White Sands National Monument

White Sands is the site of the largest pure gypsum dunes in the world. There's not much there, beyond this 1930s vintage visitor center.

On top of the sands, looking west towards the San Andres Mountains. Albert Fountain and his son Henry (see Oliver Lee/Dog Canyon post) were murdered near here. Their bodies were never recovered. Some believe they are still hidden nearby in the San Andres.

This stuff looks like snow!

We did find an occasional sign of life.

These hummocks remain after the dune passes on.

A specialized cottonwood lives in the dunes. The buds on this one are just starting to open. As long as some of the cottonwood's branches and leaves are above the dune surface, it manages to live until the dune passes.

These soap tree yucca may look short, but they're probably about twenty feet taller than what you see. When the dune passes they'll collapse and die.

Three Rivers Petroglyphs

Three Rivers Petroglyphs are found north of Tularosa. I didn't find the three rivers, but we did find quite a few of the 20,000 petroglyphs. These are believed to have been carved by the Jornada Mogollon people.

Dog Canyon - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park

When we left Carlsbad we headed to Alamogordo. Here, we setup our base camp at Oliver Lee State Park.
Oliver Lee turned out to be one colorful character at least, and perhaps, at most, a killer. He ranched around here after the civil war. As a democrat, it would appear he favored the South.

Oliver Lee ranched at the mouth of Dog Canyon on the west side of the Sacremento Mountains.

Dog Canyon has a reliable year round water supply. It's a beautiful hike up the canyon.

This is Lee's Ranch house. The adobe walls are two feet thick, providing great comfort in the extremes of summer heat or winter cold.

Another fellow tried to set up a ranch at the mouth of the canyon. They called him Frenchy. His adobe house is in ruin. For a while Frenchy and Lee got along. Ultimately, they fought, until, finally one year, Frenchy was shot dead on the day after Christmas. No one was ever tried for his murder. Lee got his ranch.

Lee was implicated in the murder of other men, most famously an attorney and his 9 year old son, Albert and Henry Fountain. He was tried for Henry's murder and found not guilty...

And then, there's our little camp at the mouth of the canyon. On the vernal equinox we attended a star gazing party at a group pavilion a few hundred yards away. The presenting Ranger discussed the use of planets, sun, moon and stars by different cultures over time. When the sky darkened, we observed planets, galaxies, nebula and star clusters through several different telescopes. We also saw, for the first time, the Zodiacal Glow, on the ecliptic well after sun down.

Carlsbad - the cave

Since we'd visited Karchner Cavern's outside Benson Arizona, we felt obligated to visit Carlsbad's Cavern, too. While the city of Carlsbad doesn't have much natural beauty, the canyon leading in Carlsbad Cavern National Park is a beautiful example of Chihuahuan desert. We decided to descend into the cave using the traditional entrance instead of the elevator. The entrance is huge. We walked down about 750 feet in elevation over the course of a mile.
This cave is huge! Although there is enough light to see on the path down, a small flash light to highlight certain features would come in handy.


Looking back towards the surface, I had the feeling that we were inside looking out from within the eye of the earth.

The 1 mile route into the cave ends where it joins the trail into the big room. Not too far from the junction is where the elevators are. The area includes a snack bar, gift shop and restrooms. Don't believe the bill boards that say you can eat a good meal 750 feet below the surface - they've stopped cooking down there and only offer snacks. Although visited during a fairly slow period, the crowd was large enough to give the cave a Disneyland feel. We toured the Big Room next.


The Big Room is huge, probably the largest known room of this kind in the world. It is awe inspiring, though the people crowding up on us from behind whenever we stopped to look at a feature did detract from my enjoymentIt seems that most of the cave is dry, meaning that it's not actively building formations, though we did see the occasional pool, such as the one shown here.




I think this formation is called the Mouth of the Whale

This pair of stalagmites and stalactites are reaching towards each other. Perhaps one day, if conditions improve, they'll join to form a column.

And that's all from Carlsbad!

Carlsbad - above ground

We camped north of Carlsbad at Brantley Lake State Park. The lake is actually a reservoir on the Pecos River. It's mighty flat out there. Dark, too, except for the occasional fellow camper that leaves their porch light on overnight (this isn't Motel 6!) or the drilling rigs on the horizon, all lit up with bright white lights dusk till dawn. It's a great place to see the sun rise over the horizon. These black specks in the picture are pelicans taking off from the lake on their dawn flight.

There's more to Carlsbad than the cave, which actually is located a fair drive south of town. We visited their desert nature center and enjoyed the botanical gardens and some of their zoo, too. This butterfly and all the bees in the neighborhood mobbed this blooming Texas Mountain Laurel. When the laurel bloom, bright purple, you can see and smell them from quite a ways off. Turns out this plant is known in New Mexico as the Mescal Bean. It produces beans in pods that are poisonous or hallucinogenic, depending on preparation and dosage. Indians used them in about the same way as peyote.

Having not yet seen a Rio Grand Turkey in the wild, I was tickled to see this one up close.

Joanie found a huge, Texas sized bat in the cave exhibit.

And the reptile exhibit housed the obligatory variety of rattlesnakes, including two albinos.

Blooming Cactus at the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute

Just outside Fort Davis, we paid a visit to the Chihuahuan Desert Resert Institute. Great place. Out back of their botanical garden, they maintain a greenhouse chock full of cactus. When we visited it contained the highest concentration of blooming cactus we've seen. Here are a few of the shots.

Fort Davis, Texas

When we left Big Bend we headed north to Fort Davis, Texas. This fort dates to the days of the Apache wars in the 1860s - 1890s.

The county is named after the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Of course, they shortened it a bit and just called it Jeff Davis County.

In town, we came across Buzz and his rattlesnake pit - he's got more types of rattlesnakes in one place than we've seen before (thank god!).

Really enjoyed our visit to McDonald observatory. Here Joanie stands next to an modern version of the ancient sun dial.

Javelina moved through our camp after dark. Supposedly they're not closely related to pigs, but you couldn't tell that by just looking at them.

We've decided to downsize again. First we sold the house and bought the 5th wheel. Now we're gonna trade the 5th wheel out and get this little gem of a rolling bedroom. Well, maybe not!

Another strange Big Bend Town - Marfa

I am somewhat at a loss for words when it comes to describing Marfa.

The courthouse dominates the entrance to the town.

The Paisano Hotel is upscale. When we walked in I thought that we'd been teleported to Aspen, the prices were off the chart. Shops were empty, though. This is the area where they shot James Dean's last movie, Giant.

Moo. The Paisano has cattle hanging on the walls.

Across the street from the Paisano, I spotted an old 1950's style Porche convertible parked halfway into the entrance to a building. We walked inside. It's an old garage converted into an art gallery. One of the original car lifts lays there, retracted into the concrete floor. We talked a bit with the artist, who told us to walk into the back room, "there's more there". In the back were two more Porches and more than one dozen portraits of Abraham Lincoln hangin' on the walls. Spooky. Really.