knew and this guy happened to be a founder of the movement to protect the site. He didn't have GPS numbers, but he was able to give some great landmarks (such as parking near a high school) so that I could get started. It is exactly this kind of experience than enamors me to traveling; meeting the random kind stranger and sharing something. This was a guy that other than when serving his country in WWII had lived in this area all his life and seemed to be as excited sharing a portion of his world and his knowledge as I was in experiencing it and listening.

After finally finding the high school, I parked on a public read in a nearby subdivision and headed out. After about a mile of walking and triangulating, I was able to find the marker. There probably hasn't been more than a couple of dozen people that have been to this spot in the past few decades, so it was a neat and somewhat unique experience. The nearby highway has a marker that commemorates the general area where he was killed, but it is nowhere near the actual site. Yes, it was a lot of effort and hiking just to visit a site made of nothing more than some angle iron in a pile concrete, but I think it was well worth it since that kind of stuff interests me. I'm not going to post the GPS coordinates since I doubt many people would need them anyway but may share them if asked. It was a great side trip along my path of travel anyway. I had planned to go to the VLA (Very Large Array), but that would have involved a heck of a lot more driving and would have me arrive during the failing light so I wouldn't get much in the way of photographs, so I headed of into the sunset towards the Gila Cliff dwellings.

Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.

I parked just outside of White Sands overnight so that I could get in first thing in the morning. Even though it is winter, deserts can get hot, so I wanted to do the hiking before it got to late in the morning. Fortunately the park was open, often shut down during nearby missile tests, and there were few people around. I did one of the long hiking trails as well as hit many of the shorter interpretive trails as well. I love the views around and the beauty of the gypsum, especially in the light of dawn. After doing a bit of Tokyo-drifting around the parking areas by locking the rear brakes and sliding sideways (horray for rental cars with full insurance), I headed out to continue the journey. these are some of my favorite pictures outside of Yellowstone and Yosemite.

Road Amusement.

After leaving Carlsbad Cavern, I headed off towards White Sands NM. Just outside the caverns, I found a small abandoned (for the winter?) amusement park with go-kart track and miniature golf course. There is something that I just like about abandoned sites, so I couldn't help but stop to take a few pictures and look around.

On the road, I passed a couple of small towns. One had in its town square a monument to those that work the drilling platforms. I got out and took a few pics; even one with a sheepishly humored tone. I stopped by a few roadside cemeteries along the way to look at the old tombstones. Several times there were deer to be found along the road that I was able to capture on camera once or twice.

Although it was a long drive, it was fairly pleasant to go through a few small mountain towns and see the really rural areas. Several operated as ski resorts during some of the colder times and I even came across an old train trestle that had a nice setting around it just outside of Cloudcroft.I made a quick stop in Alamogordo at the Space Museum. Even though it was closed for the day, one could still walk around the grounds for a bit to see various historical artifacts, such as a V-2 rocket from WWII Germany, rocket sleds, and even the burial site for Ham, the first chimp that traveled into space. In the geek world, this town is also known as the Atari burial grounds; the site where millions of unsold copies of the E.T. game were buried. I drove to the actual site that had a placemark listing on Google Earth and it is pretty nondescript since everything is filled in and looks like natural landscape, however I was able to see dozens of rabbits scatter in the headlights. All in all, it was interesting enough and I was able to keep myself quite entertained.

Through caverns measureless to man; Down to a sunless sea.

While I would have liked to visit this park during the summer months to watch the thousands of bats as they leave the opening, winter can just be as nice since one is protected underground from the bitter cold above. After getting my NPS stamp for the park, I signed up for a couple of different guided cave tours as I figured I wouldn't be satisfied without doing at least something off the normal beaten path. The ranger leading the tour was quite knowledgeable and excited about the different aspects of the caves. Although the path we took was marked with tape, it was still more of a caving experience than simply walking down a concrete pathway. I really wished I had thought to bring the tripod on this trip, but packing last minute often has one forgetting a few things. I spent two days at the park here and slept in the car off the nearby main road.

The immense size of the place is amazing and hard to fathom. since there were relatively few people around, I just laid back in one of the amphitheaters and stared at the ceiling and listed to the sounds of near silence for a long while.


Yeah, it's pretty big.The natural entrance.
Bat encased by stalagmite.
I found this formation to be quite nice and alluring. Ahh, beauty in nature.


Even the bathrooms had formations.

Looking up through the Natural Entrance.