Crossing the Rio Grande
The title may indicate, that we were going to Mexico, but we were not. This trip would later prove to be the longest on the vaccation with it's 563 miles from Tucson, Arizona to Carlsbad, New Mexico, with a small detour along the way. We left Tucson already at eight, and headed east. The first 260 miles to the New Mexican border and beyond were uneventful driving on Interstate 10. A couple of breaks to change driver and to have a cup of coffee, but nothing else.
In
La Cruces, New Mexico we left the interstate and headed northeast on U.S. Route
70. In Las Cruces we crossed the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo as it is known south
of the Mexican border. Right after the crossing we made a stop to enjoy the view
of the river and some swallows, cathing insects over the water. We also managed to
take some pictures, before continuing through town and further on along Route
70.
Shortly after leaving town we entered the White Sands Missile Range area. Route 70 passes through the area, that is otherwise closed to the public. The area is one of the largest military areas in USA, and in the northern part, about 60 miles north of the town of Alamagordo, is the Trinity Site, the site of the fist nuclear bomb, brought to explotion in July 1945. The Ground Zero monument is only open to the public on the last Saturday of April each year. But before we got to Alamagordo, we visited a more peaceful place, namely the White Sands National Monument. The monument is a large area of gypsum dunes. The gypsum is much whiter than ordinary sand, hence the name. We paid the entrance fee, and drove from the entrance, the 8 miles to the central dune area. Along the way you pass smaller dunes. In the central dune area a loop is taking you around the dunes with several places to stop, and so we did, and even climbed some of the dunes.
After the visit, we continued on Route through Alamgordo. A few miles north of town, we changed to U.S. 82, and headed east through Sacramento Mountains, a rather smal mountain range, that peaks at almost 10.000 feet. On the way up to the mountains we passed through the only road tunnel in New Mexico. The road didn't exceed 8.700 feet in elev ation though, but came close near Cloudcroft, which has one of the highest elevations of any town in USA (8,668 feet). Driving through the mountains we were hit by the first serious rain on this years trip. A heavy thunderstorm hit us, so it was actually rather difficult to see further than out own hood. We drove very carefully, which of course delayed us a bit. While the storm lasted, the temperature dropped from around 90 to 50, so it was cold as well as rainy. When we were through the mountains the rain stopped, and the temperature went up again to 95. We were now driving on the eastern plains of New Mexico where we were rather lonesome. We could count the number of cars we met on one hand, and they were all heading in the opposite direction. In the small town of Artesia, we made a coffeee break, and then turned south to Carlsbad.
In
Carlsbad we had planned to visit Living Desert Garden and Zoo, but the visit to
White Sands NM and the rain had delayed us, so it was closed when we got there.
In stead we continued through town and found another Day's Inn in the southern part
of town. Normally Day's Inn are rather cheap hotels - in Tucson we had paid
around $ 70 plus taxes per night, but here the price was more than $ 200. Later
we discovered that most hotels in town were sold out, and the prices were around
the same or higher elsewhere, but we never discovered why. After carrying out
bags to the room, and relaxing for about 30 minutes, we left again to go to
Carlsbad Caverns National Park to watch the Bat Flight, the sight of the several
hundred thousands of Mexican free-talied bats leaving the cavern.
As we got closer, it got darker as another thunderstorm was approaching from the southeast. It didn't start raining though, so we parked our car at the Viksitor Center parling lot and walked down to the bat flight amphitheater. A ranger warned us about the thunderstorm, and said, that if it broke loose, we had to evacuate, not only the theater but the whole mountain. Then we wered warned to shut off all cameras and eletronic devices like phones and tablets in order to not disturb the bat's navigational systems. She also told us that for the last two weeks, the bats hadn't been very co-operative, mayby due to the weather. On her last watch a week ago only three bats had left the cave while it was still light enough to see them. Around 8.20 the first bats began to leave the cavern, but at that time it was already rather dark - mostly because of the approaching storm. After a while more bats left the cave, but in rather small groups, not the steady flow of 3-400,000 bats that I had seen in 2012. As it got darker and darker, making it difficult to see anything, not least four inch long bats, we decided to call it a night and return to town. On the way back the storm broke loose, and we were actually glad that we were not on the mouintaintop.
Back in town we continued past the hotel, in order to find a place to eat, but as it was now 10.15 pm the only place that was still open was a Denny's. The day before we had decided not to eat at a Denny's again anytime soon, but that is how things goes. It happened to be the last time, we ate on Denny's on this trip though. This may sound as if we don't like Denny's but that is not so. We only thought that three meals on the same restaurant in a row was making it a bit monotonous, and now it had become four times in a row. When we had finished our dinner, the rain had stopped, and we returned to the hotel, and went to bed. We had another long drive ahead of us the next day.